Ippolit and derivatives will never be favorably accepted.

[BTO7]

sorry to say but a rating list that is not testing ALL engines, is no rating list
i would take in any way serious.

Those rating lists censoring some engines are laughable. they have no reason to exist.
the makers should give up their job.

anyone running a rating list who interferes with the programs allowed and not allowed for political and/or prejudiced reasons is running an unscientific list and who knows what other little adjustments and interferences are being done by such a person.

ignore politically manipulated rating lists

Exactly my attitude about the whole thing. Your job is to be an independent tester/observer. Capitalist Controlled Rating List will not survive when they begin to take political views.

Exactly ...we also see not the word ...reverse engineering....staring to be the new cling onto statement. The whole thing was stated stating Ippos were CLONES.....everywhere you go ....we dont allow clones ...clones this and that. Now that we know they are not clones....everyone now stating well reversed engineered blah blah blah. This is as bad as the birthers wanting Obama's birth certificate...then when that showed up ...it became...well Hawaii isnt really a state.

Regards
BT

[kingliveson]

sorry to say but a rating list that is not testing ALL engines, is no rating list
i would take in any way serious.

Those rating lists censoring some engines are laughable. they have no reason to exist.
the makers should give up their job.

anyone running a rating list who interferes with the programs allowed and not allowed for political and/or prejudiced reasons is running an unscientific list and who knows what other little adjustments and interferences are being done by such a person.

ignore politically manipulated rating lists

Exactly my attitude about the whole thing. Your job is to be an independent tester/observer. Capitalist Controlled Rating List will not survive when they begin to take political views.

Actually, BB's report and especially his comments about Ippolit is not favorable to Ippolit. He mentioned specifically that "it is plausible Ippolit is reversed engineered from Rybka 3 ... ", almost exactly the same accusation leveled by Vasik and that the the author seem to know to much of the internal workings of Rybka. The mainstream will never accept reverse engineering when it comes to writing a chess engine. So if there is strong evidence on this, Ippolit would not be acceptable.

The other usual practice is there must be a human face on the engine. It has to pass the test of being accepted to something like the ICGA chess tournaments. To be accepted, there are questions to be answered like "Is your engine original". The "Yes" must come from a person, not just any proxy. So this is an insurmountable hurdle for Ippolit. Robert Houdard has no way to enter Houdini to such a tournament and this would mean Houdini don't belong to the group accepted engines. This is how this world works.

Best Regards,
Rasjid

I personally believe Ippolit authors used many ideas from Rybka through reverse engineering. No question in my mind. Which is more difficult to do or should I say which is moral; take an open source program, go through it forward and backward and implement "ideas" from it into your program and then close the source -- or take a binary, understand the internals, develop a program using ideas you found out, and open the source?

[BTO7]

sorry to say but a rating list that is not testing ALL engines, is no rating list
i would take in any way serious.

Those rating lists censoring some engines are laughable. they have no reason to exist.
the makers should give up their job.

anyone running a rating list who interferes with the programs allowed and not allowed for political and/or prejudiced reasons is running an unscientific list and who knows what other little adjustments and interferences are being done by such a person.

ignore politically manipulated rating lists

Exactly my attitude about the whole thing. Your job is to be an independent tester/observer. Capitalist Controlled Rating List will not survive when they begin to take political views.

Actually, BB's report and especially his comments about Ippolit is not favorable to Ippolit. He mentioned specifically that "it is plausible Ippolit is reversed engineered from Rybka 3 ... ", almost exactly the same accusation leveled by Vasik and that the the author seem to know to much of the internal workings of Rybka. The mainstream will never accept reverse engineering when it comes to writing a chess engine. So if there is strong evidence on this, Ippolit would not be acceptable.

The other usual practice is there must be a human face on the engine. It has to pass the test of being accepted to something like the ICGA chess tournaments. To be accepted, there are questions to be answered like "Is your engine original". The "Yes" must come from a person, not just any proxy. So this is an insurmountable hurdle for Ippolit. Robert Houdard has no way to enter Houdini to such a tournament and this would mean Houdini don't belong to the group accepted engines. This is how this world works.

Best Regards,
Rasjid

I personally believe Ippolit authors used many ideas from Rybka through reverse engineering. No question in my mind. Which is more difficult to do or should I say which is moral; take an open source program, go through it forward and backward and implement "ideas" from it into your program and then close the source -- or take a binary, understand the internals, develop a program using ideas you found out, and open the source?

Yes and we see this in the racing world everyday. Ideas pop up from every direction....standing on a corner ...reading something ...seeing something....hearing something. Man kind is built on ...take it to the next level....usually starting from the level below. We build on what we know or learn. Nothing wrong with that. Take a idea and improve on it. We had no refrigerator ...then one with a block of ice in it ...then that was further improved to what we have today. Everyone does it including VAS and admittedly so. How it works ..he should accept that himself. To say VAS didnt look into any other programs while making his would be crazy ...and likewise for the IPPO team.

Regards
BT

[Chan Rasjid]

sorry to say but a rating list that is not testing ALL engines, is no rating list
i would take in any way serious.

Those rating lists censoring some engines are laughable. they have no reason to exist.
the makers should give up their job.

anyone running a rating list who interferes with the programs allowed and not allowed for political and/or prejudiced reasons is running an unscientific list and who knows what other little adjustments and interferences are being done by such a person.

ignore politically manipulated rating lists

Exactly my attitude about the whole thing. Your job is to be an independent tester/observer. Capitalist Controlled Rating List will not survive when they begin to take political views.

Actually, BB's report and especially his comments about Ippolit is not favorable to Ippolit. He mentioned specifically that "it is plausible Ippolit is reversed engineered from Rybka 3 ... ", almost exactly the same accusation leveled by Vasik and that the the author seem to know to much of the internal workings of Rybka. The mainstream will never accept reverse engineering when it comes to writing a chess engine. So if there is strong evidence on this, Ippolit would not be acceptable.

The other usual practice is there must be a human face on the engine. It has to pass the test of being accepted to something like the ICGA chess tournaments. To be accepted, there are questions to be answered like "Is your engine original". The "Yes" must come from a person, not just any proxy. So this is an insurmountable hurdle for Ippolit. Robert Houdard has no way to enter Houdini to such a tournament and this would mean Houdini don't belong to the group accepted engines. This is how this world works.

Best Regards,
Rasjid

Is it possible for the developers of Stockfish, for instance, (which is currently accepted by the compchess community) to assimilate some of the ideas of IPPOLIT and still have their engine accepted?

Yes. Any chess program can incoporate anything found within Ippolit and it is wholly acceptable. Even "cloning" all it's evaluation and all the search parameters. But the program must be "original".

An original program can only have one meaning - that the author writes the sources himself or may incorporate or start from other sources with permission. Because there is nothing new under the sun, there could not be alternative definition of originality. I believe the ICGA probably mean something similar when they insists on original work.

Stockfish is completely original and legitimate even without Tord himself joining as it complied with all GPL requirements. It is only Ippolit itself that is not legitimate IF IT IS A REVERSED ENGINEERED JOB. Stockfish can take anything from Ippolit and it would be wholly acceptable.

The reasoning is simple and logical. If any impropriety had been committed, it was the author of Ippolit. So the Ippolit sources proper will not be acceptable in any manner. All derivatives of Ippolit that starts with its sources logically would also not be acceptable. Since Ippolit has been made public, there is no reasonable or practical way to restricting others from following, even verbatim, what is found within it.

Rasjid

[benstoker]

sorry to say but a rating list that is not testing ALL engines, is no rating list
i would take in any way serious.

Those rating lists censoring some engines are laughable. they have no reason to exist.
the makers should give up their job.

anyone running a rating list who interferes with the programs allowed and not allowed for political and/or prejudiced reasons is running an unscientific list and who knows what other little adjustments and interferences are being done by such a person.

ignore politically manipulated rating lists

Exactly my attitude about the whole thing. Your job is to be an independent tester/observer. Capitalist Controlled Rating List will not survive when they begin to take political views.

Actually, BB's report and especially his comments about Ippolit is not favorable to Ippolit. He mentioned specifically that "it is plausible Ippolit is reversed engineered from Rybka 3 ... ", almost exactly the same accusation leveled by Vasik and that the the author seem to know to much of the internal workings of Rybka. The mainstream will never accept reverse engineering when it comes to writing a chess engine. So if there is strong evidence on this, Ippolit would not be acceptable.

The other usual practice is there must be a human face on the engine. It has to pass the test of being accepted to something like the ICGA chess tournaments. To be accepted, there are questions to be answered like "Is your engine original". The "Yes" must come from a person, not just any proxy. So this is an insurmountable hurdle for Ippolit. Robert Houdard has no way to enter Houdini to such a tournament and this would mean Houdini don't belong to the group accepted engines. This is how this world works.

Best Regards,
Rasjid

Is it possible for the developers of Stockfish, for instance, (which is currently accepted by the compchess community) to assimilate some of the ideas of IPPOLIT and still have their engine accepted?

Yes. Any chess program can incoporate anything found within Ippolit and it is wholly acceptable. Even "cloning" all it's evaluation and all the search parameters. But the program must be "original".

An original program can only have one meaning - that the author writes the sources himself or may incorporate or start from other sources with permission. Because there is nothing new under the sun, there could not be alternative definition of originality. I believe the ICGA probably mean something similar when they insists on original work.

Stockfish is completely original and legitimate even without Tord himself joining as it complied with all GPL requirements. It is only Ippolit itself that is not legitimate IF IT IS A REVERSED ENGINEERED JOB. Stockfish can take anything from Ippolit and it would be wholly acceptable.

The reasoning is simple and logical. If any impropriety had been committed, it was the author of Ippolit. So the Ippolit sources proper will not be acceptable in any manner. All derivatives of Ippolit that starts with its sources logically would also not be acceptable. Since Ippolit has been made public, there is no reasonable or practical way to restricting others from following, even verbatim, what is found within it.

Rasjid

BB's report is a kind of blueprint. From what you say, I would expect that Stockfish and other projects -- that are widely accepted as legit -- will feast on the IPPOLIT carrion and that we shall see some good open source chess engine development this year. All the adolescent me-too closed-source IPPOLIT knock-offs will get nowhere. I just hope that these new ideas get GPL'd and taken up and developed by a solid open source project.

[BTO7]

sorry to say but a rating list that is not testing ALL engines, is no rating list
i would take in any way serious.

Those rating lists censoring some engines are laughable. they have no reason to exist.
the makers should give up their job.

anyone running a rating list who interferes with the programs allowed and not allowed for political and/or prejudiced reasons is running an unscientific list and who knows what other little adjustments and interferences are being done by such a person.

ignore politically manipulated rating lists

Exactly my attitude about the whole thing. Your job is to be an independent tester/observer. Capitalist Controlled Rating List will not survive when they begin to take political views.

Actually, BB's report and especially his comments about Ippolit is not favorable to Ippolit. He mentioned specifically that "it is plausible Ippolit is reversed engineered from Rybka 3 ... ", almost exactly the same accusation leveled by Vasik and that the the author seem to know to much of the internal workings of Rybka. The mainstream will never accept reverse engineering when it comes to writing a chess engine. So if there is strong evidence on this, Ippolit would not be acceptable.

The other usual practice is there must be a human face on the engine. It has to pass the test of being accepted to something like the ICGA chess tournaments. To be accepted, there are questions to be answered like "Is your engine original". The "Yes" must come from a person, not just any proxy. So this is an insurmountable hurdle for Ippolit. Robert Houdard has no way to enter Houdini to such a tournament and this would mean Houdini don't belong to the group accepted engines. This is how this world works.

Best Regards,
Rasjid

Is it possible for the developers of Stockfish, for instance, (which is currently accepted by the compchess community) to assimilate some of the ideas of IPPOLIT and still have their engine accepted?

Yes. Any chess program can incoporate anything found within Ippolit and it is wholly acceptable. Even "cloning" all it's evaluation and all the search parameters. But the program must be "original".

An original program can only have one meaning - that the author writes the sources himself or may incorporate or start from other sources with permission. Because there is nothing new under the sun, there could not be alternative definition of originality. I believe the ICGA probably mean something similar when they insists on original work.

Stockfish is completely original and legitimate even without Tord himself joining as it complied with all GPL requirements. It is only Ippolit itself that is not legitimate IF IT IS A REVERSED ENGINEERED JOB. Stockfish can take anything from Ippolit and it would be wholly acceptable.

The reasoning is simple and logical. If any impropriety had been committed, it was the author of Ippolit. So the Ippolit sources proper will not be acceptable in any manner. All derivatives of Ippolit that starts with its sources logically would also not be acceptable. Since Ippolit has been made public, there is no reasonable or practical way to restricting others from following, even verbatim, what is found within it.

Rasjid

I see a huge loop hole here ....by this way of thinking that stockfish is ok even it taken from a clone....then what stops a guy from making a clone on purpose so he can just copy it again under another name like stockfish <<<only a example...and then call it his own with no legal problems?

BT

[Chan Rasjid]

sorry to say but a rating list that is not testing ALL engines, is no rating list
i would take in any way serious.

Those rating lists censoring some engines are laughable. they have no reason to exist.
the makers should give up their job.

anyone running a rating list who interferes with the programs allowed and not allowed for political and/or prejudiced reasons is running an unscientific list and who knows what other little adjustments and interferences are being done by such a person.

ignore politically manipulated rating lists

Exactly my attitude about the whole thing. Your job is to be an independent tester/observer. Capitalist Controlled Rating List will not survive when they begin to take political views.

Actually, BB's report and especially his comments about Ippolit is not favorable to Ippolit. He mentioned specifically that "it is plausible Ippolit is reversed engineered from Rybka 3 ... ", almost exactly the same accusation leveled by Vasik and that the the author seem to know to much of the internal workings of Rybka. The mainstream will never accept reverse engineering when it comes to writing a chess engine. So if there is strong evidence on this, Ippolit would not be acceptable.

The other usual practice is there must be a human face on the engine. It has to pass the test of being accepted to something like the ICGA chess tournaments. To be accepted, there are questions to be answered like "Is your engine original". The "Yes" must come from a person, not just any proxy. So this is an insurmountable hurdle for Ippolit. Robert Houdard has no way to enter Houdini to such a tournament and this would mean Houdini don't belong to the group accepted engines. This is how this world works.

Best Regards,
Rasjid

I personally believe Ippolit authors used many ideas from Rybka through reverse engineering. No question in my mind. Which is more difficult to do or should I say which is moral; take an open source program, go through it forward and backward and implement "ideas" from it into your program and then close the source -- or take a binary, understand the internals, develop a program using ideas you found out, and open the source?

From the findings of Zach, I am not surprise Vasik "cloned" Fruit to start with. But what Vasik did was wholly acceptable simply because Fruit is open source. Once sources have become public, nothing within the sources should constraint the action of others otherwise releasing such sources have a highly negative impact on the freedom of action of others. Basing only on this premise that GPL must not have any negative impact on the freedom of action of others, cloning anything from open souces is wholly acceptable. The only restriction is we need to open our sources if we start off directly using the GPL sources.

Reverse engineering may be viewed wholly from the legal viewpoint and then Ippolit would be found to be either legal or illegal strictly by law. But the many people, as well as the ICGA, practice their own law in real situations. They could ban even legal programs according to their own rules.

There is also the ethical viewpoint. I don't think it is right that "if reverse engineering is acceptable in engineering, etc... it is acceptable to software ...". Rarely is it right to make some simple rule of thumb and say it is applicable in all situations delineated through some "texbook" style of interpretation. If the way of decision making in life is so simple and direct, probably human society don't need courts of law to deliberate on lawsuit. Rybka 3 is sold with some unwritten understanding which is :-
"... I Vasik Rajlich put up for sale ... this very powerful top chess programs for endusers ... and please don't peek into the binary ... and then steal my ideas to compete with me... I don't like it... ". In this way, I think Ippolit could be illegitimate as it destroys the legitimate commercial interest of Rybka.

Rasjid

[Chan Rasjid]

sorry to say but a rating list that is not testing ALL engines, is no rating list
i would take in any way serious.

Those rating lists censoring some engines are laughable. they have no reason to exist.
the makers should give up their job.

anyone running a rating list who interferes with the programs allowed and not allowed for political and/or prejudiced reasons is running an unscientific list and who knows what other little adjustments and interferences are being done by such a person.

ignore politically manipulated rating lists

Exactly my attitude about the whole thing. Your job is to be an independent tester/observer. Capitalist Controlled Rating List will not survive when they begin to take political views.

Actually, BB's report and especially his comments about Ippolit is not favorable to Ippolit. He mentioned specifically that "it is plausible Ippolit is reversed engineered from Rybka 3 ... ", almost exactly the same accusation leveled by Vasik and that the the author seem to know to much of the internal workings of Rybka. The mainstream will never accept reverse engineering when it comes to writing a chess engine. So if there is strong evidence on this, Ippolit would not be acceptable.

The other usual practice is there must be a human face on the engine. It has to pass the test of being accepted to something like the ICGA chess tournaments. To be accepted, there are questions to be answered like "Is your engine original". The "Yes" must come from a person, not just any proxy. So this is an insurmountable hurdle for Ippolit. Robert Houdard has no way to enter Houdini to such a tournament and this would mean Houdini don't belong to the group accepted engines. This is how this world works.

Best Regards,
Rasjid

Is it possible for the developers of Stockfish, for instance, (which is currently accepted by the compchess community) to assimilate some of the ideas of IPPOLIT and still have their engine accepted?

Yes. Any chess program can incoporate anything found within Ippolit and it is wholly acceptable. Even "cloning" all it's evaluation and all the search parameters. But the program must be "original".

An original program can only have one meaning - that the author writes the sources himself or may incorporate or start from other sources with permission. Because there is nothing new under the sun, there could not be alternative definition of originality. I believe the ICGA probably mean something similar when they insists on original work.

Stockfish is completely original and legitimate even without Tord himself joining as it complied with all GPL requirements. It is only Ippolit itself that is not legitimate IF IT IS A REVERSED ENGINEERED JOB. Stockfish can take anything from Ippolit and it would be wholly acceptable.

The reasoning is simple and logical. If any impropriety had been committed, it was the author of Ippolit. So the Ippolit sources proper will not be acceptable in any manner. All derivatives of Ippolit that starts with its sources logically would also not be acceptable. Since Ippolit has been made public, there is no reasonable or practical way to restricting others from following, even verbatim, what is found within it.

Rasjid

I see a huge loop hole here ....by this way of thinking that stockfish is ok even it taken from a clone....then what stops a guy from making a clone on purpose so he can just copy it again under another name like stockfish <<<only a example...and then call it his own with no legal problems?

BT

I would like to ask you if you like war?

Loop hole is part and parcel of everything in human society and they are not going away anytime soon. So if anyone do such a big loop, then let him use the hole after

Best regards,
Rasjid

[benstoker]

sorry to say but a rating list that is not testing ALL engines, is no rating list
i would take in any way serious.

Those rating lists censoring some engines are laughable. they have no reason to exist.
the makers should give up their job.

anyone running a rating list who interferes with the programs allowed and not allowed for political and/or prejudiced reasons is running an unscientific list and who knows what other little adjustments and interferences are being done by such a person.

ignore politically manipulated rating lists

Exactly my attitude about the whole thing. Your job is to be an independent tester/observer. Capitalist Controlled Rating List will not survive when they begin to take political views.

Actually, BB's report and especially his comments about Ippolit is not favorable to Ippolit. He mentioned specifically that "it is plausible Ippolit is reversed engineered from Rybka 3 ... ", almost exactly the same accusation leveled by Vasik and that the the author seem to know to much of the internal workings of Rybka. The mainstream will never accept reverse engineering when it comes to writing a chess engine. So if there is strong evidence on this, Ippolit would not be acceptable.

The other usual practice is there must be a human face on the engine. It has to pass the test of being accepted to something like the ICGA chess tournaments. To be accepted, there are questions to be answered like "Is your engine original". The "Yes" must come from a person, not just any proxy. So this is an insurmountable hurdle for Ippolit. Robert Houdard has no way to enter Houdini to such a tournament and this would mean Houdini don't belong to the group accepted engines. This is how this world works.

Best Regards,
Rasjid

I personally believe Ippolit authors used many ideas from Rybka through reverse engineering. No question in my mind. Which is more difficult to do or should I say which is moral; take an open source program, go through it forward and backward and implement "ideas" from it into your program and then close the source -- or take a binary, understand the internals, develop a program using ideas you found out, and open the source?

From the findings of Zach, I am not surprise Vasik "cloned" Fruit to start with. But what Vasik did was wholly acceptable simply because Fruit is open source. Once sources have become public, nothing within the sources should constraint the action of others otherwise releasing such sources have a highly negative impact on the freedom of action of others. Basing only on this premise that GPL must not have any negative impact on the freedom of action of others, cloning anything from open souces is wholly acceptable. The only restriction is we need to open our sources if we start off directly using the GPL sources.

Reverse engineering may be viewed wholly from the legal viewpoint and then Ippolit would be found to be either legal or illegal strictly by law. But the many people, as well as the ICGA, practice their own law in real situations. They could ban even legal programs according to their own rules.

There is also the ethical viewpoint. I don't think it is right that "if reverse engineering is acceptable in engineering, etc... it is acceptable to software ...". Rarely is it right to make some simple rule of thumb and say it is applicable in all situations delineated through some "texbook" style of interpretation. If the way of decision making in life is so simple and direct, probably human society don't need courts of law to deliberate on lawsuit. Rybka 3 is sold with some unwritten understanding which is :-
"... I Vasik Rajlich put up for sale ... this very powerful top chess programs for endusers ... and please don't peek into the binary ... and then steal my ideas to compete with me... I don't like it... ". In this way, I think Ippolit could be illegitimate as it destroys the legitimate commercial interest of Rybka.

Rasjid

Most modern engines use qsearch, various pruning techniques - negascout, etc etc. See the list on all the named algorithms at the chess programming wiki site. I don't think any of the ideas on the chess programming wiki are copyrighted - i.e., everybody is free to use negascout, SEE, aspiration windows, iterative deepening, etc.

So what/where is that little jewel in IPPOLIT that is at once responsible for its strength and too close to Rybka to be freely used like all the other standard chess engine algorithms?

[kingliveson]

From the findings of Zach, I am not surprise Vasik "cloned" Fruit to start with. But what Vasik did was wholly acceptable simply because Fruit is open source. Once sources have become public, nothing within the sources should constraint the action of others otherwise releasing such sources have a highly negative impact on the freedom of action of others. Basing only on this premise that GPL must not have any negative impact on the freedom of action of others, cloning anything from open souces is wholly acceptable. The only restriction is we need to open our sources if we start off directly using the GPL sources.

Reverse engineering may be viewed wholly from the legal viewpoint and then Ippolit would be found to be either legal or illegal strictly by law. But the many people, as well as the ICGA, practice their own law in real situations. They could ban even legal programs according to their own rules.

There is also the ethical viewpoint. I don't think it is right that "if reverse engineering is acceptable in engineering, etc... it is acceptable to software ...". Rarely is it right to make some simple rule of thumb and say it is applicable in all situations delineated through some "texbook" style of interpretation. If the way of decision making in life is so simple and direct, probably human society don't need courts of law to deliberate on lawsuit. Rybka 3 is sold with some unwritten understanding which is :-
"... I Vasik Rajlich put up for sale ... this very powerful top chess programs for endusers ... and please don't peek into the binary ... and then steal my ideas to compete with me... I don't like it... ". In this way, I think Ippolit could be illegitimate as it destroys the legitimate commercial interest of Rybka.

Rasjid

Please correct my summary of your comment if you believe I misunderstood. You are saying that it is OK to break the law to make money while on-the-other-hand, it's not OK to follow the law to spread knowledge that helps a community.

It would be silly for me to say Rybka "cloned" Fruit. Rybka took code line for line, modified procedures, and in some cases expressed the same ideas differently. Rybka source is then closed and the binaries were distributed for sale. Fruit being GPL is the problem. GPL does not allow mixing closed-source with open-source. So how does one justify "cloning anything from open source is wholly accepted?"

Working on premises that Rybka is a legal and legitimate program; an engineer obtains a Rybka binary being a scientist interested in advancement of computer chess -- disassembles it, uses ideas found combined with new ones to produce a stronger program, and then releases the source to the community. We are not talking about code copying line for line, but rather expression of ideas which is legal.

From an ethical stand point, perhaps my priorities are misguided, because I really don't understand the current state of affair.