GPL discussion, sense and nonsense

[hyatt]

Books and computer codes have some intrinsic characteristics that should be considered when comparisons about them are made. A book is naturally open but computer source codes are proprietary and private by nature. It is for this reason that there is "open source" for computer codes and not needed for books. You simply cannot copy books as it infringes copyright and it is difficult to argue that "I ... somehow just wrote like J.K. Rowlings and the plots ... all turned out same... ". Source codes are very different regarding copyright. Once they are released into the open domain, "plagiarism" no longer can apply.

Rasjid

This is incorrect, in the 1995 World Microcomputer Championship M-Chess Pro 5.0 won the tournament against Hiarcs with a hidden book inside the program, called "Tweaking". M-Chess Pro 5.0 did not come out of its hidden book until move 38 and was, so far ahead of Hiarcs the game was over. This is a classic case of cheating and nothing happened !

I don't see how that is cheating. Everyone prepares lines for specific opponents, when that opponent shows a trend in opening selection. A "hidden book" is not illegal as nobody releases their tournament book to the general public because it would give opponents the opportunity to study it and prepare traps. The only book issue of late that did not apply in 1995 is the current "one book author can only work on the book for one engine" when the book will be used in a tournament. This is a relatively recent rule change that didn't apply back then.

[Sean Evans]

Books and computer codes have some intrinsic characteristics that should be considered when comparisons about them are made. A book is naturally open but computer source codes are proprietary and private by nature. It is for this reason that there is "open source" for computer codes and not needed for books. You simply cannot copy books as it infringes copyright and it is difficult to argue that "I ... somehow just wrote like J.K. Rowlings and the plots ... all turned out same... ". Source codes are very different regarding copyright. Once they are released into the open domain, "plagiarism" no longer can apply.

Rasjid

This is incorrect, in the 1995 World Microcomputer Championship M-Chess Pro 5.0 won the tournament against Hiarcs with a hidden book inside the program, called "Tweaking". M-Chess Pro 5.0 did not come out of its hidden book until move 38 and was, so far ahead of Hiarcs the game was over. This is a classic case of cheating and nothing happened !

I don't see how that is cheating. Everyone prepares lines for specific opponents, when that opponent shows a trend in opening selection. A "hidden book" is not illegal as nobody releases their tournament book to the general public because it would give opponents the opportunity to study it and prepare traps. The only book issue of late that did not apply in 1995 is the current "one book author can only work on the book for one engine" when the book will be used in a tournament. This is a relatively recent rule change that didn't apply back then.

Hi, in that tournament opening books were suppose to be turned off. In M-Chess Pro's case, the opening book was hidden in the program, although the opening book was turned off. No chance for Hiarcs to win, the game was fixed and M-Chess claimed the championship and made a lot of money!

[hyatt]

What is happening here is that it is easy to use "ideas" and "cut/paste" interchangeably, depending on which supports the particular argument at hand. I see the two as completely different, and clear-cut. And what we have been talking about is _really_ cut/paste, not ideas. Ideas are way too vague since US patent law is so screwed up in that regard. One can patent a manufacturing process. One can patent an idea with regard to computers. For example, there is a patent on an algorithm to convert from one musical key to another. Exactly how hard is that to do? I can take a relatively simple song, written in any key, and transpose to another key on the fly and play it. In my fingerstyle guitar stuff, I don't like all keys for any given song, because I want the melody to be on the three high strings, leaving the 3 bass strings for the usual driving alternating bass (ala' Chet Atkins). So if someone says "play xxx" (where I know the song but have not played it previously on the guitar) I fiddle around a minute or two to figure out the key that puts the melody notes where I want 'em. What idiot would let someone patent that idea? It is no more complicated than changing F to C in temp measurements. So the "idea" issue is vague. But no one has been accusing someone of stealing "ideas". It is about copying actual blocks of code. The two are basically different, and one is acceptable and one is not.

[hyatt]

What is happening here is that it is easy to use "ideas" and "cut/paste" interchangeably, depending on which supports the particular argument at hand. I see the two as completely different, and clear-cut. And what we have been talking about is _really_ cut/paste, not ideas. Ideas are way too vague since US patent law is so screwed up in that regard. One can patent a manufacturing process. One can patent an idea with regard to computers. For example, there is a patent on an algorithm to convert from one musical key to another. Exactly how hard is that to do? I can take a relatively simple song, written in any key, and transpose to another key on the fly and play it. In my fingerstyle guitar stuff, I don't like all keys for any given song, because I want the melody to be on the three high strings, leaving the 3 bass strings for the usual driving alternating bass (ala' Chet Atkins). So if someone says "play xxx" (where I know the song but have not played it previously on the guitar) I fiddle around a minute or two to figure out the key that puts the melody notes where I want 'em. What idiot would let someone patent that idea? It is no more complicated than changing F to C in temp measurements. So the "idea" issue is vague. But no one has been accusing someone of stealing "ideas". It is about copying actual blocks of code. The two are basically different, and one is acceptable and one is not.

That would be a new one on me. Never heard of a WMCCC event that was played with no books. I played in 1996 and 1997, but am not sure about 1995, but if you are talking about the (at the time ICCA) WMCCC event, no book is a new one on me.

[Jeremy Bernstein]

A matter of semantics. One can compare two books, or two chapters, or two paragraphs to determine if one is a copy of the other. It doesn't matter what else was done in addition to copying, copying anything, by itself, is called "plagiarism" in the friendliest term applicable. If someone rips parts of Crafty, Fruit, etc, and adds to those other parts that he writes himself, there is _still_ a copyright infringement problem, because you can't copy code. Note that looking at a single line is hardly useful, as many books have the sentence "Ouch, that hurt!" but wrap that in enough context and copyright violation becomes apparent.
...

Books and computer codes have some intrinsic characteristics that should be considered when comparisons about them are made. A book is naturally open but computer source codes are proprietary and private by nature. It is for this reason that there is "open source" for computer codes and not needed for books. You simply cannot copy books as it infringes copyright and it is difficult to argue that "I ... somehow just wrote like J.K. Rowlings and the plots ... all turned out same... ". Source codes are very different regarding copyright. Once they are released into the open domain, "plagiarism" no longer can apply.

Rasjid

I am inclined to agree, but there's another issue to the release of very strong open source in that it puts a bomb into computer chess development, in particular for competing top commercials, but academics also.

Comp chess development has always been about pinching the latest strong ideas from the latest strong program(s), whether null move or LMS or whatever idea. For Crafty to remain competitive Bob also has to monitor developments in other programs and find a way to incorporate them into Crafty.

Now if strong open source is released that contains code and/or ideas that are necessary to use to keep up in the race, what are commercials to do? Not use it, because of some ridiculous GPL? Bye-bye commercials, which might be what Bob wants .....

I don't see how strong open source is a "bomb" at all. It's more information, period. Commercials who want to use those ideas may, as may other open source efforts. The difference being that the other open source efforts have the option of using the code verbatim, while commercial (or closed source) developers are required to rewrite on the basis of the concepts involved. What's the problem?

When commercial chess people talk about commercial chess, they tend to speak as though commercial chess is some grail, some holy of holies which holds the computer chess world together. If strong enough open source is available, such that commercial development is obviated, that's a transition, and if the customer base dries up for programs like Rybka or HIARCS, that's tough, but not disastrous (except for the people who have put their eggs in that basket). But I can't think of a single reason why commercial, closed source development does anyone any good (beyond the developers or companies behind them who enjoy the profits).

I have no problem with it (comm-dev), I just don't see that it's any better than what open source efforts produce. I might understand a fear of homogeneity, if everyone is ladling from the same pot of soup, but human nature tends to take care of that problem anyway.

Jeremy

[BTO7]

I grew up in the days of "open computer chess development." Many of us exchanged source code all the time. Starting in the days of Coko (Kozdrowicki and I communicated a lot in the early 70's and the last version I had was Coko IV) and then on to Slate (not many wanted to look at compass assembly language but he made it available) and of course including Cray Blitz and Crafty, not to mention hundreds of other programs available today. We were trying to push the field forward, not push our own self-interests forward. I actually think we did pretty well at this approach, in spite of commercial computer chess programming practices.

Pity your last sentence spoils your insightful and good post. You are biased against commerce. While that is common in the scientific / university world they easily forget that without commerce there wouldn't be any university at all. Your salary eventually is paid by the commercials, by those people with a vision to make money, found a company and create jobs. These commercial companies and the people who work for them pay taxes and from these taxes you are paid and many scientists as well.

Bottom line: your bias against commerce in such strong wordings (and being not the first time BTW) undermines your objectivity in this matter. Against Rybka because it is commercial, pro Ippo and friends because it is free and damaging the commercials. That would be a valid impression, right or wrong.

Ed

What a pity is ..is commercial feeling because of their pursuit of money they some how have extra rights and some special claims to development in general. Thats biased....as it becomes not the best for all but the best for me situation IMHO.

Regards
BT

[BB+]

http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/WMCCC+1995
Note that M-Chess Pro 5.0 did not even play Hiarcs X.

[BB+]

The main legal arguments against the GPL (that you can find reiterated elsewhere) are that it tries to skirt around various long-held copyright issues, such as fair use and proportionality, perhaps by invoking its status as a license, as opposed to a copyright agreement. OTOH, I have the impression that the FSF is not exactly ogreish with GPL compliance (the FSF will offer to help with defense of GPL code for which they do not own the copyright, though they are more assiduous when they do), and, although the "horror stories" often say things about "one line of GPL code" corrupting the whole lot, simply removing that one line of code suffices (the argument that "at one point you had GPL code intermixed with your code and therefore your entire code is now GPL" fails to recognise the typical notion of a "remedy" in legal disputes). The FSF does much to encourage compliance via methods other than legal trials, and it is only in a few "obvious" cases of large-scale copying that this really has become an issue.

[Sean Evans]

http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/WMCCC+1995
Note that M-Chess Pro 5.0 did not even play Hiarcs X.

Hi sorry, it was M-Chess Pro 5.0 and Chess Genius in the tie breaker playoff when it happened.

Here is the game:

http://www.klink.net/~chestutr/g4w1.html

I am trying to find something on google to support the occurrence, but it was a long time ago.

Here is an interesting tidbit from that tournament

System Tal vs XXXX
A small anecdote appeared in the last round between Chess System Tal by Chris Whittington versus Martin Zentner's XXXX (FourX). Instead of a queen-promotion with a fast mate, the graphical System Tal board indicated a minor promotion to a knight! System Tal operator Thorsten Czub played the move over the board and had to resign on behalf of Chess System Tal, while Chris, already celebrating the safe point in the cafeteria, was not amused when he arrived back on the board. A bug in a graphics drawing routine indexed the wrong piece and caused some rule discussions in the news groups [6] [7] [8] . Chris on place argued the PVs, as stored inside a log-file, indicated the mate score and the correct moves. Nevertheless, Tournament Director Jaap van den Herik was unpersuadable.


Cordially,

Sean

[Rebel]

So my way of reasoning won't hold in court. Still I have a big problem with the concept. Words like open source and free but copyrighted after all. And then there is the matter of temptation. Perhaps some of you know what the Lord said about that in his prayer. Do not. Else, concept for trouble.

Ed

When it comes to the GPL, free means freedom to modify the code. "Free as in freedom, not as in beer." The matter of temptation is a non-issue. Just because an attractive girl gets too drunk at the bar, doesn't mean it's her fault when she is assaulted.

While I fully agree with the girl example you actually strengthen my point of temptation. It's a bad bad world, better do not get drunk as a nice girl and certainly not in a bar. And so it is with the GPL, it's tempting for many. On the legal aspect I already gave in, I got the feedback I wanted.

Ed