Thoughts...

[Eelco de Groot]

I suspect that you know more about the GPL than I do. My understanding is that if you restrict your use of GPL material to private use, you do not have to publish the code. However if you release something to the public you have to include source code with it. Ryan released Fruit to the public and therefore the code is also available to the public without his permission. Is that correct?

Please read my post above. A commercial Fruit would hardly have been possible if it had to be published together with sources. When Fabien still had the rights he could modify the code and still sell it without GPL. This no longer is possible which seems fitting because Fruit is no longer a commercially maintained program.

[bnemias]

I think that the best solution is if Fabien
is going to say that he allows Vas to use Rybka1 beta and rybka1 derivative without making the code public.

This may already have happened, but isn't public. It's pure speculation of course. But I know if I were in Vas' position and I had legal license to Fruit code in all Rybka versions, I would be inclined to let the CCC people debate the Fruit-Rybka connection for years on end. Other than stopping debate here, there would be no reason to mention it until pushed legally.

Now just suppose it has happened. Then we get to debate if it occurred before or after Fabien transferred his rights to the FSF. Heh.

Humor aside, I don't even see that solution as necessary. So far the only connection is with Rybka 1 which is no longer being distributed. While it might be prudent to have such recourse in advance, there isn't any need until some connection is made between Fruit and current Rybka versions.

[Matthias Gemuh]

So far the only connection is with Rybka 1 which is no longer being distributed. While it might be prudent to have such recourse in advance, there isn't any need until some connection is made between Fruit and current Rybka versions.

You choose to assume a very unusual disconnection at source code level between Rybka1 and subsequent Rybkas ?
Such a disconnection would need to be proven.

Matthias.

[bnemias]

You choose to assume a very unusual disconnection at source code level between Rybka1 and subsequent Rybkas ?
Such a disconnection would need to be proven.

I didn't assume that, actually. It was based on how the FSF pursues GPL infringement.

[K I Hyams]

I suspect that you know more about the GPL than I do. My understanding is that if you restrict your use of GPL material to private use, you do not have to publish the code. However if you release something to the public you have to include source code with it. Ryan released Fruit to the public and therefore the code is also available to the public without his permission. Is that correct?

Please read my post above. A commercial Fruit would hardly have been possible if it had to be published together with sources. When Fabien still had the rights he could modify the code and still sell it without GPL. This no longer is possible which seems fitting because Fruit is no longer a commercially maintained program.

I understood that he initially released it as freeware, then changed it to copy protected commercial and then released it as open source, under the GPL, when he decided to stop development. I am therefore surprised to hear that development was restricted to Ryan.

[Matthias Gemuh]

You choose to assume a very unusual disconnection at source code level between Rybka1 and subsequent Rybkas ?
Such a disconnection would need to be proven.

I didn't assume that, actually. It was based on how the FSF pursues GPL infringement.

OK, the "not guilty till convicted" approach.

.

[Rolf]

I think that the best solution is if Fabien
is going to say that he allows Vas to use Rybka1 beta and rybka1 derivative without making the code public.

This may already have happened, but isn't public. It's pure speculation of course. But I know if I were in Vas' position and I had legal license to Fruit code in all Rybka versions, I would be inclined to let the CCC people debate the Fruit-Rybka connection for years on end. Other than stopping debate here, there would be no reason to mention it until pushed legally.

Now just suppose it has happened. Then we get to debate if it occurred before or after Fabien transferred his rights to the FSF. Heh.

Humor aside, I don't even see that solution as necessary. So far the only connection is with Rybka 1 which is no longer being distributed. While it might be prudent to have such recourse in advance, there isn't any need until some connection is made between Fruit and current Rybka versions.

Then I ask myself why that has been ruminated all over these years in CCC. Cant you imagine the mess if we mistreated a noble gentleman (not anonymous at all) with such badmouthed allegations as if we could just skip his given word that he had only original code plus public domain.

Do you authorize me to quickly, still on Sunday, hurry to Vas and beg him to accept our excuses?

Look, the mess gets even bigger if Bob has correctly seen identical code in irrelevant material. I never have met such a slapstick comedy where some people claim guilty on the base of a similarity of Strelka which doesnt have any concrete impact for the question you dealt with above.

The next joke is with the bugs in R 3. Didnt already Fab joke endlessly in his last History from back in 2005? Nobody has read the Ridderswijk page? It was Fab who had this master idea that a bug is the method to catch hundreds of honest cloners, . Take a glimpse there and understand that Vas is the genuine follower of Fab. In one decisive difference between Fab and Vas even I find a place, because it seems as if Vas took the chess and combined it with silence while I cared for the extreme overlength of verbal excursions at night that have been so beloved by Fab. He will live on forever.

If you read that, I speak French almost fluently, so, if you plan a comeback, let me know. Adieu pour le moment. -Rolf

[Guenther]

Just a side note, from where did you quote that above and who is 'Harald'?

http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopi ... 07&t=30916

Anyhow my 'scientific' side note on the above text is that it is somehow
manipulated to wrongly imply something.

I make no claim that the example that Mr Lussen used is accurate. I merely used his quote to make the point that those who are experienced in a particular area often develop a very quick and accurate eye for detail. I suspect that Kasparov, amongst others, will have developed similar.

Thanks for the original link from a different thread.
Knowing Harald from several posts and as the programmer of Elephant,
I am quite sure he didn't make this numbers up himself, but probably
fell for some 'Wiki-fact'.

I know that the numbers had not much to do with your real point,
but the inaccuracy hit my eyes.

Guenther

[K I Hyams]

I suspect that you know more about the GPL than I do. My understanding is that if you restrict your use of GPL material to private use, you do not have to publish the code. However if you release something to the public you have to include source code with it. Ryan released Fruit to the public and therefore the code is also available to the public without his permission. Is that correct?

Please read my post above. A commercial Fruit would hardly have been possible if it had to be published together with sources. When Fabien still had the rights he could modify the code and still sell it without GPL. This no longer is possible which seems fitting because Fruit is no longer a commercially maintained program.

Whatever the current status of the latest Fruit code may be, the main point at issue is whether there is sufficient access to Fruit code to judge whether it is present in Rybka. If my understanding is correct, then early versions of Fruit code are available and so the need to gain permission from Ryan Benitez to inspect that code may not be needed.

[Eelco de Groot]

I suspect that you know more about the GPL than I do. My understanding is that if you restrict your use of GPL material to private use, you do not have to publish the code. However if you release something to the public you have to include source code with it. Ryan released Fruit to the public and therefore the code is also available to the public without his permission. Is that correct?

Please read my post above. A commercial Fruit would hardly have been possible if it had to be published together with sources. When Fabien still had the rights he could modify the code and still sell it without GPL. This no longer is possible which seems fitting because Fruit is no longer a commercially maintained program.

I understood that he initially released it as freeware, then changed it to copy protected commercial and then released it as open source, under the GPL, when he decided to stop development.

If still unclear what I meant with "above", I only made one other post, I meant the post directly above your post where I responded to Uri explaining that Ryan had a license from Fabien Letouzey that goes above the GPL, to be able to make closed source releases of Fruit if he wishes, and he still has that.

I don't exactly recall if the first Fruits were without license, I suppose you are right about that. But the second phase in the life of Fruit was I believe the GPL one for Fruit 2.1 as last version, and it is this version which we all can still use or modify under the GPL and on which for instance all the Toga versions are based. When however other programmers protested, that this GPL did not really give the protection Fabien had wished to have against commercial (ab-)use and closed source (mis-)use by others, a fact which maybe is still relevant in our Rybka discussions, Fabien decided to go commercial with his program. I am not totally clear what his intentions were when he did that, on my part it would only be speculating, but I saw it as a way for him to continue with his program while no longer being bound to the GPL licensing which in the case of Toga and others were a bit disappointing for Fabien. He got the blame for all the clones, legal and illegal ones which, because the Fruit code was so good, were by many considered the bane of the idea that computer chess programming is an individual sport, where every programmer has to write all his code himself without any copying and especially direct code-copying. A bit anathema to the whole open source idea if you ask me but people felt the clones where everywhere and destroying their sport.

The GPL probably did not really offer practical protection against clones, only in case of commercial abuse the FSF can act (This is just my amateur interpretation, I'm no software expert or anything)

But back to Fruit, the commercial phase was also Fruit's third lifecycle but it did not change anything about the GPL conditions for Fruit 2.1, which are still the same for everyone today and still would apply to Rybka also:

No code taken directly from Fruit 2.1 should be in a closed program, the only exceptions are the commercial versions of Fruit by Fabien and Ryan together, starting with Fruit 2.2 and Fruit 2.2.1, not under the GPL, and any subsequent closed source versions from Ryan Benitez. But, if not closed source, the code can be used by the rest of us in GPL based open source versions of the code, like Toga, if correctly done with both sources and license, a mentioned and traceable author are I think also a necessity for the GPL to work, things like a code-changes list etc.

Eelco