Two Opposite Chess Cultures......

[hgm]

Indeed, it is easy to be 'relaxed' at theft when they are not stealing from you...

Sorry but in a capitalist world that we live in, stealing is possible only if the object of the theft has material value.
Breaking licenses is not stealing per se (violation of laws yes, but not theft), no matter how much you push to equalize it.

As I said: It is easy to be relaxed at theft when they are not stealing from you...

All the rest springs from your imagination only!

[Milos]

As I said: It is easy to be relaxed at theft when they are not stealing from you...

If somebody is stealing from you then be a man a do something about it, don't just go around and wine about it.

[hgm]

Now where did you get the silly notion that I would first allow someone to steal from me, so that I would have to do something about it later?

[Zlaire]

EVERY technological thing is made out of previous parts, developments, etc.

Quite true. But you're missing the point (by miles).

The GPL license is a way of the original author saying he created this and you're free to use it, but he wants credit for it (and he wants the source to remain open).

You're free to improve on it, you're even free to charge for it, but you need to credit the original author and you need to keep the source open.

I can't see how you, or anyone, can possibly think there's anything wrong with this.

Bottom line is, if you use GPL licensed code, you need to keep it open and credit the original author. If you have any objections against this, don't use the code.

If you're an extremely good programmer with a couple groundbreaking ideas, and don't want to share them. Build your own base... how hard can it be if you're that awesome?

[fern]

You are right, of course. If someone does not do what you ask, he is doing something incorrect. But, attention, this has not much to do with the essential point discussed here, which is to classify as "clone" anything done on the ground of something else.
The flaw you talk is kind of an abuse of faith, but not copy-paste elaboration of a chess engine.

My best
Fern

[Zlaire]

this has not much to do with the essential point discussed here, which is to classify as "clone" anything done on the ground of something else.

In the case of Sting, the author was asking if he'd changed the code enough (or used sufficiently little of it) to not release the code.

The answer was a resounding "no".

I.e. to not be labeled a clone, he had to release the source. Which he actually eventually did. And I feel that was unanomously accepted as enough to avoid the clone label.

However, I think you're misunderstanding the "culture" of labeling something as a clone.

This is my view of it:

If you're open with what you're doing (like Chris Florin in the Sting case), no one would label it as a dirty clone... it's simply a derivative with little value, until you can show real improvements. At this point it transforms into its own interesting entity, and rightfully so.

If you're not open with what you're doing, and most likely breaking a number of copyright rules. You're skewing testing results, wasting people's time (e.g. testing and tournaments) and just being obnoxious in general. Point being no one can really know what your actual improvements were, rendering them completely useless in a scientific sense, and very dubious in a credit sense.

[fern]

You are right in the case you mentioned. But, look, you and me talk of "cases", which is not the usual practice here. Lot before examining the case, the label is instantly put.

Fern

[Eelco de Groot]

Looks like the server of OP in Poland is down and I can't download the Sting_1.0 binaries. I found a 7z file with the binaries in 32bit and 64bit, but it was infected by a remote admin tool.

Have you downloaded that Sting_1.0b binaries fernando? I'd like to check it out but was too late to download the file. The URL link of sting1.0 is now dead.

Marek Kwiatkowski took down his first link without sources and then put up a new one. It has a zip file, the binaries you found Mike are obviously by some criminal hacker, not from Marek. I have not tried to install his binaries though, and did not run a scan on the zipfile. I am not going to run the binaries without uploading the files to an external viruscan site first either. But I suppose the safer way would be to compile Marek's sources directly now that they are included. This is absolutely an advantage of open source and the GPL requiring to include sources, whatever some not very clearthinking poster has to to say, about following the minimal requirements and absolutely essential requirements for this GPL to work. The license is not there for nothing.

Eelco

[Zlaire]

You are right in the case you mentioned. But, look, you and me talk of "cases", which is not the usual practice here. Lot before examining the case, the label is instantly put.

Agreed. The chess programming community is quite hostile and quick to pass judgement.

However it's quite obvious where this comes from, and it's actually quite reasonable... When I left chess programming a couple years ago, Rybka was the pinnacle everyone tried to reach, and there was a real sense of awe throughout the community.

Cloning was, at that time, a minor concern.

Coming back a few months ago, Rybka had broken everyone's heart and seemingly nothing could be trusted anymore.

Even though I don't consider myself on the suspicious side, I can certainly see why suspicion is prevalent, and probably will be for quite a while yet.

I'm not saying I approve of everything being considered a clone until proven not, but that's how it is and will be for a while, so you just have to be extra careful with copyrights right now.

[mcostalba]

Of course you can say, as Don does, that an engine is kind of a work of art

Never said something like this, I even never thought something like this.

Besides, this is moot as much many of the supposed clones discussed here are different to the supposed original engines; they have lot of added work and are better.

Never talked about clones, nor this post was supposed to be about clones. Marek didn't clone SF, he simply took the sources and modified them, this is very legal and accepted even by the most puritans he just forgot to release the sources, but then he explained was not intentional and the thing was happily closed.

Marco