Rybka 1.0 vs. Strelka

[Tony]

I'm old enough that I don't really care about this stuff. I have slowly learned that human nature is what it is. People lie, cheat, steal, kill, etc all the time ....

.

IMO there are 2 reasons why people do that.

1 They think they can get away with it
2 There will always be people defending them because they think it's great that they managed to get away with it. Seen the people cheer for massmurderers that go to court ?

And the people from 2 help to make 1 happen, because they make it people very difficult to speak up.

I'm not sure wich people I dislike most.

Tony

[kranium]

I would like to make a comment. It was posted on the CTF forum that they discovered that anyone who makes statements on these sites can be held for libel and that means that any accuasuations against another can result in a law suit.
Now just because Vas stated that he looked at Fruit does not mean that he copied any of Fruits algorythms at all and any one who claims that he did is or could be sued for libel. It never ceases to amaze me just how many experts that are here who don't even program or have the capaicity to program their own chess engines can make such claims against another who puts together a winning program.
Fortunately for these poor saps it appears that Vas is above and beyond such trival crap.
Bill

if you don't program or have the capacity to program you're a 'sap'?
ouch
i don't agree...and this issue is not trivial.

[bob]

IMO you all oversee something important:

you all believe that VAS has written Rybka.
there could be an alternative explanation why Rybka looks from the structure like fruit.
and it would not be a legal issue than.

what if rybka is in fact programmed by fabian letouzey FOR Vas purposes?

There is a big difference between "being written by" and "looking like". Everytime I rewrite something, it looks nothing like its predecessor version. If you therefore mean "what if FL had modified fruit source for Vas? Same problem. Once it is released as GPL, it is GPL. Even if the original author gives permission to someone to use it, it is still GPL.

And do you _really_ believe that is what happened? If so, I have some ocean-front property in Kansas I'd like to sell you to go along with that.

[bob]

[quote="Bill Rogers"]I would like to make a comment. It was posted on the CTF forum that they discovered that anyone who makes statements on these sites can be held for libel and that means that any accuasuations against another can result in a law suit.
Now just because Vas stated that he looked at Fruit does not mean that he copied any of Fruits algorythms at all and any one who claims that he did is or could be sued for libel. It never ceases to amaze me just how many experts that are here who don't even program or have the capaicity to program their own chess engines can make such claims against another who puts together a winning program.
Fortunately for these poor saps it appears that Vas is above and beyond such trival crap.
Bill[/quote


Two issues:

(1) many of "these poor saps" are actual chess program authors with enough experience to compare the source for two programs and conclude "this came from that". Regardless of the posturing, the arguing, the name-calling, that is really a fact that has not been contested.

(2) Libel doesn't pass through a "truthful" claim unless it is obvious that the claim was made to damage a person. And that is nearly impossible to prove, except in rare cases. For example, someone has some dark deed in their background and they have moved on beyond that, possibly after having served time in jail for doing so. And they find a good-paying job. And someone comes in and puts up posters about the past of this person. Now, is it libel? It depends. If the past was a sex-crime sort of offense, and the guy is now dealing with children, it would not be libel as one could infer that people have a right to know. If the past deed was something unrelated to what he is currently doing, then he could win a libel suit even though he actually did what was claimed, because the claim was publicized not for the betterment of the public, but to injure the person personally.

So if this stuff is true, there will never be any sort of libel suit. The danger is that such a suit would validate the claim when experts are called to the stand to testify. Nobody would want to bring that on, as the net result would be a lot of wasted money, counter-suits to recover costs, etc.

Just looking at what has been posted, I would not want to be on the "other side" with someone having found many parts of Crafty came from another program's code. I wouldn't really worry about it anyway since crafty is still open-source which would not violate any sort of GPL agreement. However, if this did happen, then it is a direct action that might have consequences at some point in time if one gets "caught" as may have happened here.

I'm just watching, and responding when appropriate. I don't have time to dig thru code myself, but I can look at what others post and go "hmmm" just like everyone else.

[Uri Blass]

Also get this straight, it has nothing to do with contempt or jealousy over Rybka, if Christophe used the same technique as Vas or any top programmer the gap between not only Vasik's program but all chess programs would be negligible.

I disagree with the assumption that the gap between all chess program is going to be negligible in that case.

The only correct thing is that in this case programs are going to be stronger.

Uri

They ARE stronger, Uri. What is known about the actual strength of the known top programs if one assumes theoretically that Fruit did never exist? Why cant we state that there is a time ante and post Fruit ideas of programming? I simply dont support the campaign here that ONLY Vas has been inspired by Fabien's Fruit ideas.

I agree that not only Vas was inspired by Fabien's Fruit ideas.
The point is not fruit's idea but fruit's code and there is a difference between using fruit's code and using fruit's ideas.

My point is that even if all programmers use fruit's code there is going to be significant difference between playing strength of different programs.

Uri

From his interview with Frank Quisinsky and Alexander Schmidt 05.12.2005, the exact quote follows:

Vasik Rajlich: Yes, the publication of Fruit 2.1 was huge. Look at how many engines took a massive jump in its wake:
Rybka, Hiarcs, Fritz, Zappa, Spike, List, and so on. I went through the Fruit 2.1 source code forwards and backwards and took many things.

note he says: 'took many things'
(there is no differentiation here between ideas, fragments, chunks, tables, names, structure, etc.)

he also states that every commercial program immediately benefited...?
i guess fruit 2.1 was considered fair game at that time...

I believe that part of the commercial programmers also took many things from fruit2.1(not less than Vas) but they were less succesful in improving their program.

Not all of them but part of them.
The reason that people talk only about rybka as fruit derivative is simply the fact that rybka is number 1.

Uri

I'm not aware about any commercial program that would show such large code similarities and even long identical sections of code. If you can find them, please report them.

The reason people talk about Rybka 1.0 being a Fruit 2.1 derivative is simply the fact that it looks from analysis that it is. If you believe it is not, please contradict the factual evidence.



// Christophe

I am not expert about analyzing code from exe file(I do not know assembler code) but my opinion is that people did not try to reverse engineer weaker programs than rybka.

I think that it may be logical to start to analyze programs that are more similiar to toga based on the ccrl tables.

Here is ponder hit most similiar pairs from different family.

8 Loop 13.6 32-bit – Fruit 051103 75.8 777
9 Loop 13.6 32-bit – Fruit 2.2.1 75.8 1186
10 Loop 10.32f – Fruit 2.2.1 75.6 1018
17 Loop M1-T 64-bit 4CPU – Toga II 1.3.1 73.4 1306
18 Loop M1-T 64-bit 2CPU – Toga II 1.3.1 72.7 1532


The first commercial program to suspect based on the list is loop and I wonder if people tried to analyze the exe file of loop to find similiarity to fruit.

Note that the number of moves is also important and not only the percentage of ponder hit because with only 336 moves(as happened in toga-glaurung pair number 12) some list of forced moves may change the result significantly and you can get result that is not typical result.

Uri

[bob]

More specifically, the evidence is posted to show that a work derived from GPL'ed source code has been published as closed source, when the spirit of the GPL licence under which the original work was published is to always allow the source code to be kept open and shared. It is not only against the spirit, it is also explicitely forbidden by the GPL licence, which is the licence the author of the original work has chosen.
// Christophe

let us suppose for discussion purposes that engine B(a closed commercially sold product) is derived from Engine A which is an open program released under the GPL Licence
what recourse is there and to whom can this charge be directed ?
must the author of Engine A make the charge?
can others make the claim for him?
suppose author A no longer cares about his work or is deceased?
can Author A give private permission to author B to continue his work commercially?

i am asking because i do not know if there is any group or persons responsible to insure that GPL licenses are respected
if there is no one to register a complaint with,, then all we have here .. in my hypothetical example ..is a violation of the Spirit of a licence with no legal recourse..
other then universal condemnation from other programmers in public and private forums ..it would seem that in this case.. one is free to take for his own, the work of others and sell it in the open market

again i am posing a hypothetical question ..a worst case scenario

Steve

If this community would know what you mean with hypothetical then the whole campaign against Vas wouldnt exist. Because just for you we are all talking in such a hypothetical manner. If someone concludes something as factual then he must be wrong.

In the moment a commercial one is being hurt in his financial regard you will be able to watch what happens in legal terms. If a really successful commercial one would participate in the actual campaign against Vas and it had consequences of the described manner then you could watch again what happens.

You are assuming too much. For example, would you file suit against someone that was making a claim that hurt you, if you_knew_ that the claim was true? Because to file the suit, you have to make a sworn statement that the claim is false in order to seek damages. And if the claim is later proven true, you just committed perjury and are now looking at prison time rather than seeking financial redress from someone else. The sword of justice cuts both ways so caution is required.

But actually, Steve, let's get this straight, if people attack Vas who have allegedly either cheated the community with proven wrongs or who allegedly have done so, I can only name what I've read here from reliable sources, or if comes from really young talents with no business to offer in the gamble, then of course that has no impact at all other than a waste of bandwith and a destruction of friendship bonds, which seems to mean not so much for some - in the short run, but they obviously miss the long-term effects.

Steve, therefore I use the term campaign which says it all. If the "other" side against Vas had watertight proof there wouldnt be a campaign but a court case to talk about.

Again, wrong assumption. To file a court case is not "free". Anybody here willing to spend a couple of grand to file such a case when there is really nothing to be gained? I could not do so as the first question the judge would ask is "how did this damage you and what are you seeking for compensation?"

So don't bandy the words "court case" about as though it is a trivial thing. It costs real money, takes real time, and except for another commercial entity, it would be difficult to prove how you were damaged. A commercial author could certainly make a case for that, but not those of us that are open-source or non-commercial but private.

You must not invent campaigns if something is proven beyond reasonable doubts. If you dont have such proof and dont want to tell or to admit it, then you cant use the "hypothetical" notion all the time because that would rather weaken your propaganda.

I quote by heart what George had written so clear and convincable:

in such a case you must decide if you have enough proof for a court trial but then you should go for it but if you have doubts and not enough in your hands you shouldnt go for smear acts after the antique motto "semper aliquid haeret". In this case people have made their decision, because those who are actively against Vas have no proof but much free energy for campaigns.

There is a middle ground. Followed by newspaper reporters every day. They are simply trying to write articles that expose the truth. You don't see reporters finding wrongdoing, then writing about it, then filing court cases, since they are not an "interested party" that was damaged. Court cases often follow such articles when law enforcement gets involved when there is wrongdoing. But here, it seems (to me as I read this stuff) that there is simply a "search for the truth" just as there was for all the other past copies of my program and many others. I certainly proved that several programs were absolute copies of Crafty, but I didn't file any court cases. What would be to gain?

The legal issues are beside the point to most. The truth is what they seem to be looking for. And there's nothing wrong with that.

The only thing I see that's wrong is all the technically incompetents that keep weighing in on technical issues without having a single clue about what is _really_ being discussed.

[Graham Banks]

I would like to point out that being inspired by 'ideas' was never specified by Vas. His supporters have always carefully clarified his original comment...

From his interview with Frank Quisinsky and Alexander Schmidt 05.12.2005, the exact quote follows:

Vasik Rajlich: Yes, the publication of Fruit 2.1 was huge. Look at how many engines took a massive jump in its wake:
Rybka, Hiarcs, Fritz, Zappa, Spike, List, and so on. I went through the Fruit 2.1 source code forwards and backwards and took many things.

note he says: 'took many things'
(there is no differentiation here between ideas, inspiration, fragments, chunks, tables, names, structure, etc.)

he also states that every commercial program immediately benefited...?
i guess fruit 2.1 was simply considered fair game at that time...

"Things" could also be interpreted as ideas. I think that sometimes people interpret words in the way that suits them.

[tiger]

I would like to point out that being inspired by 'ideas' was never specified by Vas. His supporters have always carefully clarified his original comment...

From his interview with Frank Quisinsky and Alexander Schmidt 05.12.2005, the exact quote follows:

Vasik Rajlich: Yes, the publication of Fruit 2.1 was huge. Look at how many engines took a massive jump in its wake:
Rybka, Hiarcs, Fritz, Zappa, Spike, List, and so on. I went through the Fruit 2.1 source code forwards and backwards and took many things.

note he says: 'took many things'
(there is no differentiation here between ideas, inspiration, fragments, chunks, tables, names, structure, etc.)

he also states that every commercial program immediately benefited...?
i guess fruit 2.1 was simply considered fair game at that time...

"Things" could also be interpreted as ideas. I think that sometimes people interpret words in the way that suits them.

Which is why comparing code is much more difficult to contradict.



// Christophe

[Uri Blass]

Zach is showing code snippets where Rybka 1.0 is actually more similar to Fruit than Strelka 2.0.

A few days ago there was some vocal opposition to the idea that Rybka 1.0 coud be a derived work of Fruit 2.1.

Where is the opposition now?

There are several skilled people ready to explain why many programmers think (without daring to tell it) that Rybka started its life as Fruit 2.1.

The evidence is now being shown factually. Feel free to contradict it factually.



// Christophe

There is a second possibility that rybka started her life with part of fruit but never had the full source.

I know that movei started its life with part of tscp structures and names of variables and constants (but no chess working code)

Uri

Unfortunately that is enough to settle this immediately. "part of fruit" is unacceptable since _all_ of fruit is GPL'ed. This issue is black or white, with no grey at all.

BTW, in some cases development is obvious. You can go back to reg.games.chess.computer circa 1994 november or so, and find posts by me where I was working on a _new_ program (now called Crafty). I started with the move generator and published the source there and got lots of feedback. You can also find discussions about search and evaluation as they were written, not copied. So starting with someone else's code is not a normal development course.

I do not know what is the normal course.

I know some programs that started with the full tscp code like trace
and I am not sure if most chess programs started without code from other programs.

In my case
I started with legal move generator but I used some constants and variables from tscp and also some names of functions.

My move generator never used mailbox that is part of tscp and used some structures of me that are not part of tscp so it is clearly different than tscp move generator.

Uri

[Rolf]

I would like to make a comment. It was posted on the CTF forum that they discovered that anyone who makes statements on these sites can be held for libel and that means that any accuasuations against another can result in a law suit.
Now just because Vas stated that he looked at Fruit does not mean that he copied any of Fruits algorythms at all and any one who claims that he did is or could be sued for libel. It never ceases to amaze me just how many experts that are here who don't even program or have the capaicity to program their own chess engines can make such claims against another who puts together a winning program.
Fortunately for these poor saps it appears that Vas is above and beyond such trival crap.
Bill

Two issues:

(1) many of "these poor saps" are actual chess program authors with enough experience to compare the source for two programs and conclude "this came from that". Regardless of the posturing, the arguing, the name-calling, that is really a fact that has not been contested.

(2) Libel doesn't pass through a "truthful" claim unless it is obvious that the claim was made to damage a person. And that is nearly impossible to prove, except in rare cases. For example, someone has some dark deed in their background and they have moved on beyond that, possibly after having served time in jail for doing so. And they find a good-paying job. And someone comes in and puts up posters about the past of this person. Now, is it libel? It depends. If the past was a sex-crime sort of offense, and the guy is now dealing with children, it would not be libel as one could infer that people have a right to know. If the past deed was something unrelated to what he is currently doing, then he could win a libel suit even though he actually did what was claimed, because the claim was publicized not for the betterment of the public, but to injure the person personally.

So if this stuff is true, there will never be any sort of libel suit. The danger is that such a suit would validate the claim when experts are called to the stand to testify. Nobody would want to bring that on, as the net result would be a lot of wasted money, counter-suits to recover costs, etc.

Just looking at what has been posted, I would not want to be on the "other side" with someone having found many parts of Crafty came from another program's code. I wouldn't really worry about it anyway since crafty is still open-source which would not violate any sort of GPL agreement. However, if this did happen, then it is a direct action that might have consequences at some point in time if one gets "caught" as may have happened here.

I'm just watching, and responding when appropriate. I don't have time to dig thru code myself, but I can look at what others post and go "hmmm" just like everyone else.

You are an expert who would be called for in a trial. Fine. Here you are also an expert but who says likewise that he had no time to go through all that but he still says hmmm when he reads what others post. In my books an expertg is someone who at least is looking into both directions. Bob, you read for example from people who they themselves have already tried to cheat the community. One with a clone he denied at first, at least this is what I could read about it, and the other who allegedly also faked his displayed output. And you read what these people present here. But when Dann Corbit wrote that he and two others meant that there would NOT be anything wrong, you were not eager to give comments. In short how could you claim to be a neutral expert? I cant judge the matters of your expertise but I can well see how you completely ignore possible arguments in favor of the accused side. Is this something you do intentionally, in a sense that you know perhaps much more but dont publish, that gives you the absolute certainty that Vas did something wrong? - More, you work and argue with decrypted code which is absolutely legal to get? And you use it in public? In a public forum?