bob wrote:Rolf wrote:Just to tell you a few novelties. In Israel someone sat in prison because he had reveiled details of the Israelian Atomic Weapons Program. But you insist it's rambling if I warn you to participate in such talking about why and how Vas had veiled the output of his KN count? And you insist that you cant simply imagine why I would see problems with such a participation?bob wrote: Again, I have no idea what you are rambling on about here. I certainly don't follow any possible point about "I earn my money because I have a job at a university". I do not see how where my job is has anything to do with this. If I worked for IBM, or even Bell South which I worked for in 1970, how would it make any difference whatsoever?
Next, where have I tried to "destroy" anything? Someone asked a question about why the numbers were "doctored". I gave a simple and direct answer to that question. Nothing more, nothing less. Answering a question with an answer than has already been posted _many_ times previously is not a method of destruction. It is a method of dessimination for information that someone requested.
This business of discovering the "tricks" or "features" of others is common. In science. In manufacturing. In designing. In archtecture. In you-name-it. Why would someone want to continue to reinvent the wheel when it is not necessary. The hard work is going beyond the known. Absolutely nothing immoral about this. Other commercial programs came up with new ideas. I think Shredder was the first to use what are currently called "reductions". And the idea then leaked out. It will happen with Rybka, sooner or later, then everybody will use that feature and then someone will come up with something new and the cycle starts over.
And it is perfectly normal and healthy to have things work like that.
As for the "assisting" I don't do that, because I don't run windows applications in any form, and don't buy commercial chess programs either since I have one I can use whenever I want. So I don't know what that is all about either...
So, I want to ask you if you would also participate if someone from East Asia asked you - set the case that you knew something about the possibilities to fake originals with computer program aid - how this and that in the material of the original must be interpreted so that the cheating program could reveil the details to then being able to copy the original into the fake, then you would be pleased to explain that and so to answer the interesting and by far not criminal question?
You are making one giant leap for Rolf, one bit of nonsense for mankind. Let's back up. Someone asked the simple question "what would be the reason for masking search depth, node count, nps, etc?" They didn't ask for help in discovering what Vas is doing, although I would have made suggestions if asked. They simply asked "why would anyone do this?" And I answered the question directly, and factually. Nothing more, nothing less. If someone were to ask me "Why would someone want to spoof someone else's IP address?" I would answer that in the same way, because the reasons are well-known to people savvy in networking. Has nothing to do with trying to help write code to actually do the spoofing, etc. So I do not see where you are trying to go with this, other than to just create endless discussion.
You can keep saying that all you want, but it doesn't make it true. I have not "used my knowledge as an academic to harm the commercial basis of another..." Again, the fact that he did this is indisputable. It was discovered and made public by others, not me, as I have never had a copy of the program. But I _am_ qualified to answer the "why" question, because I understand what goes on inside the programs quite well, and I understand how displayed information can reveal details about the internal operation of the program.
You can insult me with what you prefer verbally, but you wont extinct the moral of my question how you as academic used your knowledge to harm the commercial basis of another computerchess guy, actually the best one around.
I have given the reasons I don't attend WCCCs of recent years. I attended several back in the days when they were 3 day events. Now they are two week events. Always held a long and expensive trip away from the US. The cost is too high both in terms of travel/room/food expenses, as well as the cost in terms of time.
Bob, why are you so scrupulous to not engage another teacher for your classes during World Championships because you say you are academic in the first place - - and then you have absolutely no problem to forget the academic morals of science and you engage yourself in the forum activity to reveil the hidden secrets of a commercial programmer? How does this fit together without too many headaches?
Secondly, why don't you show me _exactly_ "one hidden secret of a commercial programmer that I have revealed..." Then I can answer that question. Because to date I have revealed _nothing_.
I feel neither moral nor immoral, because it was not a moral issue. It was a technical question, which received a technical answer. Morals play no issue there. If he had asked "what is 2+2?" would "4" have been immoral?
Do you really feel morally justified if you talk with a guy like Burcham who insulted Vas as a cheater of his paying customers? Couldnt you at least demonstrate why the indication of nodes count is a cheat if based upon the program itself the output doesnt intentionally scramble the meaning? So if the logical rules are considered and well applied, where is the cheat if the output is appearing different to the competitors? To clarify that would be an honorable task for an academic teacher. But not explaining how to reveil the secrets of a program.
What I said, simply stated, was this: "I don't consider it reasonable behavior to participate, ask questions, and learn from the experience of others, and then when you stumble across a new idea that works out, close the channel of communication and then become a commercial author." It is not that bad a deal, but it is something that just doesn't strike _me_ as acceptable. It is a personal opinion, but since it is _my_ opinion, it is the one that counts for me. If it doesn't matter beans for you, I don't have a problem with that.
I have a little addition because I showed the debate to experts here in Germany. Question came how someone could be defamated because he went commercial with his program IF there were no rules integrated long before that would forbid the commercial exploitation of certain computerchess programming tricks or routines? Could you answer that? Why is Vas looking strange to you - sorry, my vocabulary is restricted in a foreigner speech, so dont accuse me that strange isnt the correct term, take whatever you prefer instead - if he took knowledge that was openly discussed here and refuses now to reveil all his new details of his program? What is wrong with what he does? What is it what makes you think or feel, that this isnt quite kosher?
The point is this: I (and others) have a huge amount of experience, and we can answer questions in minutes that might take months for someone else to discover the answer. How, probably because we have _already_ taken months to find that answer for ourselves. It makes perfect sense to share that information, which speeds up progress in computer chess significantly since everybody is not continually re-inventing the same wheel over and over. So "our" experience saves "them" a lot of time and greatly accelerates their improvement rate. And then they find something very good, that took time to find, and they take it and run. And leave the rest of us to re-invent the wheel for ourselves.
Sound fair?
The fairest solution is for everyone to "clam up". And computer chess progress today would be where we were 10 years ago had that happened. fortunately, most (most but certainly not ALL) prefer the all-for-one-one-for-all approach to drive progress forward at a more rapid pace.
Is that so very difficult to understand? Apparently.
Here is a slightly different variation. You give me your opinion:
Several years ago Vincent wanted to develop a parallel search. He read my dissertation. He sent me literally hundreds of emails asking questions about this and that. I still have 'em all in fact. I responded to each as best I could. I let him run on my machines. I let him use my office quad (one of the fastest around at the time) in some tournament over in Europe. Etc. If you look thru the CCC archive you can find a post by him where he claimed to have found a bug in Crafty's search, but he wasn't going to reveal it because he didn't want to see a stronger crafty at a WCCC event. Obviously not the moral high-road, but that's water under the bridge.
But if you agree that the latter example was a bit much, then you would also be agreeing (by proxy) that the former case is also a bit much. Because except for technical details, the overall behavior is very similar. take but don't give back...
That's my issue, and my _only_ issue. I made enjoyable friendships with Slate, Thompson, and Hsu, even though all had stronger programs than I did when the friendships began. I never beat deep thought/deep blue, and _still_ consider Hsu a friend. I eventually did beat slate and Ken, and we are _still_ friends. So it is not about who has the best program, it is more about fairness. And most know that Hsu, and Thompson, and Slate, made evrything they did public. As have I and many others...
Thanks for this extended message which I couldnt have expected but since it's not the first time when you took my questions to give a deeper historical review, I can well admit that this is mainly the reason why I like so much to ask you questions. Because besides Vas you are the only one I know who doesnt look after references (in that case I wouldnt be allowed to ask a single question at all) and who knows that in a sort of interdisciplinary discourse it might well be that trhe questions of a complete outsider could make you think about a relevant topic.
From my side it's time to stop it now because I have all my ideas answered. Not to my full expectation but I could understand that you can live with a sane conscience in all that.
I must admit that the Vincent story is ugly. Very ugly. It's quite easily to define as thanklessness because he must have known how much heart blood you had put into that project.
What could excuse Vincent is that he simply couldnt improve his own thing, or if yes it wasnt too much ahead of Crafty. So, since he's also a honest guy he was perhaps serious with his refusal because he saw Crafty as his rival. On the other hand he lost out of sight what you had given to him.
Last time I looked Vince played and won a game in the Dutch team championship against another 2300+ player.
But to contrast that with my perspective on Vas, although it must remain theory because I dont know him in personal, I want to mention how I was impressed by his public presentation in those rare cases when he lost. Here he reminded me of Kramnik in tournaments. He can live with a loss or a draw. Vas saw Junior win in Torino and Zappa in the match in Mexico. He didnt run around in hystery and claimed that he for sure were the truely better player. No. He just went back to work on Rybka 3.
What a difference to the guys who worked for IBM. Who I repeat it cheated Kasparov to get a win that wasnt justified because atr that time Kasparov wasnt the weaker player to Deep Blue. They hid the games. Thatey didnt have games at all. All what they did was that GM Benjamin prepared a coupüle of openings for the opponent Kasparov. What a hell of propaganda could we read about the many parallel processors. Today Rybka on a single processor is more dangerous for human GM. Does Larry Kaufman need to cheat on GM Roman to win? Did he hide the whole thing to get better position in the match? Not that I heard of. Isnt this a difference? Or this: did Vas for a single time claim that Rybka were a better chessplayer than the top GM? Did he deny that Rybka still had terrible endgame weakneses? In short coulnt you like him a bit more now?
Come on Bob!
Sometimes I think that this is all a dream. In real Vas cooperates with some of your of your friends, so that I want to use the great chance, to say what I would want to see, that some of the tricks of Rybka in truth came out of the kitchen of someone down there in sweet home Alabama... <cough>
