2 Komodo Games: Larry's and Mark's opinions welcome

[Dirt]

People using decompilers reported finding a perfect match between the first Houdini and one of the Ippos, except for variable names. Unless they were all lying, it was plagiarism. No one has disputed their findings to my knowledge.

Plagiarism is not illegal. As Ippolit is distributed as public domain he had no need to acknowledge it. Now, if Ippolit was illegally marked as public domain, Robert could have a problem if he is admits to have started with that code if someone appears to claim the copyright. He could lose the rights to all his hard work. It's much more sensible to just keep quiet.

[Modern Times]

Well, the authors of Ippolit have often been described as "anonymous", so who knows maybe Robert was one of them... Everything is just speculation.

[reflectionofpower]

People using decompilers reported finding a perfect match between the first Houdini and one of the Ippos, except for variable names. Unless they were all lying, it was plagiarism. No one has disputed their findings to my knowledge.

Plagiarism is not illegal. As Ippolit is distributed as public domain he had no need to acknowledge it. Now, if Ippolit was illegally marked as public domain, Robert could have a problem if he is admits to have started with that code if someone appears to claim the copyright. He could lose the rights to all his hard work. It's much more sensible to just keep quiet.

Hmm, never really looked into it because it seems every time a new engine comes out someone is calling "foul" so I just tune it out after a while. If Ippolit is public domain then what are we debating about?

I was going to ignore this thread but now it's starting to get juicy.

Where's Prof. Hyatt?

[Modern Times]

I was going to ignore this thread but now it's starting to get juicy.

Where's Prof. Hyatt?

Please no.... Unless you mean, where is Prof Hyatt when we don't need him

[lkaufman]

People using decompilers reported finding a perfect match between the first Houdini and one of the Ippos, except for variable names. Unless they were all lying, it was plagiarism. No one has disputed their findings to my knowledge.

Plagiarism is not illegal. As Ippolit is distributed as public domain he had no need to acknowledge it. Now, if Ippolit was illegally marked as public domain, Robert could have a problem if he is admits to have started with that code if someone appears to claim the copyright. He could lose the rights to all his hard work. It's much more sensible to just keep quiet.

I never said it was illegal, just that his claim to being the original author was a lie (unless, as Ray speculated, he actually wrote Ippolit, but there is zero evidence to support this, although "Roberto Pescatori" does share the same first name with Robert Houdart I realize that lying is no longer a disqualification for becoming President of the United States, but it remains a reason not to trust anything the person in question might say.

[gotogo]

Talk about the teapot
Larry was involved with Rybka when Rybka was using code from Crafty and Friut now he is with Komodo not the original author and who knows how much of rybka code is in Komodo?

I think Robert played it smart... not giving anyone a chance to see beta Houdini before stage three. Now Houdini is doing the unexpected!
It seems Larry is a little sore because he could not tune against Houdini in advance like he has done to Stockfish for years!

Why can't you guys leave this stuff alone?
we all have memories of the past! We all can speculate about every engine out there, nobody here is as clean as a whistle...

[bob]

There is a huge difference between usiing ideas from open-source programs, which is perfectly legitimate, and simply duplicating the code without credit, which is what Mr. Houdart did. I never said that it was easy to improve Ippolit as much as he has, he does deserve credit for this, but he should not be called the author of Houdini. It would be the same if we took Don Dailey's name off of Komodo.

Oh OK !
So there are different types of Cheating, you mean to say.
When Mark Lefler regularly and continuously plagiarizes ideas from Stockfish, that's fine and dandy, and only a minor form of Cheating, no matter how many times he does it and will continue to do it.
But if poor Houdart just ONCE, many years ago, took an idea from an obscure Author and then continuously made top class Engines like Houdini 2,3, 4.... THAT'S an UNFORGIVABLE SIN, and should be punished with the Death Sentence !
LOL, I really love your subtle distinctions !

I love your lack of understanding. There is a HUGE difference between taking an idea and using that, and copying thousands of lines of code verbatim and using that. That is what happened with houdini 1.5...

[rabbits23]

Anil: You might be interested to learn that Grandmasters Lev Alburt and
Al Lawrence agree with you. In their book 'Chess For The Gifted and Busy'
they refer to the pieces of both sides as armies and the opponent as the
enemy which you attack.
Allan

[TShackel]

So no one liked how komodo played? Not one person commented on the games I poseted or how Komodo played. All I got was komodo haters. I wasn't even appealing to Komodo fans per se in as much as I was appealing to chess enthusiasts in general who like to see computers play smart chess. Larry is the only guy who answered a question I had about komodo.

Sincerely,

Tim.

[Modern Times]

I never said it was illegal, just that his claim to being the original author was a lie (unless, as Ray speculated, he actually wrote Ippolit, but there is zero evidence to support this, although "Roberto Pescatori" does share the same first name with Robert Houdart

Or you could say there is zero evidence that he isn't the author... Houdini 1.5 is ancient history anyway, there has been 2, 3 4 and now an unreleased 5 after that. No way of knowing what if anything remains from 1.5, for example like the new Shredder it could be a complete re-write, and given the amount of time that has elapsed, that is certainly possible.