The rights of customers

[djbl]

On the subject of ChessMaster 11. IMHO and experience (being a software developer), low quality is exactly what you get when you ship
development out to 3rd world countries for a price cut.

Outsourcing development for cheap labor is, in part, a direct result of all the cloning and such.

There was a time when commercial chess programs sold in volume. Volume sales help to keep prices down and development going.
When the number of sales drops, you can cut costs which can lead to lower quality or you can cut the product.

Why have volume sales dropped? They are competing with free programs that are 2800+. IMHO, a binary for such programs should not
be free. Also, they are competing with all the software pirating practices that go on.

On Rybka 3. I have it. Bought it about 7 months ago (the single processor version). I have not noticed any bugs.

Guys, you can't continue having high end quality commercial software and allow software piracy to continue. Look at the CPU
industry; it is still going strong with high quality and good pricing. Why? Nobody is cheating that industry.

you havent noticed any bugs in rybka?? oh please, do me a favour, do you also assign a score of +10 to a drawn position?

[mariaclara]

Oh well, Damir let's wade in .

This thread is about Re: The rights of customers.

Now , what does his statements (pls see his 3 quoted posts below) have to do with rights of customers.

Is it the fault of the paying customer if the commercial chess seller ships out to 3rd world whatevers?

Is he saying the paying customer should now suffer because of clones?

Is cloning the fault of paying customers?

What proof does he have paying customers are making clones?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On the subject of ChessMaster 11. IMHO and experience (being a software developer), low quality is exactly what you get when you ship
development out to 3rd world countries for a price cut.

Outsourcing development for cheap labor is, in part, a direct result of all the cloning and such.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Is piracy the fault of paying customers???

Is he saying because of piracy, the rights of customer's such as expecting quality for money paid is hereby erased/deleted.???

Are customers "pirates"??? Does he mean customers are the "pirates"

Is he saying it is the fault of customers piracy abounds???

or, does he mean, because there is piracy, the buying public has no right and/or should not expect good quality chess programs.???

does he have proof paying customers are pirates or in cahoots with pirates???

" Guys, you can't continue having high end quality commercial software and allow software piracy to continue. "

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Guys, you can't continue having high end quality commercial software and allow software piracy to continue. .

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another statement from him..
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Why have volume sales dropped? They are competing with free programs that are 2800+.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Does this sound rational?

Because there are strong free engines , paying customers should not expect commercial chess sellers to honor their service guarantee/promises?

Is it the fault of paying customers there are free engines?

Because there are free engines, the paying customer should not complain about
poor service/etc. from commercial chess sellers. ???

paying customers should suffer because there are strong free engines?

My gosh, what is he saying????

[CRoberson]

On the subject of ChessMaster 11. IMHO and experience (being a software developer), low quality is exactly what you get when you ship
development out to 3rd world countries for a price cut.

Outsourcing development for cheap labor is, in part, a direct result of all the cloning and such.

There was a time when commercial chess programs sold in volume. Volume sales help to keep prices down and development going.
When the number of sales drops, you can cut costs which can lead to lower quality or you can cut the product.

Why have volume sales dropped? They are competing with free programs that are 2800+. IMHO, a binary for such programs should not
be free. Also, they are competing with all the software pirating practices that go on.

On Rybka 3. I have it. Bought it about 7 months ago (the single processor version). I have not noticed any bugs.

Guys, you can't continue having high end quality commercial software and allow software piracy to continue. Look at the CPU
industry; it is still going strong with high quality and good pricing. Why? Nobody is cheating that industry.

you havent noticed any bugs in rybka?? oh please, do me a favour, do you also assign a score of +10 to a drawn position?

Really, I use it regularly for analysis and have not seen a drawn position with a score of 10. Such a position must not occur often.
If it did Rybka wouldn't be rated as high as it is.

Post the position here. I'd like to test it with my copy.

[jwes]

If you want to know your rights, read the license agreement that you probably clicked on without reading. You will likely find that you have nearly no rights. If this is not satisfactory, don't buy the software. Until people refuse to buy software with unreasonable license terms, or laws are passed making software product liability more like product liability on all other products, we will get buggy software and have little recourse.

[CRoberson]

Clare,

I thought I was clear, but I will endeavor clear it up more.

A business can only do what it can afford to do.

So, they can cut the product from their line, they can cut costs (hire weaker cheaper developers), they can raise the price, they can cut
back on services or change the business model completely. They can do any of those or any combination of those.

Over the last 2 decades, we have seen the cost of chess programs go up much more than I like. Some of the cost increase is directly due to
software piracy. The impact of SP is partially to blame for reductions in quality and service due to the impact on financial feasibility.
Lets say you own a small grocery store and you have a problem with thieves. How do you stay in
business? You can stop the the thieves and/or raise the prices.

Who has to suffer from SP? Two groups! The business (and its employees) and honest customers. The thieves don't pay the price unless
they are caught and/or stopped. Under business and customer impact comes the issue of potentially new businesses developing
competitive software. That is reduced due to piracy. That is a big problem for the customer. New businesses competing for the same
customers usually brings better prices, better quality, better service and so on.

In short, software piracy hurts both the business and the customers. The business is not at fault for piracy and some of the
customers are not. Some customers are. If you buy the product and do nothing about the friend you know that pirates software, are you
at fault? I am being hypothetical there. I don't mean you Clare.

On the subject of fault. There are many forms of piracy ranging from massive theft and distribution to somebody giving a copy
to their brother or sister. Much of the blame goes to law makers for making software laws that heavily favor the thieves. Software laws
are a combination of patent and copyright laws and it seems we received the worst of both worlds.

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

To understand the simplicity in the process it requires something that I have. As a mathematician I examine the numbers. 3. 11. These are high numbers. What does it mean? That the authors were still working on their products in progress. But that means that only in the longer run the old bugs are corrected by next versions. Say 5. Or 15. Now you seem to say that then the authors should wait until their higher versions are ready, to avoid the older bugs. But this is a contradiction in itself, because also the higher version numbers will have their bugs - and if they still live, these numbers, the bugs are alive too. That is called the *Rolf's Law* of perpetual business. It's a business about chess and new ideas to play and train it with machine help. Even if a version were without a single bug we would buy the next versions and we do not fear the little bugs. Even we humans have bugs in our system. Bugs are the salt of this Earth. Withgout bugs we were clones.

It does mean only one thing,that your master is a liar....
Dr.D

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

Hi Rolf !

You are my man ! I like your demonstration ! I like also to pay -for the begenning- only 1 Euro / each chess program, the rest at the last version !
Agreed also:
''Even we humans have bugs in our system." Yes ! We were educated to love money !
" Bugs are the salt of this Earth." Yes ! And the money are the pepper.
"Withgout bugs we were clones."Yeah.......and the genetics loses the object !

Sad.

Silvian

PS:
Rolf's law of perpetual business= give me your money, much money,much,much money...................I give you bugs ! So sorry ! Wait for the next release !

Sad is that we have experts who believe in the bugless software for million different configurations. Sad is the delusion of low price economy. Vasiks Rybka should cost 500 € instead of 30, because then even fools would understand what it is worth. Look what human trainers cost you. But ok, I have mercy, in your region a kid costs only 50 €, but ok, in Brazil etc. it costs nothing. So I dont want to argue about chess software prices. The third world must steal software on the net willy-nilly.

So beside being Vasik's most faithful dog,the bigesst troll in the history of the CCC forum,you are a dirty racist
You must be banned for this statement of yours
Dr.D

[mariaclara]

Hi Charles,

on this thread's topic:

Re: The rights of customers

Ok I went through your post and agree on some points but still can't agree with your post the ff :

...1.) piracy

2.) cloning

are the fault of paying customers?

you said

The business is not at fault for piracy and some of the
customers are not. Some customers are.

some of the customers are at fault?

Who are they? Can you identify them?

How do you know they are at fault?

Do you have proof ?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, getting back to this thread's topic

Re: The rights of customers

What do you think are "rights of customers"?

[CRoberson]

Hi Charles,

on this thread's topic:

Re: The rights of customers

Ok I went through your post and agree on some points but still can't agree with your post the ff :

...1.) piracy

2.) cloning

are the fault of paying customers?

you said

The business is not at fault for piracy and some of the
customers are not. Some customers are.

some of the customers are at fault?

Who are they? Can you identify them?

How do you know they are at fault?

Do you have proof ?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, getting back to this thread's topic

Re: The rights of customers

What do you think are "rights of customers"?

Hi Clare,

Looks like we are making progress. At least your questions are fewer in number.

I wasn't talking about specific people. I was stating that there is a range of participation from being actively involved to knowing who is
doing it and allowing it to continue or being on the receiving end of pirated software.

I really don't understand why people participate in piracy over computer chess software when there is so much free stuff like SCID,
Arena, Crafty and Toga to name a few.

Customer rights are a somewhat dynamic thing and they are a part of the Service Level Agreement (SLA) between the business and the
customer. Business rights and customer rights are a trade off, because some rights are in conflict
with each other. Some businesses give the customer more rights than others. Also, I understand that customer rights may vary from country to country. Piracy does effect the SLA. Piracy does impact what a business can and can't afford to do for the customer.

When it comes to chess software, I expect it to work. I expect chess engines to be roughly as strong as advertised relative to the
previous version and their competitors. I expect a users manual either in print or online and a reasonable level of tech support. I
expect it to be an original work. I don't want to buy a program that turns out to be a clone of
Toga or something else that I can download for free. I suppose I may have some other expectations, but those are the foundations
of my expectations.

[aturri]

I think we must differentiate at least two aspects:

1) Functional bugs: like UCI errors, engine hanging, bad support of well known protocols, memory corruptions, and the like.

2) Bad performance in certain aspects due to lack of implementation (e.g. the bad bishop), or formulas not well balanced (evaluate a drawn position as +/-1.5, and so.

I think the first ones should be covered by a time-limited garanty, like when you buy a car: it must work following the specifications.

The second ones, not at all. They belong to new improvements in the new versions, and that's right to ask for people to pay for upgrades. It's like having a new engine in a similar car that consumes a 10% less of fuel, or better securities, etc. You must protect your client and you must ensure the program works as it was planned to do.

In the software industry, the most important companies cover the 1st case: you see the service packs on Windows, security updates on Acrobat, etc. But if you want the new PhotoShop to run on a Quad 64bit helped with GPU, then you must upgrade to pay the development cost.

3-4 years ago, Vas himself was doing both the 1st and 2nd option: the 1.2 version was better than 1.1, the 2.1 than the 2.0, etc, and the update was free. They also corrected (some) bugs.

Now, he radically changed, and R3 has nor bug corrections nor software improvements. I think it is very reasonable to ask Vas for the first, but not for the second.

I think Ruxy Sylwyka was asking so. And I agree her.

Ovbiously, it is easier to correct bugs if your business is making good profits. But not doing so now, even taking into account the bad times for commercial chess engines, is a high risk, as loyal customers can be lost.