I found and dowloaded code for an ICS, called 'chessd'.
Is there anyone that has experience on how to compile and run it? I would like to set up my own ICS. After hacking the code, of course. But first I want to see if I can get the thing to work as its makers intended it. But, as I never attempted such a thing before, any advice would be welcome.
I looked at this a while back. The code I saw was not in really good shape and had a lot of dependencies on a secondary database package.
If I had the time, I'd write a new specification for a generalized Internet Game Server that was restricted to a simple and sane XML interface. Any client wanting to connect would be similarly restricted as trying to handle both human and program input at the same time on a connection inevitably leads to kludge upon kludge. Human language locale issues are also best handled by a client.
Actually writing a server and at least one sample client would take significant effort and not all desired functionality would be in the early releases. But I'd say that this would be a better long term strategy and would make life easier for both coders and players.
Here are some sites. I'm sure you've seen some of these already. I don't know if any of these versions are under active development. Unfortunately I don't have any experience in this area.
OK, thanks for the links. The first one you give is the one I downloaded, and, according to Wikipedia, the one that FICS uses.
The approach suggested by Stephan might indeed be best for the long term, but alas, I am looking for short-term results. Just hacking in a few extra piece types, and a variable number of files and ranks for the board in existing server software, no matter how kludgey, seems the most promising route to that.
there is fics code on the web, but bear in mind fics has not done a release of their code in years. any fics code on the web is much older, from maybe teh mid 90s and from waht i understand this code is far from perfect. but it still might work for your purposes. i have heard of people starting from the old fics code before. Not sure if in the end its worth it or not.
