I suppose people like Bob, Theron and Zach are happy. They managed to help get rid of competition they were never smart enough to beat. On the way out, 2 things: 1. If i wanted a world champion engine, I would never be stupid enough to get anything from Crafty. Thats's like copying from VWagen to improve a Rolls Royce. Nobody is that f***ing stupid. 2. Concerning the picture in the post with Karpov and the horse.... and the explanation of the one on the "left" and the one on the "right" would have been crucial if it had been a picture of Hyatt, Zach or Christophe and the horse was turned around. One would wonder if mods are brave enough to leave this thread. My money is on chicken-shit. Rest of my money would ride on "I don't give a rats ass."
Your vile accusations against Bob, Zach, Christophe et al are reprehensible. You're talking out of you ass as usual filling the forum with a vile stench! I wouldn't bat an eye if you were banned or even sued. You've asked for it!
As for Vas, he was that stupid. Vas is a hack and I hope Fabien sues his ass.
As for the skills of Bob Hyatt you haven't a clue and if Christophe wanted the best program all he would have needed to do is take the same route Vas did and it would be better than Rybka or Houdini as he's that talented !
All you condemn, the pioneers of chess, have far more talent then a plagerist!
The earth is flat in your world. You're a fanatic.
Vas is not stupid.
The facts are that there are other programmers who started from free source code without a success(for example El-chinito is based on Crafty and did not get significantly better than Crafty and Kaissa or Patriot also never got the first place inspite of using free sources) .
We do not know what Christophe could do taking the same path as Vas
and it is not responsible to assume that he could make something stronger than Rybka at the same time(of course today with stockfish of today that is very close to Rybka's strength it should be relatively easy)
Christophe said it would be easy, I agree. There are several here that have produced stronger programs then any commercial engines by stealing code. These people have damaged the computer chess community and have stolen income from honest programmers.
I'd say they're all pretty stupid.
I do not agree that it is easy and the facts are that nobody except Vas could get advantage of more than 100 elo from the second place even by illegal means and there are people who tried.
What about Houdini? There are a lot of crooks out there and have surppassed the commercials. Why do you respect Vas so much?
Shaun wrote:When Vas looked at the crafty code he would have seen that TBs were avoided in the case mentioned...
so he assumed that the issue applied to the TBs being used and replicated the code in Rybka??? I don't see how this is proof of wrng doing.
If he had understood why the code was present, then he would not have copied it.
It is the copying without understanding, without authorization, and without disclosure that is the smoking gun. Bang, bang, bang.
Oh come on this is interface code - you see an implementation that makes a check and you use the same check, assuming it is required. The reason for an interface is you don't need to understand the black box in this case TB lookup. If we follow this logic everyone must create their own TBs and write their own probe code?
I am not saying Rybka did not borrow more than it should have, I just do not know, however in this case there is an innocent possibility.
I suppose people like Bob, Theron and Zach are happy. They managed to help get rid of competition they were never smart enough to beat. On the way out, 2 things: 1. If i wanted a world champion engine, I would never be stupid enough to get anything from Crafty. Thats's like copying from VWagen to improve a Rolls Royce. Nobody is that f***ing stupid. 2. Concerning the picture in the post with Karpov and the horse.... and the explanation of the one on the "left" and the one on the "right" would have been crucial if it had been a picture of Hyatt, Zach or Christophe and the horse was turned around. One would wonder if mods are brave enough to leave this thread. My money is on chicken-shit. Rest of my money would ride on "I don't give a rats ass."
Your vile accusations against Bob, Zach, Christophe et al are reprehensible. You're talking out of you ass as usual filling the forum with a vile stench! I wouldn't bat an eye if you were banned or even sued. You've asked for it!
As for Vas, he was that stupid. Vas is a hack and I hope Fabien sues his ass.
As for the skills of Bob Hyatt you haven't a clue and if Christophe wanted the best program all he would have needed to do is take the same route Vas did and it would be better than Rybka or Houdini as he's that talented !
All you condemn, the pioneers of chess, have far more talent then a plagerist!
The earth is flat in your world. You're a fanatic.
Vas is not stupid.
The facts are that there are other programmers who started from free source code without a success(for example El-chinito is based on Crafty and did not get significantly better than Crafty and Kaissa or Patriot also never got the first place inspite of using free sources) .
We do not know what Christophe could do taking the same path as Vas
and it is not responsible to assume that he could make something stronger than Rybka at the same time(of course today with stockfish of today that is very close to Rybka's strength it should be relatively easy)
Christophe said it would be easy, I agree. There are several here that have produced stronger programs then any commercial engines by stealing code. These people have damaged the computer chess community and have stolen income from honest programmers.
I'd say they're all pretty stupid.
I do not agree that it is easy and the facts are that nobody except Vas could get advantage of more than 100 elo from the second place even by illegal means and there are people who tried.
What about Houdini? There are a lot of crooks out there and have surppassed the commercials. Why do you respect Vas so much?
This is a nonsensical argument.[/quote
Houdini was never more than 100 elo better than the second place.
Inspite of it I think that Robert Houdart is also a good programmer and he did not do something that everybody can do(maybe he is going to get 100 elo better than the second place with Houdini2 and maybe not).
It is not so easy to make something that is more than 100 elo better than other engines even without moral values and I think that it is easier to get a 2800 engine without copy/paste from other sources.
I agree at least with the first part of this - I think the Rybka team made significant independent contributions to their engine and for this reason I believe they deserve some credit.
Shaun wrote:When Vas looked at the crafty code he would have seen that TBs were avoided in the case mentioned...
so he assumed that the issue applied to the TBs being used and replicated the code in Rybka??? I don't see how this is proof of wrng doing.
If he had understood why the code was present, then he would not have copied it.
It is the copying without understanding, without authorization, and without disclosure that is the smoking gun. Bang, bang, bang.
Oh come on this is interface code - you see an implementation that makes a check and you use the same check, assuming it is required. The reason for an interface is you don't need to understand the black box in this case TB lookup. If we follow this logic everyone must create their own TBs and write their own probe code?
There was neither understanding of the code nor of the data the code accessed. The code was only for my tablebases, not those from Eugene or anyone else.
Cloning that code, or any other chess-specific code, is nothing like copying a call to a general system library routine.
As far as writing one's own TB set and probe code, well, I did it and so have a few others. And honest programmers who employ TBs (but haven't done their own TB scheme) willfully acknowledge the contributions of the TB authors in their code.
I was never deeply into the legal or moral implications of what has been going on.
I wouldn't wish to interfere with legal matters.
However, I feel it would be a great shame to deprive the public of the best that has been made available so far, as well as further advancements of those programs, just because of legal squables.
Shaun wrote:When Vas looked at the crafty code he would have seen that TBs were avoided in the case mentioned...
so he assumed that the issue applied to the TBs being used and replicated the code in Rybka??? I don't see how this is proof of wrng doing.
If he had understood why the code was present, then he would not have copied it.
It is the copying without understanding, without authorization, and without disclosure that is the smoking gun. Bang, bang, bang.
Yes, it was a smoking gun. I agree. The problem is that the victim was stabbed.
This code was not demonstrated to be present in any version that competed in ICGA tournaments. It was in a previous private version. A probably very similar version competed in one CCT tournament (and came in last or so), not ICGA. Based on this smoking gun, VR should be punished at CCT, not ICGA.
ICGA decision should consider the Fruit thing, which is another issue.
Miguel
Last edited by michiguel on Wed Jun 29, 2011 5:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Perhaps it's not the best day for computer chess, but it can be a good day if the actions taken serve as a positive influence on current and future authors who might otherwise might think that they can easily get away with unauthorized cloning.
The sad thing is that if Bob were asked if parts of Crafty's code could be copied, he probably would have said yes if a reasonable acknowledgement arrangement was made.
Shaun wrote:When Vas looked at the crafty code he would have seen that TBs were avoided in the case mentioned...
so he assumed that the issue applied to the TBs being used and replicated the code in Rybka??? I don't see how this is proof of wrng doing.
If he had understood why the code was present, then he would not have copied it.
It is the copying without understanding, without authorization, and without disclosure that is the smoking gun. Bang, bang, bang.
Oh come on this is interface code - you see an implementation that makes a check and you use the same check, assuming it is required. The reason for an interface is you don't need to understand the black box in this case TB lookup. If we follow this logic everyone must create their own TBs and write their own probe code?
There was neither understanding of the code nor of the data the code accessed. The code was only for my tablebases, not those from Eugene or anyone else.
Cloning that code, or any other chess-specific code, is nothing like copying a call to a general system library routine.
I don't see it as very different
As far as writing one's own TB set and probe code, well, I did it and so have a few others. And honest programmers who employ TBs (but haven't done their own TB scheme) willfully acknowledge the contributions of the TB authors in their code.
Vas did acknowledge contributors and TB authors???
michiguel wrote:This code was not demonstrated to be present in any version that competed in ICGA tournaments. It was in a previous private version. A probably very similar version competed in one CCT tournament (and came in last or so), not ICGA. Based on this smoking gun, VR should be punished at CCT, not ICGA.
ICGA, CCT, ACCA, ACM, or whomever, it doesn't make much difference. None allow unauthorized cloning. As to what was exactly in a particular version in a particular event, only the author knows. At this point the burden is upon him to either refute or acknowledge any transgressions.
