Vas did contribute!

[Michael Sherwin]

Everywhere I read, 'Vas only took and did not give anything in return'.

This is just simply not true!!

I've posted this before and will probably post it again.

A few years ago I went and found all the post I could by Vas. In those post he wrote about many of the ideas that went into Rybka 1.0 beta. He also posted that he took ideas from Fruit. It was not a secret like some suggested. Before Rybka 1.0 beta came out, no one paid much attention to him, because he was not yet the author of a strong engine. He also took a lot of 'intellectual abuse' during that time. When he had had enough of it, he left.

Concerning Ippolit, I only have one question for Vas. What percentages of Ippolit's search and evaluation are direct copies of Rybka? That will help us decide if Ippolit is a clone or a derivative. Then we can talk about legality.

[Uri Blass]

Everywhere I read, 'Vas only took and did not give anything in return'.

This is just simply not true!!

I've posted this before and will probably post it again.

A few years ago I went and found all the post I could by Vas. In those post he wrote about many of the ideas that went into Rybka 1.0 beta. He also posted that he took ideas from Fruit. It was not a secret like some suggested. Before Rybka 1.0 beta came out, no one paid much attention to him, because he was not yet the author of a strong engine. He also took a lot of 'intellectual abuse' during that time. When he had had enough of it, he left.

Concerning Ippolit, I only have one question for Vas. What percentages of Ippolit's search and evaluation are direct copies of Rybka? That will help us decide if Ippolit is a clone or a derivative. Then we can talk about legality.

Ippolit is not the only question

There is also RobboLito that comes with source code and
0.085c2 is the latest version of it(few days ago 0.085b was the latest version) and the question is if this program is a clone or derivative and what parts exactly are clone or derivative.

Edit:I totally agree that Vas contribute and I think that the existence of a strong exe file even without a word is a contribution because people can learn from games against this program or from reverse engineering.

The contribution is clearly smaller than free source code but it is still a contribution.

Uri

[michiguel]

Everywhere I read, 'Vas only took and did not give anything in return'.

This is just simply not true!!

Of course he did, but even if he did not, there is nothing ethically wrong with it.

Miguel

I've posted this before and will probably post it again.

A few years ago I went and found all the post I could by Vas. In those post he wrote about many of the ideas that went into Rybka 1.0 beta. He also posted that he took ideas from Fruit. It was not a secret like some suggested. Before Rybka 1.0 beta came out, no one paid much attention to him, because he was not yet the author of a strong engine. He also took a lot of 'intellectual abuse' during that time. When he had had enough of it, he left.

Concerning Ippolit, I only have one question for Vas. What percentages of Ippolit's search and evaluation are direct copies of Rybka? That will help us decide if Ippolit is a clone or a derivative. Then we can talk about legality.

[shiv]

Everywhere I read, 'Vas only took and did not give anything in return'.

This is just simply not true!!

Of course he did, but even if he did not, there is nothing ethically wrong with it.

Miguel

People are not legally permitted to use GPL (e.g. code of Fruit) code in commercial programs directly e.g. http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/g ... tarySystem

However, GPL is not clear on people getting ideas from code and using it commercially. Commercial programmers getting ideas from Fruit is probably fine as long as they do not use code directly.

I am sure Vas got ideas from Fruit but did not use any code directly.

What the ippolit guys did is really bad as the strength of a program is more on how well one fine tunes the implementation rather than the algorithms it uses. Reverse engineering it privately is not ethical but is hard to prevent. Posting the reverse engineered code online (after meshing with other engines) is clearly illegal activity.

If ippolit guys wanted to come clean (and help with the clone questions), they should create a version which removes code gathered from all disassembled commercial engines. The strength of that version would be the non cloned engine strength.

So to answer whether Vas contributed:
1. To open source? No
2. To chess players and chess knowledge? Yes

[gerold]

Everywhere I read, 'Vas only took and did not give anything in return'.

This is just simply not true!!

I've posted this before and will probably post it again.

A few years ago I went and found all the post I could by Vas. In those post he wrote about many of the ideas that went into Rybka 1.0 beta. He also posted that he took ideas from Fruit. It was not a secret like some suggested. Before Rybka 1.0 beta came out, no one paid much attention to him, because he was not yet the author of a strong engine. He also took a lot of 'intellectual abuse' during that time. When he had had enough of it, he left.

Concerning Ippolit, I only have one question for Vas. What percentages of Ippolit's search and evaluation are direct copies of Rybka? That will help us decide if Ippolit is a clone or a derivative. Then we can talk about legality.

Some here were disappointed that he was advertising his new
engine on the forum. Thats when he left and opened his own
forum. He advanced the interest and playing style of chess
a lot.

Best.

Gerold.

[Christopher Conkie]

Everywhere I read, 'Vas only took and did not give anything in return'.

This is just simply not true!!

I've posted this before and will probably post it again.

A few years ago I went and found all the post I could by Vas. In those post he wrote about many of the ideas that went into Rybka 1.0 beta. He also posted that he took ideas from Fruit. It was not a secret like some suggested. Before Rybka 1.0 beta came out, no one paid much attention to him, because he was not yet the author of a strong engine. He also took a lot of 'intellectual abuse' during that time. When he had had enough of it, he left.

Concerning Ippolit, I only have one question for Vas. What percentages of Ippolit's search and evaluation are direct copies of Rybka? That will help us decide if Ippolit is a clone or a derivative. Then we can talk about legality.

Ippolit is not the only question

There is also RobboLito that comes with source code and
0.085c2 is the latest version of it(few days ago 0.085b was the latest version) and the question is if this program is a clone or derivative and what parts exactly are clone or derivative.

Edit:I totally agree that Vas contribute and I think that the existence of a strong exe file even without a word is a contribution because people can learn from games against this program or from reverse engineering.

The contribution is clearly smaller than free source code but it is still a contribution.

Uri

Robbolito in its original form was nothing more than an Italian transtation of Ippolit.

The version number you quote is one that has/is being developed in a Russian pirate forum since the community got to know of its existance recently.

I only posted this becauuse I wanted you to understand the facts.

Christopher

[Uri Blass]

Everywhere I read, 'Vas only took and did not give anything in return'.

This is just simply not true!!

Of course he did, but even if he did not, there is nothing ethically wrong with it.

Miguel

People are not legally permitted to use GPL (e.g. code of Fruit) code in commercial programs directly e.g. http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/g ... tarySystem

However, GPL is not clear on people getting ideas from code and using it commercially. Commercial programmers getting ideas from Fruit is probably fine as long as they do not use code directly.

I am sure Vas got ideas from Fruit but did not use any code directly.

What the ippolit guys did is really bad as the strength of a program is more on how well one fine tunes the implementation rather than the algorithms it uses. Reverse engineering it privately is not ethical but is hard to prevent. Posting the reverse engineered code online (after meshing with other engines) is clearly illegal activity.

If ippolit guys wanted to come clean (and help with the clone questions), they should create a version which removes code gathered from all disassembled commercial engines. The strength of that version would be the non cloned engine strength.

So to answer whether Vas contributed:
1. To open source? No
2. To chess players and chess knowledge? Yes

I disagree
Vas clearly contributed to open source even if it was not his intention.

Without rybka the code that is considered as illegal could not be possible and I also read that at least one of the programmers in the stockfish team found interesting ideas in the code.

If we agree that there is nothing illegal in stockfish code and if stockfish is going to take ideas from rybka derivatives then it is clear that Vas helped stockfish to be stronger.

Uri

[rhollay]

I disagree
Vas clearly contributed to open source even if it was not his intention.
Uri

Nonsense.
In that sense every piece of any commercial, closed source program (even Windows 7) contribute to open source, because everything can be decompiled or disassembled....

[George Tsavdaris]

I disagree
Vas clearly contributed to open source even if it was not his intention.
Uri

Nonsense.
In that sense every piece of any commercial, closed source program (even Windows 7) contribute to open source, because everything can be decompiled or disassembled....

No you are wrong.
What Uri says is that Rybka has been reversed engineered so Vas has contributed to open source. Windows 7 haven't been reversed engineered so they have not contributed to open source.

[rhollay]

I disagree
Vas clearly contributed to open source even if it was not his intention.
Uri

Nonsense.
In that sense every piece of any commercial, closed source program (even Windows 7) contribute to open source, because everything can be decompiled or disassembled....

No you are wrong.
What Uri says is that Rybka has been reversed engineered so Vas has contributed to open source. Windows 7 haven't been reversed engineered so they have not contributed to open source.

No, I don't think I'm wrong.
Vas didn't contribute to open source, but those who decompiled Rybka and made it open source. Illegally, of course.
And how do you know that nobody has reverse-engineered pieces of Windows yet and used it in other (maybe open source) programs?