Question for George Speight

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kranium
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Question for George Speight

Post by kranium »

geots wrote:
What might be of interest to you- i just got thru discussing this with Vas (as we do daily)- and he doesnt feel his character is being destroyed. He is actually laughing about the whole thing. And if this follows the path of most things- it will do nothing but increase his sales. But the one thing that stands out most to me: he will never utter, even in private, one bad word about Christophe, Zach, Bob or anyone else in this matter. Talk about a man with character!
George-

considering the close relationship you have with Vas...
would you (could you) please be so kind as to shed some light on the following:
(quite a few people are confused by the contradiction...)

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By Vasik Rajlich Date 2008-01-11 12:26 I've taken a look this morning at the Strelka 2.0 sources. The picture is quite clear.

Vast sections of these sources started their life as a decompiled Rybka 1.0. The traces of this are everywhere. The board representation is identical, and all sorts of absolutely unique Rybka code methods, bitboard tricks and even exact data tables are used throughout. Significant portions of the search and evaluation logic are not fully disassembled - the author has left in hardcoded constants and used generic names (such as "PawnStruScore0" & "PawnStruScore1", "PassedPawnValue0" through "PassedPawnValue7", etc) which show that he hasn't yet fully understood what is happening.

In some cases, these traces do also extend beyond the inner search and evaluation kernel. For instance, Rybka and Strelka are the only engines which I know about which don't report "seldepth" and "hashfull". Rybka's UCI strings are used throughout.

The author did at first make attempts to hide the Rybka origins, for example by masking the table values in earlier Strelka versions. He also made significant attempts to improve the program. The attempts at improvement are not very original, but they are everywhere. They include PV collection, null verification (and in fact changes to the null implementation itself), some endgame drawishness heuristics, a handful of new evaluation term, a new approach to blending between opening and endgame eval terms, and so on. They also do include various structural changes, such as knight underpromotions, on-the-fly calculations of many tables, the setting of piece-square table values, etc. These changes are extensive and no doubt lead to differences in playing style and perhaps a useful engine for users to have, but they do not change the illegality of the code base.

In light of the above, I am claiming Strelka 2.0 as my own and will release it in the next few days under my own name. The name of the author with the pen name "Osipov" will be included if he comes forward with hiw own real name, otherwise an anonymous contribution will be noted. The contributions of Igor Korshunov will also be confirmed and noted if appropriate. All usage permissions will be granted with this release.

I do not see obvious signs of other code usage, but perhaps this deserves a closer look. Some of the transplanted ideas, such as the null verification search, are rather naive implementations of the approach in Fruit/Toga, although my first impression is that that code itself is original. The Winboard parser from Beowolf which was added to Strelka 1.0 seems to have been completely removed. If someone else does find other signs of code theft, please get in touch with me and I will give proper credit in the upcoming release.

If someone has suggestions about an appropriate license, and in particular the pros and cons of the GPL for a chess engine and for this unusual scenario, or if someone would be willing to help in preparing this code and license for release, please also get in touch with me.

As this code is two years and several hundred Elo old, I am not going to launch any major action. However, 'Osipov' has already threatened to repeat the procedure with Rybka 2.3.2a. (He did this after I declined to grant him rights to commercialize Strelka.) If this situation does repeat with a newer Rybka version, I will not just stand and watch any more. In the meantime, if someone has information about 'Osipov', please get in touch with me.

Vas

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By Vasik Rajlich Date 2008-08-27 14:55 >
And one of them was Vasik Rajlich. He claimed Strelka to be his own. Now is it or is it not?

I made quite a detailed post about this around the time of the Strelka 2.0 release, maybe someone can dig it up.

Claiming Strelka as my own would have been illegal, so I didn't do it.

Vas

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geots
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Re: Question for George Speight

Post by geots »

Norman, being someone's friend and speaking for them, as well defending them, are fine to a point. But what you have detailed and are asking of me would be unfair. This should be left to Vas himself. If he feels he should answer- fine. If not- that is again his business. I cannot cross that line and help you with this one.

Best,
kranium
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Re: Question for George Speight

Post by kranium »

ok, understand...i just thought you may have some insight into his personality, character, etc. which might help explain it. I will ask him at the rybka forum.
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geots
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Re: Question for George Speight

Post by geots »

kranium wrote:ok, understand...i just thought you may have some insight into his personality, character, etc. which might help explain it. I will ask him at the rybka forum.
Norman, this may sound strange. But i can see a time and place where you and i could be friends. I may be a strange bird at times. But when someone attacks a friend of mine in a way i feel is not justified- they attack me as well. I went thru the same thing a while back when Graham was being unfairly attacked as it neared mod elections. Just the way i am- and too old to change now.

PS: Maybe i should apologize to you for bringing up any of your past indescretions. (We all have them) I promise you i was not trying to hurt you- but merely to show that if a person's character is being attacked- people have the right to the full knowledge of the accusers past.


Best and Good Luck To You,
Last edited by geots on Thu Aug 28, 2008 4:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Terry McCracken
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Re: Question for George Speight

Post by Terry McCracken »

This isn't about attacking Vas, no matter what you or others believe.
swami
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Re: Question for George Speight

Post by swami »

Terry McCracken wrote:This isn't about attacking Vas, no matter what you or others believe.
Yes, I haven't received a _single_ complaint from members about posts that attack Vas's character, even though there have been storm of complaints about everything except this in this past few days.
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geots
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Re: Question for George Speight

Post by geots »

Terry McCracken wrote:This isn't about attacking Vas, no matter what you or others believe.

Terry, with all due respect- "horseshit" They want to see him brought down- no matter how they have to do it.
kranium
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Re: Question for George Speight

Post by kranium »

geots wrote:
kranium wrote:ok, understand...i just thought you may have some insight into his personality, character, etc. which might help explain it. I will ask him at the rybka forum.
Norman, this may sound strange. But i can see a time and place where you and i could be friends. I may be a strange bird at times. But when someone attacks a friend of mine in a way i feel is not justified- they attack me as well. I went thru the same thing a while back when Graham was being unfairly attacked as it neared mod elections. Just the way i am- and too old to change now.

PS: Maybe i should apologize to you for bringing up any of your past indescretions. (We all have them) I promise you i was not trying to hurt you- but merely to show that if a person's character is being attacked- people have the right to the full knowledge of the accusers past.


Best and Good Luck To You,
No hard feelings George, it takes a big man w/ real character to offer an apology.
I appreciate your honesty.

We're happy to discuss the information, what is fact what is not fact, it's been very difficult here, mainly because many people are, like you, reacting emotionally, often without even looking at or considering the the information. Vas and Rybka are beloved, he's a brilliant mind. I too appreciate Rybka for what it is, i'm not blind. It's an incredible program.
None of us wants it to go away, or be stopped. I love chess and chess engines as much as anybody here. This is about the truth, as strange as that may seem.

George, have you read this carefully, and the other documents?
http://64.68.157.89/forum/viewtopic.php?t=23275
if not please do...

I sincerely hope we can talk about it later...

Best wishes
Norm
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Zach Wegner
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Re: Question for George Speight

Post by Zach Wegner »

geots wrote:But when someone attacks a friend of mine in a way i feel is not justified- they attack me as well.
OK, since you say you're my friend, shouldn't you be attacking yourself now?

:lol:
kranium
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Re: Question for George Speight

Post by kranium »

geots wrote:
Terry McCracken wrote:This isn't about attacking Vas, no matter what you or others believe.

Terry, with all due respect- "horseshit" They want to see him brought down- no matter how they have to do it.

No, George, that's not true...
have you no respect for Bob H, or Christophe, Zach, Alex Schmidt, etc.
or many others here. There are many programmers that also see a problem. They are simply asking questions!

i'll be posting a list of concerned programmers tommorow on the webs site http://www.chesslogik.com/ along with much easier to read data.
there will be no accusations on the site...only information, and questions.

the issues and concerns are not difficult to understand, except to those that are unwilling to allow or consider the possibility of such an issue.

we are talking about 1.0 beta, and that is only because there are many lines of code that match!

if anybody is hell bent on taking down rybka 3, by dissasembling it, and scouring it for possible infingements, by the time they finish it'll be 2011, because it takes so much freakin' time to do it! if that happens, i'm sure rybka 8 will be available at an ELO of 4100 for the chess communities enjoyment. :D
Last edited by kranium on Thu Aug 28, 2008 4:52 am, edited 3 times in total.