What's Vasik Rajlich doing today?

[Rebel]

You are making my day, you should consult Zach Wegner and Mark Watkins. The PST's are a sphere point in both their documents Vas copied Fruit. And you are saying it's all okay???? What you describe is EXACTLY what Wegner and Watkins accuse Vasik of.

Enough.

You really don't get it, do you?

I am saying it is not a copyright infringement.
Of course it is an ICGA rule #2 violation.

These are not the same, and the fact that you maintain they are, makes any opinion you have on this entire matter only suitable for the dustbin.

Missing the point again BECAUSE you never read the documents. You don't even realize what exactly the accusation is Wegner and Watkins made regarding the Rybka-Fruit PST's. It's definitely a copyright issue and you (like Vas) could be accused as such.

The accusation is NOT that the Fruit PST's are equal to Rybka, they are NOT. The accusation is that Vasik used (or copied) the Fruit code, modified (tuned) the parameters, added a few lines of C-code to port the (thus different numbers) to a textfile, compiled Fruit and ported the results of the textfile in his source as PST tables. That's the accusation. Unlike in Fruit you won't find any PST code in Rybka.

In your case the accusation would be even worse since in your chosen example the PST's are completely EQUAL. And you will have a hard time explaining that to a judge how that possibly can be.

[Frank Quisinsky]

Hi Ed,

OK,

To discuss with you about programming made no sense for yourself / myself. Here I have on a good day 800 Elo only. Often I am thinking I should hold my mouth from things I don't have enough knwoledge! I hope Lucas will not give a comment to it. He is very hard is such things

In German:
Wenn Du keine Ahnung hast einfach mal Fresse halten.
Very good ... for me too!

Misunderstanding your message to Magic Bitboards. Double missunderstanding. Fabian explain me so many things for a while by mail (today in the evening I will read all this again). I am sure, that I had the explanaition by Fabian wrong in my brain. Programming isn't my topic. Sorry for it and my mistake to the topic "Bitboards".

---

But my education to social questions, particulary in questions of ethical, morally are on a higher level as 800 Elo.

Code: Select all

You wrote:
If it were so simple then there was consensus among the chess programmers. We have seen consensus on a 100% base regarding past cases. Only exception would be Ippolit, there are a few who (still want to) believe Ippolit being an original engine, the vast majority (90-95%) believes Ippolite is a Rybka clone. All in all that's quite an impressive performance of consensus. 
And then the Rybka-Fruit case blows into our face and you see the chess programmers (the ones who should know) severely divided. No, it's not so simple at all. It's also a sign something is wrong.

Yes, I agree here!

You will not like what I write to you in additional to your statement!

If the programmer of Rybka used basic codes from Fruit for version 1.0 is Igorit the right answer I give my support to more as 50% (if recompiled or whatever), maybe the most elastic given answer. Not in question of right or wrong, more or less in question of ethical and morally ... cautionary tale. And this have nothing to do with self-administered justice. Often are such a way the one and only. What have a community for other possibilities? Means in avoid such things?

To more as 50%, not to 100%.

If Rybka 1 have nothing to do with Fruit Vas had six years time to clear the situation.

That is the boomerang to the right address with the disadvantage that Fabian get nothing and money hold wrong people in here hand. After all I think so, can't build an other opinion.

Vas should send Fabian the sources of Rybka 1 and I am sure both will find a Gentlemen like solution. Must not be public ... a short Messages by Fabien ... situation cleared ... is enough for the community.

This I means with ...
Can be solved very easy!

In case of Commercials.
I believe Commercials have no interest to learn from such things. They made the same mistake years later and do a lot for here own call.

Best
Frank

800 Elo is perhaps to strong.
Maybe 775 ... if Lucas read it.

[Frank Quisinsky]

In case of Commercials.
I believe Commercials have no interest to learn from such things. They made the same mistake years later and do a lot for here own call.

In additional:
Commercials can also very easy solved the situation.
Can make Fabian an offer for Senpai 2 (my idea, not the idea from Fabian ... others could believe it).
And the call is repaired!
And most important for the Commercials: A blockbaster!

It's not easy to say: I made a mistake!
So many persons have the biggest problems with it.
I've known it often to happen with allways the same people.

If Tord read that ... I am sure ... he hold the violin in her hand with Bach as background music.

[hgm]

In your case the accusation would be even worse since in your chosen example the PST's are completely EQUAL. And you will have a hard time explaining that to a judge how that possibly can be.

Not at all. I would just tell him I liked these values because they worked so well in Fruit, show him my source code, and be acquited. Because the law states I am allowed to do that, and that is all the judge would care about. He would not detect any similarity between my code and the Fruit code, as the Fruit code would not contain these numbers at all.

Accusations are cheap, and what Zach and Mark accuse Vas of is totally irrelevant. He cannot be banned on the basis of random accusations, only on violation of rule #2. And I know rule #2...

[Terry McCracken]

In your case the accusation would be even worse since in your chosen example the PST's are completely EQUAL. And you will have a hard time explaining that to a judge how that possibly can be.

Not at all. I would just tell him I liked these values because they worked so well in Fruit, show him my source code, and be acquited. Because the law states I am allowed to do that, and that is all the judge would care about. He would not detect any similarity between my code and the Fruit code, as the Fruit code would not contain these numbers at all.

Accusations are cheap, and what Zach and Mark accuse Vas of is totally irrelevant. He cannot be banned on the basis of random accusations, only on violation of rule #2. And I know rule #2...

Rebel doesn't like the rules.

[Rebel]

In your case the accusation would be even worse since in your chosen example the PST's are completely EQUAL. And you will have a hard time explaining that to a judge how that possibly can be.

Not at all. I would just tell him I liked these values because they worked so well in Fruit, show him my source code, and be acquited. Because the law states I am allowed to do that, and that is all the judge would care about. He would not detect any similarity between my code and the Fruit code, as the Fruit code would not contain these numbers at all.

Seriously? Your PST's are equal to Fruit. That means 384 (64*6) cells contain the exact same values varying from (say) -100 to +100. The That's an incredible coincidence, actually an exact DNA match. Whatever code you fantasize any programmer will will see right through the intend, that you copied. You will not get away with that in court, the math is against you and rightly so. And I am not even making a distinction between midgame and endgame PST's else the odds increase even more, 64*12=768 cells.

Since you brought it up, proof it, and write the code that produces the exact Fruit PST's and we leave it to the programmers forum members to judge if you have broken copyright. I don't hold my breath.

[hgm]

Seriously? Your PST's are equal to Fruit. That means 384 (64*6) cells contain the exact same values varying from (say) -100 to +100.

Coincidence? When I explicitly state (in court) that I use those values because they work so well in Fruit, you still think that it is a coincidence???

The That's an incredible coincidence, actually an exact DNA match. Whatever code you fantasize any programmer will will see right through the intend, that you copied. You will not get away with that in court, the math is against you and rightly so. And I am not even making a distinction between midgame and endgame PST's else the odds increase even more, 64*12=768 cells.

I get away with it because it is allowed, not because I claim that it is a coincidence.

Since you brought it up, proof it, and write the code that produces the exact Fruit PST's and we leave it to the programmers forum members to judge if you have broken copyright.

What a silly idea to waste my time. The programmers on this forum can judge very well whether I would have infringed copyright when I include Fruit's PST in my program as initialized data, without actually seeing me do it first. Most programmers would know what 'initialized data' means... But just to be sure:

Code: Select all

int PST[] = {
  N1, N2, .... // Positional bonuses used by Fruit, resulting from running the latter's pst_init() routine
};

[Rebel]

.........It's not much different what Fabien himself said how he created Fruit from known knowledge 8 months before Rybka 1.0 was released.

http://www.top-5000.nl/Zach/rybka.htm#fabien

I am sorry to say that whether an engine is someone's "own work" makes little sense to me, although I understand that tournament directors would like a clear yes or no.

The reason is that all engines, whether amateur or commercial, share most of the techniques. Alpha-beta (of which PVS, NegaScout and MTD(f) are only derivatives), iterative deepening, check extensions, null move, etc ... are shared by most and have been published, mostly by researchers, some of them more than 30 years ago! Sure there are many different ways to represent the board and pieces but it only affects speed, which rarely amounts to more than a few dozen Elo Points.

There is one component that so far is distinct in each engine (although some older ones were probably "inspired" by Crafty): the evaluation function. But there again the evaluation features are hardly ever very original: the principles of sound chess play can be found in hundreds of books. It's hardly a secret that rooks should be placed on open files, something that Fruit does not even know (though rook mobility partly emulates this piece of knowledge).

So what is left for improvisation? A lot of course, otherwise all engines would be equal. But say in terms of quantity of code they don't represent so much. Among this "lot" I think there is a large place for things that cannot be extracted: programming style and ways of linking engine components, making them work together. Not something that most would consider as a "chess-engine technique" like null move.

OK let's stop here and do a little sum up with Fruit in mind: I can't think of a search feature in it that was not described before. Ditto for evaluation terms (except perhaps a few drawish-endgame rules that activate in one game in a hundred). There are specific principles that I follow in Fruit that gives it a personality somewhat (like never truncating the PV and making sure that mate-depth claims are always correct), but they probably have no impact on strength at all and could even hurt a little.

Can I claim that I have written it all on my own? "Yes", I typed all the code myself. Without help??? Certainly not, hence my point: "it makes no sense".

Sorry for the dramatic style ... One positive point now: instead of seeing engine authors competing against each others, I see them as cooperating (mostly indirectly) and making progress together, since they have so much in common, whether they want it or not.

My opinion anyway ...


So what changed?

Nothing. That everyone follows Fabien's sound advice, learn, type your own code and don't copy the work of others without their express permission. Oh wait, this has been the case since day one.'

[Rebel]

Seriously? Your PST's are equal to Fruit. That means 384 (64*6) cells contain the exact same values varying from (say) -100 to +100.

Coincidence? When I explicitly state (in court) that I use those values because they work so well in Fruit, you still think that it is a coincidence???

Of course a confession makes it more easily for a judge

Remember Substantial Similarity or have you already forgotten about it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substantial_similarity

[hgm]

Well, so you still don't understand what 'substantial similarity' means?

What I wrote bears no substantial similarity to any of Fruit's source code. It bears in fact no similarity to it at all. It is completely unrelated way of coding usage of the same PST values.