Page 1 of 3

Attack of the Clones (ChessVibes)

Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2011 9:55 am
by BB+
http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/attack-of-the-clones
Our recent report on the Houdini-Rybka match triggered lots of comments about the issue of cloning in the computer chess world. Was Houdini derived from the Ippolit series? Was it plagiarized from Rybka? And what about Rybka, is it largely based on the code of the Fruit engine? IM David Levy, President of the International Computer Games Association (ICGA), shares his thoughts about how to tackle the issue.
Of interest:
“Hi David,

I’m not really sure what to say. The Rybka source code is original. I used lots of ideas from Fruit, as I have mentioned many times. Both Fruit and Rybka also use all sorts of common computer chess ideas.

Aside from that, this document is horribly bogus. All that “Rybka code” isn’t Rybka code, it’s just someone’s imagination.

Best regards,
Vas”

And when I asked for clarification as to whether this response meant that the Rybka 1 source code was original, Vasik replied:

“all of the Rybka versions are original, in the sense that I always wrote the source code myself (with the standard exceptions like various low-level snippets, magic numbers, etc).”
I think the "document" Vas means is essentially Zach's webpage. I agree that some of the code reconstructions could be called "imaginative", but the substance of the evaluation simliarities remains. [And this doesn't being to address the other issues].

Re: Attack of the Clones (ChessVibes)

Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2011 10:24 am
by BB+
The above Levy-Rajlich exchange could have been prefaced by: "Furthermore, when I contacted Vasik a few days before writing this article, inviting him to comment on Zach Wegner’s analysis, he responded as follows"

At the end Levy has:
How to investigate such allegations and deal with cloning?
The ICGA intends to set up a forum for investigating prima facia claims of cloning in the world of computer strategy games. Claims that are proven to the satisfaction of the ICGA will result in sanctions being imposed by the ICGA on the offending persons, who will be named and shamed on the Internet.

Setting up such a forum for chess will require the support of leading members of the computer chess fraternity. We will need people willing to examine and compare source codes and to write reports on what they discover. The ICGA does not have a source of funds to pay for any such work, so anyone helping us will be a volunteer. Our current thinking is to make this chess forum open only to those who have already participated with their own chess program in an ICGA event. Anyone who comes into this category will be most welcome as a founder member of the group.

The first thing we need is someone willing to set up and operate a bulletin board where members of the forum can “meet” and exchange views. Will someone volunteer to do this to help the ICGA on its way to stamping out these insidious practices?
I'm not exactly sure of his intent here, but I'm not convinced that other chess programmers are typically the best "volunteers" to examine and compare source codes.

Re: Attack of the Clones (ChessVibes)

Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2011 2:29 pm
by JcMaTe
I really like this part
The Rybka-Fruit Case
In cases such as the antics of Langer and Espin very little proof is needed to establish the cloning. But in some cases there is a more sophisticated cloning effort, when the clone programmer(s) attempt to hide their actions by making changes to the code of “their” program, presumably hoping to obscure the original source of the algorithms, ideas and the original code itself. The most serious allegations we have come across of this type relate to Rybka, currently the world’s top rated chess program and the winner of the World Computer Chess Championship in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010. Rybka’s programmer is Vasik Rajlich, an International Master. For more than three years we have been hearing rumours in the computer chess world that Rybka’s engine was derived from the program Fruit, programmed by Fabien Letouzey, which placed second in the 13th World Computer Chess Championship in Reykjavik in 2005. Soon after his success in Reykjavik Fabien Letouzey made his program open source, under a Gnu Public License (GPL), so its copyright is now controlled by the Free Software Foundation.

In order to consider how the published Fruit source code might have influenced the development of Rybka, it is perhaps useful to examine some of the history of both programs. First let us go back a few years, to a time before the Fruit source code was made public. The Hiarcs forum contains the results of the CCCT6 tournament, played on January 31st and February 1st 2004, in which Rybka finished in 53rd place out of 54 contestants. On the Fruit Web site we find the following details of the open source versions of Fruit.

“It made its first appearance to the public in March 2004. Fruit was then just a basic program with a very simple evaluation and basic search. However since then it made skirmish progress adding about 100 Elo to each new release (1.5, 2.0, 2.1 and Fruit 2.2). The latest version from Fabien is “Fruit Beta 05/11/07″ compiled on November, the 3rd 2005. Since then no new versions where released.
Until Version 2.1, Fruit was open source. But with Fruit becoming the strongest engine, the author decided to close the source code to avoid clones which might participate in official tournaments.”

And furthermore, Fruit 2.1 was released with source code on June 17th 2005 under the GNU GPL license.
Let us now consider the point in time when it became clear that Rybka had become enormously strong. From Wikipedia we learn that:

“Vasik Rajlich started working on his chess program at the beginning of 2003. The first Rybka beta was released on December 2, 2005 . . . In December 2005, Rybka participated in the 15th International Paderborn Computer Chess Championship. Rybka won the tournament with a score of 5½ points out of 7, ahead of other engines such as Gandalf, Zappa, Spike, Shredder and Fruit.”

So Rybka’s first outstanding tournament success would seem to have been in December 2005, six months after the date of the release of the open source version of Fruit 2.1. One can understand from this coincidence of timing how many computer chess experts might have been led to think that Rybka’s development owed a considerable dept to the Fruit source code.

But as I have mentioned, at first the Rybka-Fruit case was mere rumour. More recently, however, these rumours have become firm allegations, made by expert chess programmers and supported by evidence which appears on the surface to be rather compelling, both in its nature and in its volume. At this point in time I do not intend to make any definitive statement of my own on these allegations, but will allow the reader to form their own opinion after reading the following.

First, here is a posting by Zach Wegner, who currently develops (with the full permission of Anthony Cozzie, the original Zappa programmer) an upgraded version of Zappa, the World Computer Chess Champion in 2005. Wegner participated in the 2010 World Computer Chess Championship with their program which is called Rondo.

Evaluation
Rybka’s evaluation has been the subject of much speculation ever since its appearance. Various theories have been put forth about the inner workings of the evaluation, but with the publication of Strelka, it was shown just how wrong everyone was. It is perhaps ironic that Rybka’s evaluation is its most similar part to Fruit; it contains, in my opinion, the most damning evidence of all.

General Differences
Simply put, Rybka’s evaluation is virtually identical to Fruit’s. There are a few important changes though, that should be kept in mind when viewing this analysis.

■Most obviously, the translation to Rybka’s bitboard data structures. In some instances, such as in the pawn evaluation, the bitboard version will behave slightly differently than the original. But the high-level functionality is always equivalent in these cases; the changes are brought about because of a more natural representation in bitboards, or for a slight speed gain. In other cases the code has been reorganized a bit; this should be seen more as an optimization than as a real change, since the end result is the same.
■All of the endgame and draw recognition logic in Fruit has been replaced by a large material table in Rybka. This serves mostly the same purpose as the material hash table in Fruit, since it has an evaluation and a flags field.
■All of the weights have been tuned. Due to the unnatural values of Rybka’s evaluation parameters, they were mostly likely tuned in some automated fashion. However, there are a few places where the origin of the values in Fruit is still apparent: piece square tables, passed pawn scores, and the flags in the material table.
Evaluation Detail
In this section, which we skip here for being slightly too technical, the author goes into more depth about the details of each aspect of the evaluations and their similarities and differences. You can read it in the PDF version of this article.

Responses from Vasik Rajlich
When it was suggested in 2007 in an Internet posting that Rybka was a clone of Fruit, Vasik Rajlich strongly denied it.

“Osipov’s speculation is not correct. Rybka is and always was completely original code, with the exception of various low-level snippets which are in the public domain.

Rybka’s scores are minimax score – they are propagated up the search tree. In principle, they should be from the tip of the PV, but because Rybka takes the PV from the hash table, this may not always be the case.

Re. depth, this is simply a tool to drive the iterative search. By conventional I mean ‘in the normal range’.

Vas”

Additionally, when the origins of Strelka became the subject of debate heated in the computer chess forums, Vasik pitched in with his own comments, claiming that Strelka was a clone of Rybka. Vasik posted the following on the Rybka forum.

By Vasik Rajlich Date 2008-01-11 12:26

I’ve taken a look this morning at the Strelka 2.0 sources. The picture is quite clear.

Vast sections of these sources started their life as a decompiled Rybka 1.0. The traces of this are everywhere. The board representation is identical, and all sorts of absolutely unique Rybka code methods, bitboard tricks and even exact data tables are used throughout. Significant portions of the search and evaluation logic are not fully disassembled – the author has left in hardcoded constants and used generic names (such as “PawnStruScore0″ & “PawnStruScore1″, “PassedPawnValue0″ through “PassedPawnValue7″, etc) which show that he hasn’t yet fully understood what is happening.

In some cases, these traces do also extend beyond the inner search and evaluation kernel. For instance, Rybka and Strelka are the only engines which I know about which don’t report “seldepth” and “hashfull”. Rybka’s UCI strings are used throughout.

The author did at first make attempts to hide the Rybka origins, for example by masking the table values in earlier Strelka versions. He also made significant attempts to improve the program. The attempts at improvement are not very original, but they are everywhere. They include PV collection, null verification (and in fact changes to the null implementation itself), some endgame drawishness heuristics, a handful of new evaluation term, a new approach to blending between opening and endgame eval terms, and so on. They also do include various structural changes, such as knight underpromotions, on-the-fly calculations of many tables, the setting of piece-square table values, etc. These changes are extensive and no doubt lead to differences in playing style and perhaps a useful engine for users to have, but they do not change the illegality of the code base.

In light of the above, I am claiming Strelka 2.0 as my own and will release it in the next few days under my own name. The name of the author with the pen name “Osipov” will be included if he comes forward with hiw own real name, otherwise an anonymous contribution will be noted. The contributions of Igor Korshunov will also be confirmed and noted if appropriate. All usage permissions will be granted with this release.

I do not see obvious signs of other code usage, but perhaps this deserves a closer look. Some of the transplanted ideas, such as the null verification search, are rather naive implementations of the approach in Fruit/Toga, although my first impression is that that code itself is original. The Winboard parser from Beowolf which was added to Strelka 1.0 seems to have been completely removed. If someone else does find other signs of code theft, please get in touch with me and I will give proper credit in the upcoming release.

If someone has suggestions about an appropriate license, and in particular the pros and cons of the GPL for a chess engine and for this unusual scenario, or if someone would be willing to help in preparing this code and license for release, please also get in touch with me.

As this code is two years and several hundred Elo old, I am not going to launch any major action. However, ‘Osipov’ has already threatened to repeat the procedure with Rybka 2.3.2a. (He did this after I declined to grant him rights to commercialize Strelka.) If this situation does repeat with a newer Rybka version, I will not just stand and watch any more. In the meantime, if someone has information about ‘Osipov’, please get in touch with me.

Furthermore, when I contacted Vasik a few days before writing this article, inviting him to comment on Zach Wegner’s analysis, he responded as follows:

“Hi David,

I’m not really sure what to say. The Rybka source code is original. I used lots of ideas from Fruit, as I have mentioned many times. Both Fruit and Rybka also use all sorts of common computer chess ideas.

Aside from that, this document is horribly bogus. All that “Rybka code” isn’t Rybka code, it’s just someone’s imagination.

Best regards,
Vas”

And when I asked for clarification as to whether this response meant that the Rybka 1 source code was original, Vasik replied:

“all of the Rybka versions are original, in the sense that I always wrote the source code myself (with the standard exceptions like various low-level snippets, magic numbers, etc).”

Fringe Problems
There is one other type of offence that I would like to mention here in connection with cloning, namely entering a cloned program created by someone other than the entrant, in a tournament, with the entrant knowing it be a clone. One might draw an analogy between the criminal law offence of theft and the crime of handling goods knowing them to be stolen. This offence in the computer chess world is similar to one that recently caused something of a scandal in the Netherlands, when a board member of the Dutch Computer Chess Association (CSVN), the body that organises the prestigious Leiden tournaments entered a pirated copy of Junior in one of the major online annual tournaments. (See here for more details.) Put simply, if someone knows that a program has been ripped off, either by cloning or through piracy, they will not be permitted to use a ripped off copy to compete in any ICGA event.

ANY CHESS ENGINE PROGRAM RELIES ON THE ADVANCES MADE BEFORE

Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2011 2:02 am
by MichaelIsGreat
Hello to All,


This article by David Levy entitled "Cloning Chess Engines" at http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/attack-of-the-clones/ is interesting in the sense that it shows that a program like a chess engine program always has to rely on the advances made previously before it by other chess engine programs. It is true of Rybka but of all the other programs.

The same could be said of most programs written today. For instance, word processors, spreadsheets, you name it, all these types of programs have what I could call a history. Many ideas in these programs have been made available by programs whose source codes are readily available on the Internet. Therefore, in order to write a "new" program of a particular type (word processor, spreadsheet, etc.), the programmer will surely read the source code of programs of that particular type and he will surely be influenced a lot by many good ideas from these previous programs whose source code he read.

There is this false idea in many people's minds that, in order for a chess engine program to be "legitimate" or not a clone, it would have to be written from scratch and nearly without adopting the advances made by others! It simply does not make sense at all. Why would a programmer want to recreate the "wheel" when the way to create the wheel has already been clearly explained all over the Internet I could say! This same idea applies to chess engine programs!

Even if a programmer would made only extremely very few changes to the full source code of a previous chess engine program that he would have found on the Internet but he would somehow manage to increase by say 100 ELO the strength of this chess engine program, this programmer should have the right to claim full credit for what he has accomplished with his very few changes. Why that?
Many (if not most!!) discoveries in the past have been made by inventors who have changed only a simple detail to the work of many others before them but this tiny change made a huge difference at creating a discovery whereas before the discovery did not exist!!!
Therefore, I could say the same for a programmer who would manage to increase a chess engine program that was at 2700 ELO to say 2800 ELO. This programmer could be considered the true author or the true inventor of this new chess engine program even if he would have changed only very few ideas or very few parts of the source code of this chess engine program! This programmer has added the indispensable "ingredient" that had eluded many other programmers before him and that transformed completely the strength of the chess engine program that he modified, even if it would have modified this chess engine program only very slightly.

CONCLUSION:
Those who want to accuse a chess engine program to be a clone of a previous chess engine program are blind and they certainly have no idea at all how discoveries are made. In any invention or in any discovery or in any new chess engine program whose strength increases dramatically, it is not the amount or the number of changes made to what was previously known that matters, it is the result that is obtained by any amount or by any number of changes made to what was previously known that matters!
In other words, even if a programmer would change only a few lines of code to an existing chess engine program whose source code is available on the Internet, if the new program increases dramatically in its strength by increasing dramatically its ELO, then this programmer should be entitled to claim full credit for his accomplishment, NO MATTER THE FACT THAT HE CHANGED ONLY A FEW LINES OF CODE TO AN EXISTING CHESS ENGINE PROGRAM!!! That is the difference between making a discovery and being stuck with a not satisfying solution!!


Best Regards To All
MichaelIsGreat

Re: Attack of the Clones (ChessVibes)

Posted: Mon Feb 21, 2011 11:26 am
by BB+
Levy gives some comments at ChessVibes. http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/attac ... ent-124734
David Levy on February 21st, 2011 11:04

Thanks to all of you who have thus far shown an interest in this matter. There are too many comments for me to reply to every one, so I hope that the following will deal with most of your comments.

First the question of Herr Langer in Portoroz. One posting says:

“Apparently it is customary for other descalficar ICGA without proof, or otherwise respond david: ICGA was the case Langer source code?”

As my article points out, Herr Langer confessed to having copied Richard Lang’s program, when it was pointed out to him that Richard Lang’s program had a bug that was reproduced exactly in “Langer’s” program. When the accused confesses, backed up by evidence such as this, there is no real need to examine source code.

The main point I would like to make right now is that the ICGA is in the process of setting up a tribunal in which chess programmers will be able to discuss allegations of cloning and whatever evidence is available to support or disprove such allegations. The ICGA will be strongly guided by this tribunal in its decisions as to the truth or otherwise of such allegations, and in its decisions as to what sanctions if any should be imposed on those found by the tribunal to have cloned the programs of others. This tribunal will thus be a kind of court, in which anyone accused of cloning will be judged by their peers. If any of you can find anything wrong in this approach please say so.

Finally, I would like to comment on the suggestion that my mind is already made up in the case of the Rybka-Fruit issue.

What I have said is that I believe the evidence presented thus far against Vaskik Rajlich is rather compelling in its volume and nature. This is quite a natural reaction when the vast majority of evidence presented in this discussion had been on the “prosecution” side. Although Vasik Rajlich has replied to some of his accusers, he has not yet, I believe, presented a substantive case for his defence. He will, as part of the process and regulations of the tribunal, be invited to present whatever evidence and arguments he wishes. All of the tribunal discussions will be conducted with the real names of those posting on the tribunal’s forum – no anonymity allowed – so no-one will be able to hide behind the cloak of a handle. It is my belief that in this way Vasik will receive a fair hearing from his peers, and that his peers will, in the end, be able to make a fair and balanced judgment on the case.

As to the question of accusations against other chess programs, they will also form part of the tribunal’s deliberations, which will be conducted on a case-by-case basis.

The ICGA has already received two offers to host the tribunal’s forum, and a decision is likely to be taken in the next few days as to which offer will be taken up. I shall post further information about the forum during this week.

David Levy

Re: Attack of the Clones (ChessVibes)

Posted: Mon Feb 21, 2011 9:31 pm
by thorstenczub
The ICGA has already received two offers to host the tribunal’s forum,
:lol:

i can see this in my mind. Jaap is the inquisitor. and conkie, skinner and banks do throw the first stone :-))

the first offer is the arena forum, the second offer is the ChessThinkerForum.

Re: Attack of the Clones (ChessVibes)

Posted: Wed Feb 23, 2011 11:47 pm
by BB+
The panel has been officially announced.
http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/attac ... ent-124857
David Levy on February 23rd, 2011 16:36

The ICGA Clone and Derivative Investigation Panel

By David Levy

I am pleased to be able to announce the establishment of the ICGA Clone and Derivative Investigation Panel. The founding statutes of the panel are appended below. The Secretariat comprises Robert Hyatt, Mark Lefler and Harvey Williamson.

Those chess programmers and others who are interested in joining the panel may apply at http://www.icga.wikispaces.com We particularly urge all of you who have taken part in past ICGA (and ICCA) events to join the panel so as to give the benefit of your experience to the discussions that will take place there.

The first matter to be investigated by the panel will be the allegations that have been appearing on various web sites and forums, leading to my recent article “Attack of the Clones” that was published on http://www.chessvibes.com However, the brief of the panel is to examine all allegations of cloning and derivative program creation where a prima facie case has been made and brought to the panel’s attention. This can extend beyond chess, into the realm of the other games contested at the annual Computer Olympiads. In the case of games other than chess appropriate experts will be invited by the ICGA to join the panel.

ICGA Clone and Derivative Investigation Panel

Founding statutes: February 22nd 2011

1 Purpose

The purpose of the Panel shall be to:

[a] Investigate and discuss allegations of cloning or creating a derivative of strategy games programs;

Report to the ICGA as to the veracity or otherwise of such allegations;

[c] Make recommendations to the ICGA as to what action if any should be taken against those found by the Panel to have been guilty of cloning or creating a derivative;

[d] Publish the findings of the Panel.

2 Membership

The Panel shall be open to:

[a] Programmers who have participated in any ICGA or ICCA World Championship
for computer chess or in any Computer Olympiad or in any other computer competitions deemed appropriate by the ICGA.

The office-bearers of the ICGA;

[c] Persons accepted as experts by the ICGA or by a unanimous decision of the Secretariat of the Panel.

Membership may be denied or rescinded to those deemed by the ICGA to have breached the normal ethical bounds expected of members.

Members may only participate under their own name. No anonymous membership or participation in discussions will be permitted.

There shall be no membership fees.

3 Operation of the Panel

[a] The Panel shall conduct its discussions on a Web site forum closed to non-members.

All discussions on the Panel’s web site forum shall be in English.

[c] The Panel’s web site shall be operated and maintained by a person or persons invited by the ICGA to do so.

[d] The day-to-day activities of the Panel shall be managed by a Secretariat of three members of the Panel who shall be invited or approved by the ICGA. The ICGA shall have the right to replace members of the Secretariat at its sole discretion upon giving seven days notice on the forum.

[e] For all general decisions relating to the day-to-day running of the Panel and its forum a majority decision of the Secretariat shall suffice. In any matters deemed by the ICGA to be of an especially crucial or controversial nature the ICGA may overrule a decision of the Secretariat.

[f] Anyone against whom an allegation of cloning or creating a derivative has been made on the forum shall have the right to respond in the forum to each and every posting relating to such allegations, provided that such person is a current member of the forum. In the case of persons who have previously been barred from participating in the forum, for example persons previously found by the Panel to have been guilty of cloning, such persons shall be invited by the Secretariat to present their defence to the Panel as and when the Secretariat feels is appropriate.

[g] The Secretariat shall normally decide when an allegation of cloning or creating a derivative program has been sufficiently investigated and discussed in the forum. At such time the Secretariat shall be responsible for presenting to the ICGA the Panel’s report on the allegations, and on the defence if any offered by those against whom the allegations have been made, and on the findings of the Panel as to the veracity or otherwise of the allegations. The Secretariat’s report to the ICGA shall include its recommendations if any as to what action if any should be taken by the ICGA in respect of sanctions against anyone found by the Panel to have been guilty of cloning or creating a derivative. Before making its decisions the ICGA shall invite the accused to present any comments they might have on the Panel’s findings and recommendations.

[h] The ICGA shall consider the reports and recommendations of the Panel and shall at its sole discretion decide upon what action if any should be taken. The sanctions that the ICGA might take against those found guilty of cloning or creating a derivative include but are not limited to:

Banning the guilty person(s) from participation in future ICGA events for any period deemed appropriate by the ICGA;

[ii] Publicizing, wheresoever it deems appropriate, the allegations and the names of those who have been investigated by the Panel and the findings of the Panel;

[iii] Recommending to other computer event organizers the exclusion of persons who have been found guilty by the Panel.

[iv] Annulling any titles that have already been awarded to programs that have since found by the Panel to have been clones or derivative programs, and demanding the return of any prize money paid to the offending programmer(s).

4 General Matters

[a] These statutes may be changed at any time by the ICGA at its sole discretion, upon the giving of 30 days notice in the forum.

The Panel shall be an advisory body of the ICGA. In all matters of dispute the decision of the ICGA shall be final.

The ICGA Clone and Derivative Investigation Panel

Posted: Wed Feb 23, 2011 11:58 pm
by kingliveson
A couple weeks back, I attended a beauty pageant at one of the universities here. The show /entertainment was great considering I had never been to one. What made it especially fun was the fact my younger sister was a contestant. There was on-line voting as well as panel judges whose votes carry more weights. I wonder if it would have been appropriate had I been appointed a panel judge...

What in the world does it have to do with computer chess? Nothing, just thought it was good introduction.

OK, maybe there's a tangential connection. Not to question the integrity of the panel members, but is there a conflict of interest with tournament actively participating members also having power to determine who can/cannot compete against them?

Re: Attack of the Clones (ChessVibes)

Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2011 12:31 am
by benstoker
BB+,

Do you think the likes of Rybka really care about this? Assume, arguendo, that Vas is adjudged a vile cloner by this august tribunal. Does he care? Does he need to care? If he's shut out of tournaments, does he care? In other words, would his commercial interests be affected at all by a "Cloner Judgment"? Would buyers of chess engines actually stop buying Rybka if a "Cloner Judgment" came down on Vas?

I like that this has started, but I wonder if it matters at all to the interests of prestigious closed source commercial chess software enterprises.


BB+ wrote:The panel has been officially announced.
http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/attac ... ent-124857
David Levy on February 23rd, 2011 16:36

The ICGA Clone and Derivative Investigation Panel

By David Levy

I am pleased to be able to announce the establishment of the ICGA Clone and Derivative Investigation Panel. The founding statutes of the panel are appended below. The Secretariat comprises Robert Hyatt, Mark Lefler and Harvey Williamson.

Those chess programmers and others who are interested in joining the panel may apply at http://www.icga.wikispaces.com We particularly urge all of you who have taken part in past ICGA (and ICCA) events to join the panel so as to give the benefit of your experience to the discussions that will take place there.

The first matter to be investigated by the panel will be the allegations that have been appearing on various web sites and forums, leading to my recent article “Attack of the Clones” that was published on http://www.chessvibes.com However, the brief of the panel is to examine all allegations of cloning and derivative program creation where a prima facie case has been made and brought to the panel’s attention. This can extend beyond chess, into the realm of the other games contested at the annual Computer Olympiads. In the case of games other than chess appropriate experts will be invited by the ICGA to join the panel.

ICGA Clone and Derivative Investigation Panel

Founding statutes: February 22nd 2011

1 Purpose

The purpose of the Panel shall be to:

[a] Investigate and discuss allegations of cloning or creating a derivative of strategy games programs;

Report to the ICGA as to the veracity or otherwise of such allegations;

[c] Make recommendations to the ICGA as to what action if any should be taken against those found by the Panel to have been guilty of cloning or creating a derivative;

[d] Publish the findings of the Panel.

2 Membership

The Panel shall be open to:

[a] Programmers who have participated in any ICGA or ICCA World Championship
for computer chess or in any Computer Olympiad or in any other computer competitions deemed appropriate by the ICGA.

The office-bearers of the ICGA;

[c] Persons accepted as experts by the ICGA or by a unanimous decision of the Secretariat of the Panel.

Membership may be denied or rescinded to those deemed by the ICGA to have breached the normal ethical bounds expected of members.

Members may only participate under their own name. No anonymous membership or participation in discussions will be permitted.

There shall be no membership fees.

3 Operation of the Panel

[a] The Panel shall conduct its discussions on a Web site forum closed to non-members.

All discussions on the Panel’s web site forum shall be in English.

[c] The Panel’s web site shall be operated and maintained by a person or persons invited by the ICGA to do so.

[d] The day-to-day activities of the Panel shall be managed by a Secretariat of three members of the Panel who shall be invited or approved by the ICGA. The ICGA shall have the right to replace members of the Secretariat at its sole discretion upon giving seven days notice on the forum.

[e] For all general decisions relating to the day-to-day running of the Panel and its forum a majority decision of the Secretariat shall suffice. In any matters deemed by the ICGA to be of an especially crucial or controversial nature the ICGA may overrule a decision of the Secretariat.

[f] Anyone against whom an allegation of cloning or creating a derivative has been made on the forum shall have the right to respond in the forum to each and every posting relating to such allegations, provided that such person is a current member of the forum. In the case of persons who have previously been barred from participating in the forum, for example persons previously found by the Panel to have been guilty of cloning, such persons shall be invited by the Secretariat to present their defence to the Panel as and when the Secretariat feels is appropriate.

[g] The Secretariat shall normally decide when an allegation of cloning or creating a derivative program has been sufficiently investigated and discussed in the forum. At such time the Secretariat shall be responsible for presenting to the ICGA the Panel’s report on the allegations, and on the defence if any offered by those against whom the allegations have been made, and on the findings of the Panel as to the veracity or otherwise of the allegations. The Secretariat’s report to the ICGA shall include its recommendations if any as to what action if any should be taken by the ICGA in respect of sanctions against anyone found by the Panel to have been guilty of cloning or creating a derivative. Before making its decisions the ICGA shall invite the accused to present any comments they might have on the Panel’s findings and recommendations.

[h] The ICGA shall consider the reports and recommendations of the Panel and shall at its sole discretion decide upon what action if any should be taken. The sanctions that the ICGA might take against those found guilty of cloning or creating a derivative include but are not limited to:

Banning the guilty person(s) from participation in future ICGA events for any period deemed appropriate by the ICGA;

[ii] Publicizing, wheresoever it deems appropriate, the allegations and the names of those who have been investigated by the Panel and the findings of the Panel;

[iii] Recommending to other computer event organizers the exclusion of persons who have been found guilty by the Panel.

[iv] Annulling any titles that have already been awarded to programs that have since found by the Panel to have been clones or derivative programs, and demanding the return of any prize money paid to the offending programmer(s).

4 General Matters

[a] These statutes may be changed at any time by the ICGA at its sole discretion, upon the giving of 30 days notice in the forum.

The Panel shall be an advisory body of the ICGA. In all matters of dispute the decision of the ICGA shall be final.

Re: Attack of the Clones (ChessVibes)

Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2011 1:22 am
by BB+
Do you think the likes of Rybka really care about this? Assume, arguendo, that Vas is adjudged a vile cloner by this august tribunal. Does he care? Does he need to care? If he's shut out of tournaments, does he care? In other words, would his commercial interests be affected at all by a "Cloner Judgment"? [...]
I like that this has started, but I wonder if it matters at all to the interests of prestigious closed source commercial chess software enterprises.
I have to agree somewhat. For instance, in some discussions I've had with Fabien, he's used phrases such as "yes, but, that has no public consequences" regarding certain points that have come up. OTOH, the opinion of the ICGA panel would certainly have some weight (as "expert testimony") in any civil proceedings against a "prestigious commercial enterprise", though admittedly the concept of "derivative" would still have to be re-addressed to comport with local law.