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.

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

Let me ask you ....is Vas program 100% original work? You seem fine with how Vas got to where he was and is the way he did...doing nothing wrong as you say. Yet Ippo didnt do anything wrong or illegal either but you still have a problem with them tho? HUH? Again straight answer is Vas program 100% original work....when you answer this ...u will answer all your own questions

Regards
BT

[Kevin Frayer]

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.

Your priorities are just fine.

The only problem I see here is a double stranded. One way of look at commercial engines and a another way of of looking at open sources ones. Ethical view points tend to become confused when money is involved. If one chooses that which is more profitable over that which is right, it could be said, he is giving into the fault or (sin) of Greed.

Commercial interest can not have it both ways, jealously guarding their own programing code and at the same time looking into open source code crying foul. The key may now be, to play the put up or shut up card. How about the organizers of the computer chess tournaments ask for reviews of any engine that is reportedly not 100% original. This would of course include commercial engines as well. If the programer refuses to submit his code for review, (or seems to have lost it) the engine would be denied a spot in the tournament.

We must find a way of holding all to the same standards. Many experts appear to be saying, there is as much of Fruit in Rybka as there is Rybka in Ippolit, lets ask the sponsors of these all important tournaments to find out.

[Gerold]

I think they already have parts of the ippolit family in Stockfish.

[Jeremy Bernstein]

Nelson on rybkaforum:

By Nelson Hernandez Date 2010-06-13 21:06

Folks, I have to direct you to http://www.open-chess.org. A new site on computer chess by Rybka dissidents, among whom I am not one. Yet there is information there that needs to be aired out.

BB has written and Zach Wegner has published a .pdf there that does a very, very detailed analysis of Rybka 3 vs. Ippolit in one narrow program aspect after another. I promise you, it will be a perception-altering experience. The long document is a fine bit of investigation and forensic programming.

It seems we cannot talk of Ippolit and its successors as clones any more. There are many, many fundamental structural differences within the code and, yes, some similarities. But practically nothing is identical or appears to be copied, and what little evidence there is BB has pointed out himself.

My conclusion: there is no way we should talk about that whole group of programs as clones. It seems all of them should be tested on CEGT and CCRL. They appear to be legitimate, even if their authors (and BB, for that matter) remain anonymous. I have to say, I am writing these words with regret--but my integrity compels me to conclude that you simply cannot dismiss a rival as a clone without evidence, and finally we have solid, objective and ample technical evidence to the contrary.

Felix: before you censor this, go read it yourself. I'm serious! And if you censor it anyway please PM me and explain your reasoning. I accept that this is the Rybkaforum, but we ought to first be dedicated to truth, then Rybka!

Vas' response:

By Vasik Rajlich Date 2010-06-16 07:38

> But practically nothing is identical or appears to be copied

Really?

> my integrity compels me to conclude that you simply cannot dismiss a rival as a clone without evidence

Maybe this is a valid point. I feel like the anonymity of the program gives me the right to do this. If a real author stepped forward, obviously I would never make an accusatory statement without careful documentation.

Anyway, I can accept some disagreement about this point.

> and finally we have solid, objective and ample technical evidence to the contrary.

I can assure you that you don't.

Vas

[Rebel]

Nelson on rybkaforum:

Can't find it. Deleted or me being clumsy.

Ed

[thorstenczub]

the usual statements by rajlich. NO data. NO content. Only few sentences with disagreement.
As a customer of Rybka4 and Rybka3, i am really disapointed about this kind/level of reply.

[Kevin Frayer]

Nelson on rybkaforum:

By Nelson Hernandez Date 2010-06-13 21:06

Folks, I have to direct you to http://www.open-chess.org. A new site on computer chess by Rybka dissidents, among whom I am not one. Yet there is information there that needs to be aired out.

BB has written and Zach Wegner has published a .pdf there that does a very, very detailed analysis of Rybka 3 vs. Ippolit in one narrow program aspect after another. I promise you, it will be a perception-altering experience. The long document is a fine bit of investigation and forensic programming.

It seems we cannot talk of Ippolit and its successors as clones any more. There are many, many fundamental structural differences within the code and, yes, some similarities. But practically nothing is identical or appears to be copied, and what little evidence there is BB has pointed out himself.

My conclusion: there is no way we should talk about that whole group of programs as clones. It seems all of them should be tested on CEGT and CCRL. They appear to be legitimate, even if their authors (and BB, for that matter) remain anonymous. I have to say, I am writing these words with regret--but my integrity compels me to conclude that you simply cannot dismiss a rival as a clone without evidence, and finally we have solid, objective and ample technical evidence to the contrary.

Felix: before you censor this, go read it yourself. I'm serious! And if you censor it anyway please PM me and explain your reasoning. I accept that this is the Rybkaforum, but we ought to first be dedicated to truth, then Rybka!

Bravissimo:

I always knew Nelson was a Fellow Traveler.

[Jeremy Bernstein]

Nelson on rybkaforum:

Can't find it. Deleted or me being clumsy.

Ed

It's in their Edge forum: the rybkaforum equivalent of Chess Engine Origins on talkchess, but with more stringent visibility conditions.

[Kevin Frayer]

Nelson on rybkaforum:

Can't find it. Deleted or me being clumsy.

Ed

It's in their Edge forum: the rybkaforum equivalent of Chess Engine Origins on talkchess, but with more stringent visibility conditions.

Unless this post has been relocated to a secret sub-forum I can not access, it has been removed.

Interesting that a post on the Rybka Forum that Vas personally answered would be removed so fast. It is almost like Vas is at the mercy of his handlers.

(yes, it has been moved to a sub that even after being a member of that forum for 5 years, I can not read.)

[Harvey Williamson]

It was not moved. It is where it has always been. Jeremy has access to that sub forum.