What the computer chess community needs to decide

[Frank Quisinsky]

Hi Christopher,

let us speak about the promised bottle of Scotch Whisky. I am waiting now 5 years of it. Each day I am looking for your parcel.

Do you remember?

Now I know why the Scottish Whisky score well because the post offices are dead slow.

Same with Arena!
Have to wait years for a great News by yourself to Arena

Sent it now ... time to keep one's promise!

And to the 3.000 ELO engine:
Let us collect this group of engines.
Believe me, we will get around 20 others in the next 3 years with 20 comments ... all is programmend by myself!

And I have to buy 20 systems more to test it or the users are thinking I am an "Rybka Fan-Boy"

Best
Frank

[Christopher Conkie]

And to the 3.000 ELO engine:
Let us collect this group of engines.
Believe me, we will get around 20 others in the next 3 years with 20 comments ... all is programmend by myself!

Best
Frank

Something to look forward to! I recommend you showcase them at WCCC.



Chris

[Frank Quisinsky]

Hi Christopher,

but at first is to check the sources from all the versions which plays the WCCC in the past!

Possible that programmers will lost his title after years today!

Possible too, that for the organisators each commercial engine is clean and each freeware engine is a clone

Make no sense to discuss about it.
More interesting is my bottle of Scotch Whisky

Best
Frank

[gaard]

So let's start with the assumption that we have identified a program that is not a source code clone of something original, but is heavily based on it. Let's also assume there are no legal issues. If there are, that of course is a separate matter with its own considerations.

Is this acceptable? Should we as the computer chess community endorse this behavior, or discourage it?

I think THAT is what we need to decide.

Good question, because I was starting to wonder if anyone had an opinion on this subject

Seriously, most people have made already this decision for themselves... judging by all the posts, polls, fora, chess servers, etc.

Incidentally, I've been in touch with Fabien (and 4-5 other programmers, some commercial) about the GPL issues and more. [There's some open letter being prepared, and they want me to reveal my identity, etc.--- guess I better start preparing for the TalkChess threatmongers].

Didn't need another thread on the subject, so I thought I'd post this here. Looks as if some sort of a conclusion to FL's appearance here is in the works?

[gaard]

Fixing the quote by BB+ where the word "threatmongers" is two links:

Incidentally, I've been in touch with Fabien (and 4-5 other programmers, some commercial) about the GPL issues and more. [There's some open letter being prepared, and they want me to reveal my identity, etc.--- guess I better start preparing for the TalkChess threatmongers].

[h1a8]

Here is my thoughts.

No current engine is original. NONE!
All current authors who created chess engines learned from the open source (or closed source) code of another engine(s). When their engine was created, its strength was similar to the open/closed source one(s) learned from.

In the beginning, the open source engines were not the strongest engines. An author building off of them was accepted as if he built a genuine original engine (because it wasn't very strong). Today several open source engines are top engines. One who creates a new chess engine can not help but to create an engine of similar strength from the one(s) learned from, even if no code was copied (verbatim).

IMO, Houdini should be allowed in tournaments as well as any other engine that can be shown to be different ENOUGH in engine output as any other engine. If engine A plays statistically significantly different than engine B (where A and B are any engines in the world) then A should be allowed to play in tournaments. What is statistically significant has to be decided on though.

What I can't understand is how Vas's Rybka can be accepted as original for many years after initial release of beta (allowed to play in tournaments, go commercial, be in respected rating lists, etc.) when Vas just seemed to have came out of nowhere with it after the fruit 2.1 open source. But when Robert's Houdini came out of nowhere, just the same, it was banned from rating lists and tournaments.

[IWB]

Hello Don,

I did not really read every answer here, so it might be that someone else already wrote something similar but I think your questions are somehow useless. Not because they are not valid or justified, but because there is nothing like "a computer chess community"!

Whatever the 500 (but less than 1000) people in the world, who really know what they are talking about decide or think is simply dinky compared to the 10 or 100 thousands (or more) who do not care about the circumstances at all.
One can of course regret that or even rant over it but it will not change. The sources are out and they will be used whatever the legal status is. Those who say that they use it will be forbidden to play in tournaments and those who are silent about their use of whatever can not identified and will play. Randomly an "incapable cheater" will be discovered from time to time (sometimes early, sometimes after years) and the "Public" (we here) will be angry about ...

Pandora is out and will not go back in its box! It is fatalistic, but we have to expect the worst and we have to live and deal with it!

Bye
Ingo

[michiguel]

Here is my thoughts.

No current engine is original. NONE!
All current authors who created chess engines learned from the open source (or closed source) code of another engine(s). When their engine was created, its strength was similar to the open/closed source one(s) learned from.

You are absolutely wrong. This is what really irritates me: The current tide of cloning is making everybody believe that everybody is the same. No. There are engines that started from scratch, being typed with the very hands of the author

int main (... etc.

In the beginning, the open source engines were not the strongest engines. An author building off of them was accepted as if he built a genuine original engine (because it wasn't very strong). Today several open source engines are top engines. One who creates a new chess engine can not help but to create an engine of similar strength from the one(s) learned from, even if no code was copied (verbatim).

IMO, Houdini should be allowed in tournaments as well as any other engine that can be shown to be different ENOUGH in engine output as any other engine. If engine A plays statistically significantly different than engine B (where A and B are any engines in the world) then A should be allowed to play in tournaments. What is statistically significant has to be decided on though.

If you are going to apply that criteria, Houdini will be one of the first to be out. You chose a wrong example here.

Miguel

What I can't understand is how Vas's Rybka can be accepted as original for many years after initial release of beta (allowed to play in tournaments, go commercial, be in respected rating lists, etc.) when Vas just seemed to have came out of nowhere with it after the fruit 2.1 open source. But when Robert's Houdini came out of nowhere, just the same, it was banned from rating lists and tournaments.

[h1a8]

You are absolutely wrong. This is what really irritates me: The current tide of cloning is making everybody believe that everybody is the same. No. There are engines that started from scratch, being typed with the very hands of the author

int main (... etc.


If you are going to apply that criteria, Houdini will be one of the first to be out. You chose a wrong example here.

Miguel

No offense but I'm right. If you read my post carefully I didn't say authors always copied code. They at least translated some things, as Dr. Hyatt explained. No current author wrote a chess engine from scratch without the aide of learning from some other source. This is a fact.

I disagree. As it wasn't shown what is STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT ENOUGH. Prove that Houdini 1.5a plays statistically significantly similar to another engine. I'll let you choose a reasonable definition of statistically significant.

[michiguel]

You are absolutely wrong. This is what really irritates me: The current tide of cloning is making everybody believe that everybody is the same. No. There are engines that started from scratch, being typed with the very hands of the author

int main (... etc.


If you are going to apply that criteria, Houdini will be one of the first to be out. You chose a wrong example here.

Miguel

No offense but I'm right. If you read my post carefully I didn't say authors always copied code. They at least translated some things, as Dr. Hyatt explained. No current author wrote a chess engine from scratch without the aide of learning from some other source. This is a fact.

No, it is not a fact, and you are wrong. There are authors that wrote their engine without studying others. You are making a blanket statement without knowing them all, and of course, you don't know them all.

I disagree. As it wasn't shown what is STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT ENOUGH. Prove that Houdini 1.5a plays statistically significantly similar to another engine. I'll let you choose a reasonable definition of statistically significant.

Yes, it is statistically significant more similar to some Ivanhoes more than any other engine out there. I has been shown already here with data from Kai and Adam. I ran for them the jackknife analysis and there is no doubt. I may accept different interpretations, but not to ignore the data.

Miguel