Document on Rybka 1.0 Beta and Fruit 2.1

[BB+]

I think I've always felt that Fabien/FSF would be on tenuous ground for legal action

I might re-phrase this. My impression is that:
* Fabien/FSF would be successful in stopping Rybkachess (is this an entity in itself?) from distributing Rybka 1.0 Beta through Rybka 2.3.2a (unless the GPL conditions were met), though likely because VR would not fight this.
This would be one remedy to the putative claim that some versions of Rybka are a "derivative work" of Fruit.

A more difficult claim by Letouzey would be that this remedy is not sufficient, and that in fact VR gained a unfair competitive advantage through this copyright violation (Fruit had gone commercial at the time), making him liable for damages (possibly even for Rybka 3 and Rybka 4, if one were to conclude that this was a "continuing market"). The viability of such a case might depend on aspects of the commercialisation of Fruit that are unknown to me. Finally, even if this were shown, the amount of damages is not clear (recall that Convekta paid VR a salary for some of the period, so for simplicity perhaps they would be named as a co-defendant). One of the more famous anti-competition cases in the US involved the National Football League versus the United States Football League -- the former was found guilty of violating anti-monopoly laws, but the awarded damages amounted to $1 (though this was tripled due to anti-trust law).

For that matter, a really aspiring lawyer might conclude that either Convekta or Yuri Osipov has a case against Rajlich, in that he scuttled their mobile Strelka plans based upon some sort of improper pretense as to the copyright issues.

EDIT: I guess I'm required to note here that I have zero legal expertise.

[Chris Whittington]

[...] grey area [...]

I think the principal effect of your post is to append the concept of "spec" to the ideas/code debate. Is it clear at what point does the "spec" just become "code"?

I think I've always felt that Fabien/FSF would be on tenuous ground for legal action (then again, the threat is often stronger than its execution), but then, I've never been particularly concerned with that facet. Elsewhere I noted that plagiarism is mostly an ethical concern, not a legal one.

VR runs a business, apart from profitability his only concern is to remain legal, ethics don't come into it.

[hyatt]

[...] grey area [...]

I think the principal effect of your post is to append the concept of "spec" to the ideas/code debate. Is it clear at what point does the "spec" just become "code"?

I think I've always felt that Fabien/FSF would be on tenuous ground for legal action (then again, the threat is often stronger than its execution), but then, I've never been particularly concerned with that facet. Elsewhere I noted that plagiarism is mostly an ethical concern, not a legal one.

VR runs a business, apart from profitability his only concern is to remain legal, ethics don't come into it.

obviously... That's been the problem all along.

[Chris Whittington]

[...] grey area [...]

I think the principal effect of your post is to append the concept of "spec" to the ideas/code debate. Is it clear at what point does the "spec" just become "code"?

I think I've always felt that Fabien/FSF would be on tenuous ground for legal action (then again, the threat is often stronger than its execution), but then, I've never been particularly concerned with that facet. Elsewhere I noted that plagiarism is mostly an ethical concern, not a legal one.

VR runs a business, apart from profitability his only concern is to remain legal, ethics don't come into it.

obviously... That's been the problem all along.

Yes, the problem is your application of academic mores to commercial programmers, including all your crap about how commercials are so unreasonably secretive. Problem basically is that you hate commercials, that Crafty open source was partly released by you to destroy commercial computer chess, followed by your subsequent fury that someone should do the obvious and use ideas from open source to be commercially successful. What did you expect? The whole world is composed of your students only?

[hyatt]

[...] grey area [...]

I think the principal effect of your post is to append the concept of "spec" to the ideas/code debate. Is it clear at what point does the "spec" just become "code"?

I think I've always felt that Fabien/FSF would be on tenuous ground for legal action (then again, the threat is often stronger than its execution), but then, I've never been particularly concerned with that facet. Elsewhere I noted that plagiarism is mostly an ethical concern, not a legal one.

VR runs a business, apart from profitability his only concern is to remain legal, ethics don't come into it.

obviously... That's been the problem all along.

Yes, the problem is your application of academic mores to commercial programmers, including all your crap about how commercials are so unreasonably secretive. Problem basically is that you hate commercials, that Crafty open source was partly released by you to destroy commercial computer chess, followed by your subsequent fury that someone should do the obvious and use ideas from open source to be commercially successful. What did you expect? The whole world is composed of your students only?

I would expect that at _least_ we would see authors avoid basic plagiarism, not? Ethics applies to business as well as academia. At least for _some_ of us.

Crafty was not released to "partially destroy commercial chess." It was released because others were willing to share ideas and code back in the 70's, and it seemed reasonable to follow that model myself. For the commercials, my only concern has been that if you "taketh" then you should "giveth back". A few have. More have not. They don't affect _my_ enjoyment of this hobby, however, and I don't lose sleep over what they do or don't do... If they are "ethically challenged" that is a shortcoming they have to deal with, eventually.

I like that "use ideas" quote above, however. I never found a CS book that calls "source code" an "idea"...

You keep trying to slip that crap in, but it won't fly. Code was copied. Plain and simple. And Fabien seems pretty sincere in wanting to track it down, so there might end up an unpleasant resolution when he is finished...

[BB+]

The most interesting part is likely that moves[-1]

It could depend on the compiler, but now I don't see any reason why "fen[moves-fen-1]" might not produce the same ASM code as "moves[-1]" after optimisation, so maybe it is only the first consideration that is really relevant.