Equal treatment

[Rolf]

That is a good question and I am not a legal expert but as far as I know you can always do that for personal use. What I don't know is if for instance Chessbase are allowed to prevent me from doing that and if they are trying to do that in their licence agreements.

Antother question is if I manage to reveal some "secrets" from a commercial program can I publish my findings in text? I don't know the answer.

What I am talking about is looking at the machine code or the disassemblied version of it and learn. It is like studying and remembering poetry. Break it down into pieces try to understand how the author created it. Learn and develop something of your own.

To disassembly and understand the programs you mentioned (Fritz, Shredder and Junior) is a real challenge and a task comparable to write the programs yourself. It requires a great dela of skills in both chess programing and assembly language and who is prepared to put all that time and effort in something like this?
You can rest assured that the authors of these three programs have carefully studied each others programs, both in behaviour and in code snippets.
/Peter

Peter, things should be judged in context. And then experts should speak their verdicts from all what they had seen. We have a case where some anon is investing much time to prove something nobody had asked for. To the contrary this anon accuses the actually best program and its author. Under these conditions you argue against yourself if you correctly mention all the efforts and extra times the guy invested. Because normally I would expect that you told us your verdict about the connect between anonymity and the accusations. You then go even further and admire all the efforts and then you state that the commercial brothers do such tghings on a regular basis. Shouldnt we at first condemn such a wrongdoing under the hidance of an anonymous shield in Russia (!)?

How would you feel if you were in Vasik's shoes? Wouldnt you wish thatg he could protect his advantages a bit longer before vilains (spelling?) published your source under the pretense of publishing their own cloned creation?

Peter, I make this appeal to you. Cant you condemn it if someone appears who has never been known for a chessprogram, then doesnt introduce his name and nothing and then shows you his rewriting or whatever of another man's code? Would you really have nothing better to say than oh, fine, you are a real cretive genius and it must have cost you hours and days, but as I know all professionals in our field do exactgly this all day long?

Please, I dont want to pretend that you had said something you really had never exprerssed, but I just want to see how a real expert, I happen to know from the older days, is judging such a "crime". IMO it became a 100% crime after I read that Ossipov didnt just talk about what he did but what he thought someone like Vas had done. Doesnt that stink for you?

[Onno Garms]

I think that he could easily write a better chess program than strelka and maybe even write a better chess program than commercial rybka but he was not interested in it.

I am not so sure about that. I agree that reverse engineering and reimplementing Rybka requires an enormous skill level. But writing a chess engine is also the result of endless trial and error in fine tuning. For example, reading best weights from assembler code might require considerable less efford and certainly less computational power then figuring them out by yourself.

[Onno Garms]

You can rest assured that the authors of these three programs have carefully studied each others programs, both in behaviour and in code snippets.
/Peter

I doubt that a single individual has enough time to write his own engine AND reverse engineer TWO others AND to earn his living (which for example means for Stefan to write a GUI and lots other software around his engine). The Strelka author seems to have at least neglected his own development when he disassabled Rybka (ONE engine).

IMHO, playing strength is mainly limitted by the author's time. Writing at my engine, my todo list gets longer instead of shorter. I have many ideas how to improve the strength. Some of them are only things to try, with others I am quite certain that they will work. Just a lack of time stops me from implementing them.

AFAIR, Stefan Meyer-Kahlen said in a former interview, that he did not find time even to read Fruit's sources. After fruit had become stronger and stronger, he finally said that he read the sources and was disappointed to find most of the ideas already implemented in his engine or not suitable for his style.

[Peter Fendrich]

Fruit was not a threat to Stefan in the beginning so why study it.
When it became stronger he took his time to study the source code.
Perfectly logic to me and absolutely ok from my point of view.

/Peter

[Peter Fendrich]

I was not talking about Strelka. I don't know what the author did.

I absolutely condemn illegal copying code. Also assembly code of cource.
Study someones program is ok. For me that is not a contradiction.

IMO it became a 100% crime after I read that Ossipov didnt just talk about what he did but what he thought someone like Vas had done. Doesnt that stink for you?

You try to steer this into the Strelka debate all the time
But Rolf, there are several unclear facts here. We don't know exactly what Ossipov said. We have a translation made by a non-professional translator. Furthermore he (Ossipov) can not know what Vas did or not. Just guess. Finally we don't know if Ossipov told us the truth. I wouldn't even try to feel the smell under these circumstances.
/Peter

[Rolf]

I was not talking about Strelka. I don't know what the author did.

I absolutely condemn illegal copying code. Also assembly code of cource.
Study someones program is ok. For me that is not a contradiction.

IMO it became a 100% crime after I read that Ossipov didnt just talk about what he did but what he thought someone like Vas had done. Doesnt that stink for you?

You try to steer this into the Strelka debate all the time
But Rolf, there are several unclear facts here. We don't know exactly what Ossipov said. We have a translation made by a non-professional translator. Furthermore he (Ossipov) can not know what Vas did or not. Just guess. Finally we don't know if Ossipov told us the truth. I wouldn't even try to feel the smell under these circumstances.
/Peter

We dont know what Ossipov says and what he thinks nor who he is. But we know what I think and that is, I repeat myself, a strong critic against Ossipov/Manev message because they are anonymously accusing Vasik. Further mypoint was that all those who take the anonymous messages as a basis for any form of accusations against Vas, all those act in an unallowed indecent manner also to the disadvantage of Vas again.

Of course we dont know what STRELKA is standing for and I wouldnt make any suggestions. As an expert for human behavior or misbehavior I conclude that Ossipov/Manev are already on the wrong because they anonymously accused Vasik. That connect is already sufficient for a decisive verdict. And the rest of a possible excuse went down the darain by the Manev declaration what he would say in case a judge would ask him - if he were at the position of Ossipov. Did you read that? So fact is that they think that they have not to fear anything of negative, but only Vasik is a victim of an impressive smear campaign without former example.

I would have wished I could have convinced you as an expert to say more than just that you are against cloning. Many others are just asking for clarification if that was here a cloning at all. And that uncertainty must be clarified with the verdict I tried to justify, that already the anonymity alone in combination with negative remarks about the best programmer around IS the crime whether or not the Strelka is a perfect clone or not.

I repeat my question to all members, who might have had the motivation to inspire or support the anonymous smear campaign against Rybka author Vasik? I have my favorites. Looking back towards Elista.

Go back into the early debates about Strelka. There I was in defense for a possibly creative shooting star. After the last messages against Vasik no matter from anonymous himself or Manev as transmitter I have no other reaction for Strelka than contempt. You cant defend "Ossipov" as possible innocent because of his anonymity that speaks aginst him without possible excuses. The anonymity also kills the possible excuses of bad English and such.

Ossipov repeatedly declared that he were a "free man" but in carefully judging about his apparent skills and his intentional insult/attack with his anonymous shield I can only see a man with a motivation under a certain agenda to harm our actual hero in the scene. I further see a blackmail potential because the threat is the engineering of the actual Rybka engine which would destroy Vasik's income.

I'm waiting now for the next news in this scandal.

[GenoM]

Manev, Manev, Manev... what a post, Rolf! And after citing my name so many times you're suggesting that i used anonimity to accuse Vasik... Its hard to follow your logic, you know.
And what Manev did was that he made a translation (poor may be, however plz dont kill me) of Ossipov' posting in russian forum.
Shame on me!

[Rolf]

Manev, Manev, Manev... what a post, Rolf! And after citing my name so many times you're suggesting that i used anonimity to accuse Vasik... Its hard to follow your logic, you know.
And what Manev did was that he made a translation (poor may be, however plz dont kill me) of Ossipov' posting in russian forum.
Shame on me!

Let's try to repair that. You spoke to Ossipov, correct? You wrote in joking manner that you would tell a judge, if you were Ossipov, that you hadnt done something wrong etc, correct? You identified yourself more than neccessary with Ossipov. You are not just a neutral reporter that stands under moral protection also in my eyes. Dont you realise that the reported things you posted did harm to Vasik? I'm speaking against that harm. And up to now you seemed to miss the extension of such harm. Am I wrong, please tell me. But without further explanation you are not just the reporter. Sorry. You used too much of good humor in your reports. Hope you can read my bad English.

[GenoM]

My identification with Ossipov is a bad guess, Rolf. This post of mine was my way to say that all speculations about violating GPL from Ossipov side was based on the words of someone in the internet forum. It was my way to suggest that such speculations are like building a house on the sands -- all Daniel wrote sounded so hypotetical to me, sorry about this.
Lets clear up things. I didnt ever spoke to Ossipov in my life, I didnt know him.
And please tell me how the translation I made harms in any manner Vasik Rajlich?! Come on, Rolf, thats not serious. What can harm Vasik is the possibility that words of Ossipov are true and Rybka is derrivative of Fruit. I did not claim that this statement of Ossipov is true but I can't reject the possibility that it may be true. Do you feel the difference?
Enough for now, I hope I clarified my point of view at this case.
Regards,
Geno

PS:
I am also wandering about motives of Strelka's author so I am trying to find them. The only quite reasonnable motive is that he was trying in such a tricky way to say to all what he believed to be the truth about Rybka. May be I am wrong but this is the way I see it.

[Rolf]

My identification with Ossipov is a bad guess, Rolf. This post of mine was my way to say that all speculations about violating GPL from Ossipov side was based on the words of someone in the internet forum. It was my way to suggest that such speculations are like building a house on the sands -- all Daniel wrote sounded so hypotetical to me, sorry about this.
Lets clear up things. I didnt ever spoke to Ossipov in my life, I didnt know him.
And please tell me how the translation I made harms in any manner Vasik Rajlich?! Come on, Rolf, thats not serious. What can harm Vasik is the possibility that words of Ossipov are true and Rybka is derrivative of Fruit. I did not claim that this statement of Ossipov is true but I can't reject the possibility that it may be true. Do you feel the difference?
Enough for now, I hope I clarified my point of view at this case.
Regards,
Geno

But then I must claim a draw by mutual agreement, Geno! Do you accept my peace offer? And please take care if you are communicating with anons. Says yours truly. The real Rolf.