AndrewGrant wrote: ↑Fri Aug 13, 2021 5:24 am
Recently there has been a dramatic escalation in what I, and many like minded individuals, consider to be depraved and unfounded ways of viewing the world. The other day, a thread was created surrounding the Eman engine's author decision to cease distribution of the project, in order to not continue to violate the GPLv3 associated with the Stockfish project. To my surprise and absolute disgust, a handful of users went on to label Stockfish's authors and copyright holders as the bad guys, for seeking that their license be upheld. Going so far as to say Stockfish's authors have an unjust monopoly of power in the computer chess world.
Comments like these are of course ignorant -- fully devoid of any understanding of the GPLv3, the purpose of the it, the letter and spirit of it, and more generally copyleft approaches to licensing. It is an act of near sociopathic entitlement to feel that you have the right to do whatever you see fit with the Stockfish project, without adhering to the license attached to the project. You as an individual, or even as a Stockfish contributor, are not entitled to the fruits of the labor of the entire Stockfish team. Even Marco and Tord do not hold that right -- a choice they made, by putting their projects under the GPLv3. A noble set of choices which propelled Computer Chess into a new era.
We've reached a mindset where everything is about Stockfish. I make an active effort to contact and talk with authors who post their initial releases of their engines here, because when a day comes where no one new is joining, the day where the entire hobby dies is only around the corner. However, there exist users here that do the opposite of this. Upon my commercial release of Ethereal, I was blasted with comments scorning me for not using Stockfish networks. For not releasing all of my work publicly. For allowing Ethereal to be less than it could be, in order to be more original and effortful by not reusing a Stockfish NNUE file or implementation. I was derided in these very forums for going my own way.
So to me it is no surprise that everyday a higher percent of the total projects contain significant portions of Stockfish. Whether they are legal or illegal Stockfish clones, engines using the Stockfish NNUE implementation (legally or illegally), engines using Stockfish trained Network files (legal, always?), and so on. In a mixed form of zealotry and narcissism, users feel that everything should be Stockfish, and that everything should be open for them to use without any restrictions.
The existence of Fruit was a miracle. The existence of Stockfish is a miracle. The existence of Leela is a miracle. The existence of Fishtest and OpenBench and Cutechess and Python-Chess and so many other tools used everyday in this hobby is a blessing. Passionate people have built incredible tools and projects, and given them to the world free of charge. But most of those projects have a simple request: that you carry on their license. Its a trivial request. Its free ice cream, and all you have to do is say "Thanks" -- still too much for some.
This community lately deserves Robert Houdart, ChessBase, and all the other grifters. They deserve someone who comes in and swindles the masses. This was not always the case thankfully. Not long ago users of this forum held a firm line against those who violated the copyrights of others. I won't name specific names here, but some of the forums current users who have marked themselves as above the fray, above the drama, and independent, once took hard stances against engine developers who would blatantly rip off the copyright of others. There was even a time when the moderation of this forum took action -- banning developers of that nature.
I do not know exactly what changed. Perhaps the exposure of Houdini and others as Stockfish clones shocked people in a way from which they cannot recover. Perhaps the Fruit vs Rybka situation caused people so much fear over topics of copyright violation that they no longer are willing to engage with even the clearest of cases. Fruit vs Rybka is an unsettled matter -- I've seen arguments from people I respect on both sides --but there are no Fruit vs Rybka cases today. The only people to whom the modern cases are not clear, are those who are willfully ignorant or unwilling to put forth the effort to digest the situation.
When authors and developers are chastised for not reusing the technology and code of stronger projects -- When tournaments and rating lists reward those who stomp on the generous works of others by including infringing engines -- When trolls exist solely to justify and rationalize the ever increasing degrees of wrong doings -- I don't see how an outcome other than what we see today is possible. Most all have abandoned these forums. Technical discussion now exists in Discord servers and on Fishcooking. The knowledge and insights of our most talented are no longer archived here as CCC was from decades ago.
