StockFiNN Release and Scaling

[Ovyron]

What reasons do you think I have, to pretend other reasons than those I wrote about (btw being asked by you to give them)

It wasn't you, but jjoshua2:

But having clearly named and versioned and increasing strength releases makes everything a lot easier for normal users than just releasing hundreds of nets and binaries and having to refer to everything by dates and checksums and file sizes.

The official story being told that's why the paywall exists, so life is made easier for "normal users". Where it's clear the public Leela and Stockfish models of beta releases and hundreds of nets and patches is the best for all users.

This sets a bad precedent and example, if people follow suit soon you'll be spending $30/month to get the latest files of 10 different projects, and on the whole it'll slow down future development. I never said this was illegal or broke any licence, I'm just thinking about the whole picture that shows the forest instead of zooming to some tree's wood's details.

I don't think I've ever said it but I really appreciate all the work and effort people put into projects they share for free, those people are the real giants and the rest can only stand on their shoulders. One can't stop the feeling that if money is being generated, it's ending on the wrong hands.

[dkappe]

One can't stop the feeling that if money is being generated, it's ending on the wrong hands.

That’s quite funny. Whenever “computer chess” and “money” are mentioned in the same sentence, it’s usually in jest.

[Ovyron]

That’s quite funny. Whenever “computer chess” and “money” are mentioned in the same sentence, it’s usually in jest.

Because it's "peanuts" (nobody is getting rich with $3/month.)

[jjoshua2]

Normal users have struggled using lc0 for a very long time. Most chess players are not engine enthusiasts, and even struggle with commercial products like chessbase software, which is a reason why they are so big, and why they found it worth doing fat fritz. I don't like it all, but anyone with an account in this forum is not the target audience. I think I've answered hundreds of questions in lc0 discord #help to support that open source project, and probably as many more on patreon. I'm sure there will always be free and supported software, sometimes with some overlap, but there are just too many people to really help them all. Civilization has tended to resort to lotteries and remuneration when resources are limited. Lotteries are more fair when only rich can afford, but when everyone can afford its a more fair way to sort who actually wants limited time/resources. But I recognize everyone might subscribe to a different economic theory. But there is no getting around the fact that time and resources are limited.

[M ANSARI]

Wow !!! I just played through one of the games posted that has been played by SFNN and it is incredibly impressive! Very deep positional play! Unfortunately to get that engine you need to go to Patreon website which is NOT SAFE! I recently had over $15,000 deducted from my Master Card that started out with a $0.00 request from Patreon website (apparently done to check if my card number was active) and since it was $0.00 dollars it was approved immediately by MC. After that within minutes a bunch of transactions from all over the world started coming in on my card ... mostly for airline tickets. I immediately put a stop on my card but it ended up having over $15,000 paid up within 3 days! What really pissed me off is to get approval for an online order for Pizza for my kids I need to type in an OTP number that I get via SMS ... but for these transactions no OTP was required ???? Fortunately I got all my money back but that took almost 2 months!

I think much better would be something like Paypal for these small payments.

[peter]

I think much better would be something like Paypal for these small payments.

Which is offered at the Patreon site too btw.

[Damir]

Wow !!! I just played through one of the games posted that has been played by SFNN and it is incredibly impressive! Very deep positional play! Unfortunately to get that engine you need to go to Patreon website which is NOT SAFE! I recently had over $15,000 deducted from my Master Card that started out with a $0.00 request from Patreon website (apparently done to check if my card number was active) and since it was $0.00 dollars it was approved immediately by MC. After that within minutes a bunch of transactions from all over the world started coming in on my card ... mostly for airline tickets. I immediately put a stop on my card but it ended up having over $15,000 paid up within 3 days! What really pissed me off is to get approval for an online order for Pizza for my kids I need to type in an OTP number that I get via SMS ... but for these transactions no OTP was required ???? Fortunately I got all my money back but that took almost 2 months!

I think much better would be something like Paypal for these small payments.

Yes much would be better to also renew the subscriptions manually after a month expires, instead of doing it automaticaly every month. My bank had to close my credit card, because they noticed 5§ were being transferred every month on their own. They thought it was very suspicious. It happened during the time I was a subscriber to Leelenstein.

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

Wow !!! I just played through one of the games posted that has been played by SFNN and it is incredibly impressive! Very deep positional play! Unfortunately to get that engine you need to go to Patreon website which is NOT SAFE! I recently had over $15,000 deducted from my Master Card that started out with a $0.00 request from Patreon website (apparently done to check if my card number was active) and since it was $0.00 dollars it was approved immediately by MC. After that within minutes a bunch of transactions from all over the world started coming in on my card ... mostly for airline tickets. I immediately put a stop on my card but it ended up having over $15,000 paid up within 3 days! What really pissed me off is to get approval for an online order for Pizza for my kids I need to type in an OTP number that I get via SMS ... but for these transactions no OTP was required ???? Fortunately I got all my money back but that took almost 2 months!

I think much better would be something like Paypal for these small payments.

I am surprised and frustrated Majd that you got caught so easily by this online scam ....

Ive strict rules when exposing my Visa & Master cards online and least of them is PayPal ....

Cheers my friend,
Dr.D

[Milos]

I am frankly shocked that ppl are willing to pay monthly subscriptions for some specific trained net with dubious and at best couple of Elo advantage over opensource/free alternatives that are popping up daily.
Ppl are sometimes really naive...

[Milos]

That’s quite funny. Whenever “computer chess” and “money” are mentioned in the same sentence, it’s usually in jest.

Because it's "peanuts" (nobody is getting rich with $3/month.)

Multiply this with 100 chess "enthusiasts" and 2 different "projects" and 12 months and you'd get a decent yearly amount.
Robert Houdart made a nice fortune out of his clones.
The funniest is when someone comes and complains that they need it to cover electricity cost . Or that they did some tremendous work on network training that a monkey could do, just because they have some nice database of games that they collected as a hobby and now decided to gain some coin on it.
Never underestimate naivety of ppl.