M ANSARI wrote:This latest incident has obviously made this less likely, but I am hoping there might still be a way where creative work can be protected by force and not by hoping for the proper ethical behaviour of people. By force I don't mean to smack the thieves on the head or throw lawsuits at them (although that sometimes might seem like a good idea) but rather by putting the code on some hardware card which is proprietary and thus very difficult to hack. I think that is the only way for the future of professional chess engines if they happen to be #1.
This is a leading cause of piracy. When you add DRM, proprietary hardware, and phone home stuff into your programs, the "benign" version you buy turns out to be vastly more cumbersome to use than a hacked one which has no crazy restrictions and is therefore more useful.
That is not entirely true. The main cause of piracy is 1) you cannot afford it and you need it 2) People like bargains and a pirated copy is the perfect bargain. Particularly if my "neighbor" has it and I crave for it.
1) does not apply to chess engines, but 2 does.
There is no reasonable excuse to use pirated copies of engines.
bob wrote:
It is only legally questionable when legitimate proof of the clone claim is provided. That would _not_ be hard to do. If it _is_ a clone, how would it reveal any Rybka secrets since Robo* apparently has them inside already. So exactly what justification can be given for Vas _not_ providing some clear-cut examples of identical code? I can't think of a single valid explanation, unless Robo is not really a clone.
There is a difference because how else for you it had any importance that Vas claimed Strelka? Only then you began your argument although the Osipov figure had said the same before and after the claim from Vas. I am not alawyer but perhaps for you the difference is that without the claim you would do something which you shouldnt do but with the claim you can exploit it. Sorry it's more a question from my side, not at all a critic or anything like this against you. But you must know the difference. Please explain it.
I don't know what you are talking about. Vas claimed Strelka to be his code. Someone compared this to fruit and said "aha, lots of copied/similar code". That started the discussion. Later others went directly to Rybka 1 binary and compared to fruit. End of that story.
Here, Vas has only claimed Robo* is a clone. No proof. No nothing. Makes the claim absolutely meaningless.
You misunderstand. THe point is if data from Vas would have any impact. Strelka showed a different result, he was even more accused. Same now. What all are asking you now is look at the code (without allowance from Vas) and join Don and PLEASE then help to get over the mess, Bob. Save computerchess now. Please.
Of course, if he has even more to "hide" then you could be correct. But then that would not exactly be flattering for him, would it? You can't have it all ways. This either falls on one side of the line or the other. We know what happened with Rybka 1 and fruit. And no amount of hand-waving and such is going to change that at all. We don't yet know what happened with Robo* and Rybka 3. And I suspect we are not going to know. What that implies I don't know, and don't care.
Well, to be precise a new program that was clearly made by decompiling Rybka 3 and putting it back together with changes to the evaluation function published its source code. So not the entire R3 code is public, but most of it other than the exact evaluation function is. The "author" does not publicly admit that his program was taken from R3, but Vas has said so and I can tell you that the similarities are so overwhelming that any claim to the contrary is a joke.
Does this help you or not?
-Popper and Lakatos are good but I'm stuck on Leibowitz
Nimzovik wrote:Graham. You may very well be quite correct. However I have read on this and other forums that the said issue is apparantly hotly contested. As for the anonymity of the authors that does indeed look -flakey. Their site even flakier. However there are indeed many reasons one choses to be unknown. I can not speak to that. My personal dilemma is that as I stated I am to ignorant to unequivocably know for certain the absolute correctness of either side of the issue. Many posters seem to have doubts both ways. They seem knowledgeble to me.
Yes - everybody is entitled to their opinion. A lot of honest, genuine people have been misled over this.
Cheers,
Graham.
The problem with opinions is that they are like ***holes. Everyone has one, but the believe theirs doesn't stink.
Nimzovik wrote:Graham. You may very well be quite correct. However I have read on this and other forums that the said issue is apparantly hotly contested. As for the anonymity of the authors that does indeed look -flakey. Their site even flakier. However there are indeed many reasons one choses to be unknown. I can not speak to that. My personal dilemma is that as I stated I am to ignorant to unequivocably know for certain the absolute correctness of either side of the issue. Many posters seem to have doubts both ways. They seem knowledgeble to me.
Yes - everybody is entitled to their opinion. A lot of honest, genuine people have been misled over this.
Cheers,
Graham.
The problem with opinions is that they are like ***holes. Everyone has one, but they! believe theirs doesn't stink.
Graham Banks wrote:
Larry Kaufmann posted the following in the Rybka forum:
Well, to be precise a new program that was clearly made by decompiling Rybka 3 and putting it back together with changes to the evaluation function published its source code. So not the entire R3 code is public, but most of it other than the exact evaluation function is. The "author" does not publicly admit that his program was taken from R3, but Vas has said so and I can tell you that the similarities are so overwhelming that any claim to the contrary is a joke.
But that is excellent news! Just show me some of those overwhelming similarities. I'd be totally satisfied knowing Ippolit is a Rybka clone, I find the current situation awkward.
PS. I am a bit sceptic about Larry's words. How can the similarities be overwhelming for him when all he did was listen to what Vas said to him.
And how can everything _but_ the evaluation be the same? Why would one not reverse-engineer the most critical part of the program???
Graham Banks wrote:
How do you account for the views of other respected programmers such as Gian-Carlo Pascutto, Don Dailey, Andres Valverdes (plus other programmers who now include Eric Mullins) when they say that they believe it to be a Rybka clone also?
And why would other forums including the Hiarcs forum ban links?
We can't live in cloud-cuckoo land in CCC forever. Links should be banned.
I challenge other programmers who believe Robbo to be a clone to step forward and say so.
Please remain on topic. We were talking about Larry's claim here.
I still answer your questions.
1. I don't think 'believing' is an evidence even if the 'believer' is a respected programmer.
2. The ban is not an evidence. It is a verdict.
Apparently if you declare someone guilty, then that is proof that they are guilty, at least in some court somewhere in never-never-land.
bob wrote:
It is only legally questionable when legitimate proof of the clone claim is provided. That would _not_ be hard to do. If it _is_ a clone, how would it reveal any Rybka secrets since Robo* apparently has them inside already. So exactly what justification can be given for Vas _not_ providing some clear-cut examples of identical code? I can't think of a single valid explanation, unless Robo is not really a clone.
There is a difference because how else for you it had any importance that Vas claimed Strelka? Only then you began your argument although the Osipov figure had said the same before and after the claim from Vas. I am not alawyer but perhaps for you the difference is that without the claim you would do something which you shouldnt do but with the claim you can exploit it. Sorry it's more a question from my side, not at all a critic or anything like this against you. But you must know the difference. Please explain it.
I don't know what you are talking about. Vas claimed Strelka to be his code. Someone compared this to fruit and said "aha, lots of copied/similar code". That started the discussion. Later others went directly to Rybka 1 binary and compared to fruit. End of that story.
Here, Vas has only claimed Robo* is a clone. No proof. No nothing. Makes the claim absolutely meaningless.
You misunderstand. THe point is if data from Vas would have any impact. Strelka showed a different result, he was even more accused. Same now. What all are asking you now is look at the code (without allowance from Vas) and join Don and PLEASE then help to get over the mess, Bob. Save computerchess now. Please.
Of course, if he has even more to "hide" then you could be correct. But then that would not exactly be flattering for him, would it? You can't have it all ways. This either falls on one side of the line or the other. We know what happened with Rybka 1 and fruit. And no amount of hand-waving and such is going to change that at all. We don't yet know what happened with Robo* and Rybka 3. And I suspect we are not going to know. What that implies I don't know, and don't care.
Well, to be precise a new program that was clearly made by decompiling Rybka 3 and putting it back together with changes to the evaluation function published its source code. So not the entire R3 code is public, but most of it other than the exact evaluation function is. The "author" does not publicly admit that his program was taken from R3, but Vas has said so and I can tell you that the similarities are so overwhelming that any claim to the contrary is a joke.
M ANSARI wrote:This latest incident has obviously made this less likely, but I am hoping there might still be a way where creative work can be protected by force and not by hoping for the proper ethical behaviour of people. By force I don't mean to smack the thieves on the head or throw lawsuits at them (although that sometimes might seem like a good idea) but rather by putting the code on some hardware card which is proprietary and thus very difficult to hack. I think that is the only way for the future of professional chess engines if they happen to be #1.
This is a leading cause of piracy. When you add DRM, proprietary hardware, and phone home stuff into your programs, the "benign" version you buy turns out to be vastly more cumbersome to use than a hacked one which has no crazy restrictions and is therefore more useful.
That is not entirely true. The main cause of piracy is 1) you cannot afford it and you need it 2) People like bargains and a pirated copy is the perfect bargain. Particularly if my "neighbor" has it and I crave for it.
1) does not apply to chess engines, but 2 does.
There is no reasonable excuse to use pirated copies of engines.
I don't know what you read from my post. But this reply makes no sense to me in the context of what I wrote.
I think there is a good way to show that it is a Rybka 3 clone, even though I have absolutely no doubt. By looking at a lot of games between the two engines I have yet to see a position where both engines do not agree, except of course with some of the known bugs of Rybka 3 ... mostly the EGTB hash bug and the blind bishop bug. If there was a MV mode maybe we could look at the output of the best moves and correlate that to see how both engines assess the position. Obviously there would have to be a speed correction factor since the clone runs the executable much faster. I would not be surprised if the equivalent move selection would be by far higher than would be expected from a non clone. Maybe there is a good reason there is no MV mode as things would be too obvious. Some knowledge in Robbo is missing but that knowledge seems to be compensated for by speed. I have yet to see a game where Rybka 3 was outplayed by evaluation and not by faster speed. Rybka 3 has some weaknesses, of course the bugs are well documented, but it also has a weakness in King safety and in bishop pair evaluation ... if you look at games with Rybka 3 against DS 12 and Naum 4 and Stockfish ... you will see that even R3 on 8 cores will lose games due to mis evaluation of the positions being mentioned against single core programs of those versions. This does not happen with R3 8 cores against Robbo 1 core ... which is consistent with what I think a clone's results would be. I think if we set some positions and factor in whatever speed advantage Robbolito has over R3 single core, that the play would be virtually identical.
bob wrote:
It is only legally questionable when legitimate proof of the clone claim is provided. That would _not_ be hard to do. If it _is_ a clone, how would it reveal any Rybka secrets since Robo* apparently has them inside already. So exactly what justification can be given for Vas _not_ providing some clear-cut examples of identical code? I can't think of a single valid explanation, unless Robo is not really a clone.
There is a difference because how else for you it had any importance that Vas claimed Strelka? Only then you began your argument although the Osipov figure had said the same before and after the claim from Vas. I am not alawyer but perhaps for you the difference is that without the claim you would do something which you shouldnt do but with the claim you can exploit it. Sorry it's more a question from my side, not at all a critic or anything like this against you. But you must know the difference. Please explain it.
I don't know what you are talking about. Vas claimed Strelka to be his code. Someone compared this to fruit and said "aha, lots of copied/similar code". That started the discussion. Later others went directly to Rybka 1 binary and compared to fruit. End of that story.
Here, Vas has only claimed Robo* is a clone. No proof. No nothing. Makes the claim absolutely meaningless.
You misunderstand. THe point is if data from Vas would have any impact. Strelka showed a different result, he was even more accused. Same now. What all are asking you now is look at the code (without allowance from Vas) and join Don and PLEASE then help to get over the mess, Bob. Save computerchess now. Please.
Of course, if he has even more to "hide" then you could be correct. But then that would not exactly be flattering for him, would it? You can't have it all ways. This either falls on one side of the line or the other. We know what happened with Rybka 1 and fruit. And no amount of hand-waving and such is going to change that at all. We don't yet know what happened with Robo* and Rybka 3. And I suspect we are not going to know. What that implies I don't know, and don't care.
Well, to be precise a new program that was clearly made by decompiling Rybka 3 and putting it back together with changes to the evaluation function published its source code. So not the entire R3 code is public, but most of it other than the exact evaluation function is. The "author" does not publicly admit that his program was taken from R3, but Vas has said so and I can tell you that the similarities are so overwhelming that any claim to the contrary is a joke.
Does this help you or not?
Not one iota.
Sure you need details so that they could be utilized. But the text is from the Honorable GM Larry Kaufman, and you will perhaps treat it with respect please. Larry knows what he's talking about. But again unless the whole original source code of R isnt sent to you you will call Vas a liar. The story is well known. Tolerating anon dirt and scapegoating Brightness. -> Witchhunting.
-Popper and Lakatos are good but I'm stuck on Leibowitz
