Open Letter to CSVN

[Sean Evans]

Open letter to the CSVN

September 21, 2011

Dear Cock de Gorter, CSVN board and CSVN members,

As past participants of the CSVN tournaments we feel that your decision to allow Rybka back in your tournaments is ill-reasoned and damaging to computer chess. Your statements regarding the decision-making are misleading and those about the evidence are all factually false:

The ICGA panel consisted of experienced computer chess specialists, some commercial, some hobbyists, and some pure academics. At the end of the investigation, not a single person in the panel said that they believed Vasik Rajlich was innocent.

Experts who have long-defended Vasik Rajlich have changed their minds because the investigation results leaves them no doubt regarding his breaking of rule 2 of the ICGA: Rybka is a without a shred of doubt a direct derivative of Crafty/Fruit and Mr. Rajlich concealed these origins from the Tournament Director. Furthermore, he has not provided any clarification for the found similarities.

All Rybka executables considered in the investigation were distributed to rating lists and/or users. Version 2.3.2a participated in the 2007 WCCC.

In the past the ICGA has investigated entries that raised suspicion and for which a complaint was filed by one of the participants. Cheaters have been caught before and Rybka is no exception.

The sanctioning of Rybka is upsetting news for all involved in computer chess. The public condemnation of a many-times World Champion and well-known representative of the field does not reflect well on the field’s image. The decision to ban Rybka was consequently not taken lightly.

However, it is unacceptable to us that you base your decision making on opinionated Internet postings and put aside the extensive expertise that the ICGA has gathered. Your lack of judgment, which is further exemplified by your recent handling of the Junior/HIARCS incident, is a sign that your once-respectable tournaments are not in good hands any more. Under the current direction we can therefore not enter your tournaments.

Regards,

Amir Ban
Don Dailey
Robert Hyatt
Gerd Isenberg
Marcel van Kervinck
Stefan Meyer-Kahlen
Fabien Letouzey
Thomas Mayer
Daniel Mehrmann
Gian-Carlo Pascutto
Richard Pijl
Ralf Schäfer
Mark Uniacke
Ben-Hur Carlos Vieira Langoni Júnior
Harvey Williamson

[Sean Evans]

The open letter to CSVN is in response to the CSVN justification letter that allows Rybka to play in their tourney.

[thorstenczub]

it is a very sad thing.

computerchess people fight against each other for nothing.

[Prima]

Instead of the CSVN supporting similar good principles upheld by the ICGA, they let personal feelings and prejudices get in the way of sound judgement. Based on the words of George Speight.

If anything, the CSVN shot itself in the foot. Good news is, we now have the ICGA for original engine tournaments and the for non originality (i.e. illegal clone) tournaments, that is based on lies, we have the CSVN.

[BB+]

I challenge my 11 [sic] colleagues who voted Vas guilty to come here at Rybka forum and face some real opposition.

There is little point to this unless VR gets involved, and (much more importantly) there is some sort of resolution capacity, such as an adjudicator(s) who can make a binding decision. Arguing endlessly in a forum is, well, never-ending. Now that Ken Thompson is presumably "biased" in this case from his ICGA Panel participation (so too with Björnsson and others who are sufficiently technically competent), I could still nominate Jonathan Schaeffer, if he were interested. But the first ground rule would be that his decision was final. And that looms unlikely to be accepted, for the "opposition" contemporaneously seems to want to adjudicate the matter themselves [e.g., they decide when the evidence suffices].

[Jeremy Bernstein]

it is a very sad thing.

computerchess people fight against each other for nothing.

It is sad. On the other hand, the authors certainly have the prerogative to not play in tournaments where they feel like the organizers don't reflect or respect their values.

Jeremy

[thorstenczub]

it is a very sad thing.

computerchess people fight against each other for nothing.

It is sad. On the other hand, the authors certainly have the prerogative to not play in tournaments where they feel like the organizers don't reflect or respect their values.

Jeremy

values ?? they had no ethical-problems/morals to play in jakarta under the image of dictator soharto





i completely support the decision of the ICGA concerning rybka.

but i don't think computerchess people should fight against each other because of rybka.
rybka is IMO not of that importance that we should split our community.


http://www.anarchismus.at/txt1/chomsky10.htm

[orgfert]

it is a very sad thing.

computerchess people fight against each other for nothing.

It is sad. On the other hand, the authors certainly have the prerogative to not play in tournaments where they feel like the organizers don't reflect or respect their values.

Jeremy

It would be even more sad if the authors didn't exercise their better-informed ethical prerogatives against the ill-informed ignorance of mere organizers and fans.