Rybka 1.0 vs. Strelka

[Zach Wegner]

Has Vas responded in any way about this? How can one find points in his favor if there is nothing but a deafening silence from his side of the table???

No, he hasn't... There's no definite conclusion to draw. Some see his silence as being mature and above the "trivialities" of it all, when for others there are a multitude of possible reasons for his silence.

A thread was started earlier today in the Rybka forum about this issue, specifically about the first post in this thread: http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforu ... l?tid=6644

It's rather strange the reactions that some people give. Someone presents evidence that Rybka 1.0 could be derived from Fruit. Someone posts in the Rybka forum that they hope that nobody can do the same with Rybka 3...

Perhaps the thread will get Vas' attention, and maybe he'll read this thread here. Maybe he will make a statement... then it gets interesting.

[Rolf]

You are assuming too much. For example, would you file suit against someone that was making a claim that hurt you, if you_knew_ that the claim was true? Because to file the suit, you have to make a sworn statement that the claim is false in order to seek damages. And if the claim is later proven true, you just committed perjury and are now looking at prison time rather than seeking financial redress from someone else. The sword of justice cuts both ways so caution is required.

I could cut out the other stuff because this here already shows your bias. You simply argue always from the position that Vas has done something wrong. I already wrote a message to write my astonishment how experts could be biased. If you at least would find arguments in favor of Vas, just out of principle. Or also in case you knew how something might have no legal relevance.

Has Vas responded in any way about this? How can one find points in his favor if there is nothing but a deafening silence from his side of the table???

I think he can rely on a purely psychological standpoint for the moment. When did you talk to a commercial programmer collegue during the last 50 years? Now that's going too far. You are looking upon everything like the guy with a hammer. Everything looks to him like a nail while hidden nails frighten him. A commercial programmer cannot discuss what he does, Bob, he lets his program speak. He's in chess what you are on ICC in Bullet. Simply the best!

[tiger]

Zach is showing code snippets where Rybka 1.0 is actually more similar to Fruit than Strelka 2.0.

A few days ago there was some vocal opposition to the idea that Rybka 1.0 coud be a derived work of Fruit 2.1.

Where is the opposition now?

There are several skilled people ready to explain why many programmers think (without daring to tell it) that Rybka started its life as Fruit 2.1.

The evidence is now being shown factually. Feel free to contradict it factually.



// Christophe

There is a second possibility that rybka started her life with part of fruit but never had the full source.

I know that movei started its life with part of tscp structures and names of variables and constants (but no chess working code)

Uri

Unfortunately that is enough to settle this immediately. "part of fruit" is unacceptable since _all_ of fruit is GPL'ed. This issue is black or white, with no grey at all.

BTW, in some cases development is obvious. You can go back to reg.games.chess.computer circa 1994 november or so, and find posts by me where I was working on a _new_ program (now called Crafty). I started with the move generator and published the source there and got lots of feedback. You can also find discussions about search and evaluation as they were written, not copied. So starting with someone else's code is not a normal development course.

I do not know what is the normal course.

I know some programs that started with the full tscp code like trace
and I am not sure if most chess programs started without code from other programs.

In my case
I started with legal move generator but I used some constants and variables from tscp and also some names of functions.

My move generator never used mailbox that is part of tscp and used some structures of me that are not part of tscp so it is clearly different than tscp move generator.

Uri

Is TSCP protected by the GPL?

It looks like you have acted without even looking at the licence your model has been published under. Read the licence and so you will know if you have infringed on it or not.

If you have, maybe it's not too late to apologize in good faith and to clean your work. That is a more honorable behaviour that the mutism we see from another person.

I see that most of your posts seem tainted by the fear that you have yourself done something wrong. What is legal and what is not is already well defined and will not change because you defend here.

So just clean your stuff first.



// Christophe

I simply responded to Bob hyatt.
Tscp is not protected by the GPL

I think that what is legal and what is not legal is not well defined.

What is derivative work?
If you have one line that you copied then I do not think that you can call it derivative work and you can have one common line also without copying.

What is the minimal number of lines that you copy that your program is defined to be derivative?

Things are not clear.

Uri

The GPL licence is clear:

From section 0: ...a "work based on the Program" means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law: that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it, either verbatim or with modifications...

So there is no minimal number of lines required to start to infringe on the GPL. It starts at one line, or in the case of programs presented on one line (there are such programs), it starts at a few characters.

What's left to be proven is that some part of a source code that is supposed to infringe on the GPL has indeed been taken from a GPL source code and is not an original creation.

This is going to be left at the appreciation of software experts. So if all you have copied is "i++;" I guess you are safe. If you have copied a one hundred lines routine, I think you are not, because the experts are likely to rule that there is no chance that you have come up with exactly the same 100 lines of code by pure luck.

Remember, it does not matter if the routine you have copied is of vital importance in your program or if it is not. It does not even matter if the routines you have copied come from a program that has absolutely nothing to do with yours. For example, you are not allowed to use a routine from a financial program even if you are going to use it in a chess program.

The spirit of the GPL is that some guy gives away his work by generosity. What he asks you in exchange is to do the same if you take all or even just a part of his work to include it in your creations. So if your intention is to keep your work closed, then the least you can do is to respect the will of the guy and not copy ANY part of his work. Hence the relative intolerance against such re-use, even for what you call "unimportant" parts.

It is also the reason why there is no minimal number of identical lines you would be allowed to use. You are not allowed to use this work at all if you do not want to accept the rules of the game, so if there is evidence of re-use of code, as small as it is, you are caught.

It's up to you to decide if you could be caught or not with your current code, knowing the original programs you may have copied in part.

Now if you want to be safe, make at least sure that you do not have 800 identical lines of code that some program protected by the GPL.

It has been shown that at least 800 lines of Strelka 2.0 are identical to lines of Fruit 2.1. Ask an expert what he thinks about it. I don't think the answer will be unclear.



// Christophe

[Steve B]

Has Vas responded in any way about this? How can one find points in his favor if there is nothing but a deafening silence from his side of the table???

No, he hasn't... There's no definite conclusion to draw. Some see his silence as being mature and above the "trivialities" of it all, when for others there are a multitude of possible reasons for his silence.

Maybe he will make a statement... then it gets interesting.

i find his silence about this is already interesting
he did not seem to care about being "above the fray" in publicly declaring Strelka as a Rybka clone...
i think he made statements about that or something similar...or am i mistaken about that ?
Steve

[Rolf]

Has Vas responded in any way about this? How can one find points in his favor if there is nothing but a deafening silence from his side of the table???

No, he hasn't... There's no definite conclusion to draw. Some see his silence as being mature and above the "trivialities" of it all, when for others there are a multitude of possible reasons for his silence.

A thread was started earlier today in the Rybka forum about this issue, specifically about the first post in this thread: http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforu ... l?tid=6644

It's rather strange the reactions that some people give. Someone presents evidence that Rybka 1.0 could be derived from Fruit. Someone posts in the Rybka forum that they hope that nobody can do the same with Rybka 3...

Perhaps the thread will get Vas' attention, and maybe he'll read this thread here. Maybe he will make a statement... then it gets interesting.

Do you go to visit number one or is number one looking after you? Looks funny your logic. Do you really expect that Vas says anything at all after even a reference like Bob jumped up and down when he thought he could ridicule what Vas had allegedly said about the Str__ code? I wouldnt be surprised if Vas would communicate over his program. Just look at the chess positions and try to figure out what Rybka said. Did you ever see Picasso or Beethoven explain their programs?

[bob]

1. there are two different issues you are addressing. Several have posted code here from fruit and strelka. Vas has claimed that strelka is "his code". And the code posted is identical over a couple of hundred lines at a time, with perhaps one line added or changed every couple of hundred lines. A lot of coincidence there.

And if it isnt his code then you will still continue to repeat but Vas claimed it.

Yes. Because he _did_ claim it. And there is but one conclusion to draw from that. It is his code.

2. reverse-engineering is not illegal. If you want to make it illegal, you patent the idea/process _first_ then if anyone tries to use it, no matter _how_ they discover the idea, you have legal recourse.

So if Fabien hasnt done this, then code was allowed to be utilized?

I don't follow. The issue is simply about copying the source from someone else, then claiming it as your own. If the first author had never written the code, how could someone copy it? We have A written by X, and B written by Y. B has major parts copied firectly from A. So Y had to have copied X's work. What is hard to grasp here?

I don't have any "absolute certainty" about anything other than what _I_ do. So again, don't put words into my posts that I didn't write myself. I said things look to me to be somewhat suspicious. And the evidence is mounting. But nothing is an absolute certainty. A room full of monkeys _could_ reproduce fruit given enough time.

Then why not taking Vas as a perfectly well programmer who comes out of a new generation who seems to have lost the blinders that made Crafty, Gandalf, King or Diep stuck on a mediocre level? It seems to me as if you take it against Vas that you cant imagine how someone could make his program stronger than all the other programmers could improve their own. For me Vas proves something else. You still could take the mick out of Botvinnik because he was lacking hardware but he wasnt a fool. Now with equal hardware the Eastern talents can prove that they are a little bit better than the pure materialistic people from the Western hemisphere with their lower cultural education. Vas studied long enough in the USA to learn from both spheres. He's just the best!!

And that may well be. But it is _not_ what is being addressed in this thread. The discussion is about copied program source, not about who is the greatest chess programmer since sliced bread...

And Botvinnik, while not a fool, _was_ a complete fraud. This has also been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt with respect to his program "Pioneer". Which again has nothing to do with this discussion, which would be a different kind of fraud.

[Rolf]

I don't follow. The issue is simply about copying the source from someone else, then claiming it as your own. If the first author had never written the code, how could someone copy it? We have A written by X, and B written by Y. B has major parts copied firectly from A. So Y had to have copied X's work. What is hard to grasp here?

If you rewrite a code that was not protected, that was the sense of what I asked you, then it's your own legal code? I thought that you would agree.

And Botvinnik, while not a fool, _was_ a complete fraud. This has also been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt with respect to his program "Pioneer". Which again has nothing to do with this discussion, which would be a different kind of fraud.

I disagree, Bob, simply because you have a too positivistic understanding of fraud. Thinkers and artists and chessplayers see it different. You make up a picture of something that is only existing in your mind but it's still real. So, what we have here is a case of creativity and not fraud. Bob, Ted Bundy was also highly intelligent but he was a serial killer. That's why the jury didnt buy his art. But as an innocent he was terrific. But society couldnt allow him to get away with it. For Botvinnik you should have much more respect. He didnt betray anyone, he didnt cause injuries in anybody's financial budget, he didnt kill in real life. He simply spoke in a different language in a totalitarian system and you from the USA show no remorse. It's a pity. Like always. Here people dont have a context for analyses.

[bob]

I don't follow. The issue is simply about copying the source from someone else, then claiming it as your own. If the first author had never written the code, how could someone copy it? We have A written by X, and B written by Y. B has major parts copied firectly from A. So Y had to have copied X's work. What is hard to grasp here?

If you rewrite a code that was not protected, that was the sense of what I asked you, then it's your own legal code? I thought that you would agree.

The rule is simple. If you start from a GPL source, and start to modify it, it remains GPL so long as there is any single line of code left from the originally copied code. That can't get any clearer. So if you rewrite every line, so that nothing remains, then no, there is no problem. But "rewrite" does not mean "re-type".

And Botvinnik, while not a fool, _was_ a complete fraud. This has also been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt with respect to his program "Pioneer". Which again has nothing to do with this discussion, which would be a different kind of fraud.

I disagree, Bob, simply because you have a too positivistic understanding of fraud. Thinkers and artists and chessplayers see it different. You make up a picture of something that is only existing in your mind but it's still real. So, what we have here is a case of creativity and not fraud. Bob, Ted Bundy was also highly intelligent but he was a serial killer. That's why the jury didnt buy his art. But as an innocent he was terrific. But society couldnt allow him to get away with it. For Botvinnik you should have much more respect. He didnt betray anyone, he didnt cause injuries in anybody's financial budget, he didnt kill in real life. He simply spoke in a different language in a totalitarian system and you from the USA show no remorse. It's a pity. Like always. Here people dont have a context for analyses.

Fraud is where you claim to be something you are not, or claim to have done something you did not. Etc. He claimed to have solved some famous chess positions with very small searches. Yet when the results were gone over very carefully (Berliner first blew the whistle on this) it was _obvious_ that things were not as they were claimed. Nobody disagreed.

[bob]

Zach is showing code snippets where Rybka 1.0 is actually more similar to Fruit than Strelka 2.0.

A few days ago there was some vocal opposition to the idea that Rybka 1.0 coud be a derived work of Fruit 2.1.

Where is the opposition now?

There are several skilled people ready to explain why many programmers think (without daring to tell it) that Rybka started its life as Fruit 2.1.

The evidence is now being shown factually. Feel free to contradict it factually.



// Christophe

There is a second possibility that rybka started her life with part of fruit but never had the full source.

I know that movei started its life with part of tscp structures and names of variables and constants (but no chess working code)

Uri

Unfortunately that is enough to settle this immediately. "part of fruit" is unacceptable since _all_ of fruit is GPL'ed. This issue is black or white, with no grey at all.

BTW, in some cases development is obvious. You can go back to reg.games.chess.computer circa 1994 november or so, and find posts by me where I was working on a _new_ program (now called Crafty). I started with the move generator and published the source there and got lots of feedback. You can also find discussions about search and evaluation as they were written, not copied. So starting with someone else's code is not a normal development course.

I do not know what is the normal course.

I know some programs that started with the full tscp code like trace
and I am not sure if most chess programs started without code from other programs.

In my case
I started with legal move generator but I used some constants and variables from tscp and also some names of functions.

My move generator never used mailbox that is part of tscp and used some structures of me that are not part of tscp so it is clearly different than tscp move generator.

Uri

But, again to restate the obvious, if TSCP is GPL code (no idea about that myself) then if you copy parts and then rewrite them, so long as one single line of the original code remains, your program is also GPL and has to conform to the GPL requirements.

When I started this in 1968, there was no program to copy. Same through the 70's and into the 80's, until many of us started to share source, although granted it was mainly among authors. Software engineering suggests that borrowing code is a good idea (code reuse). But in our context, which includes competitions, commercial sales and such, things are a bit different.

[Terry McCracken]

I don't follow. The issue is simply about copying the source from someone else, then claiming it as your own. If the first author had never written the code, how could someone copy it? We have A written by X, and B written by Y. B has major parts copied firectly from A. So Y had to have copied X's work. What is hard to grasp here?

If you rewrite a code that was not protected, that was the sense of what I asked you, then it's your own legal code? I thought that you would agree.

And Botvinnik, while not a fool, _was_ a complete fraud. This has also been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt with respect to his program "Pioneer". Which again has nothing to do with this discussion, which would be a different kind of fraud.

I disagree, Bob, simply because you have a too positivistic understanding of fraud. Thinkers and artists and chessplayers see it different. You make up a picture of something that is only existing in your mind but it's still real. So, what we have here is a case of creativity and not fraud. Bob, Ted Bundy was also highly intelligent but he was a serial killer. That's why the jury didnt buy his art. But as an innocent he was terrific. But society couldnt allow him to get away with it. For Botvinnik you should have much more respect. He didnt betray anyone, he didnt cause injuries in anybody's financial budget, he didnt kill in real life. He simply spoke in a different language in a totalitarian system and you from the USA show no remorse. It's a pity. Like always. Here people dont have a context for analyses.

Actually I was going to say the same about Dr. Fraud, but it speaks for itself.

Either you're trolling or you're delusive. Which is it?

Just go back to your imaginary computers and programs and let the academics the experts do their job. They take their work every bit as seriously as you do.

Then maybe we'll respect you and your part and place in Computer Chess History.

Hopefully I didn't break too many eggs with this reply, or my message might be interpreted as something more ominous I don't want to be sent on an early Easter Hunt in Africa

Scrambled Eggs Regards,
Dr. Suess on Safari or
Daktari and the Crossed-Eyed Lion