Authorship eternal

[BB+]

One of the (tangential) points Levy made in his Riis rebuttal was regards the "later" Rybka entries to the WCCC (2008-10). He stated that Rajlich was still obliged to list Letouzey as a co-author, as long as Rybka development continued.

Here is a relevant 2008 comment from Dann Corbit.

You cannot undo authorship. Fabian will be one of the authors of Toga for all eternity whether someone erases his name or not.
Eventually, Toga may be totally dissimilar from Fruit. But the origin does not change.

I am not sure whether Corbit would like his comment here to applied to the Rybka situation, but to me it seems valid.

Of course, one can enumerate some historical examples, where supposed discrepancies can arise due to (e.g.) indecisive partnerships in the early days of development. For instance, Nona is listed as being by Morsch in 1984 (ICCA Journal 7/4 concerning the Netherlands Computer-Chess Championship), and the "amateur" part of the 5th WMCCC (ICCA Journal 8/3) lists this again, but then for the Dutch Computer-Chess Championship in 1985 (ICCA Journal 8/4), one finds that E.G.H. Schroeder is listed as a co-author (note that a few months earlier, Rebel competed in the amateur part of the 5th WMCCC separately from Nona). Indeed, the accompanying text in the article speaks of their co-work. This appears to be the only joining of these two, as both Nona and Rebel competed separately in the WCCC and the DCCC in 1986. When counting book authors as "co-authors" (rather than co-entrants, I guess) it can be even more hairy.

[Adam Hair]

One of the (tangential) points Levy made in his Riis rebuttal was regards the "later" Rybka entries to the WCCC (2008-10). He stated that Rajlich was still obliged to list Letouzey as a co-author, as long as Rybka development continued.

Here is a relevant 2008 comment from Dann Corbit.

You cannot undo authorship. Fabian will be one of the authors of Toga for all eternity whether someone erases his name or not.
Eventually, Toga may be totally dissimilar from Fruit. But the origin does not change.

I am not sure whether Corbit would like his comment here to applied to the Rybka situation, but to me it seems valid.

Let's consider a hypothetical engine called Plan 9. Its author, let's call him Ed, used MSCP as the code base for Plan 9. Ed tinkers with the code, learning how it interacts and actually makes a few changes. At this stage, there is no doubt that Marcel van Kervinck is a coauthor of Plan 9.

Let's advance ahead a few months. Presently, Plan 9 is a mixture of Ed's code and Marcel's code. Ed's knowledge has grown to the point that he does not need to use Marcel's code as a crutch anymore. Also, he really likes the name Plan 9.

Ed has two options for continuing the development of Plan 9:

1) A complete rewrite.

2) Continue to replace Marcel's code with his own.

In the case of the first option, I am unaware of any laws where Marcel's ownership of code in Plan 9 makes him co-owner of the name. Thus, if Ed completely rewrites the engine, Marcel owns nothing associated with Plan 9 and can not be considered a coauthor.

In the case of the second option, as long as any of Marcel's code is in Plan 9, then Marcel is a coauthor. What happens when Plan 9 is without a vestige of MSCP? Is Marcel still a coauthor of Plan 9, as is implied by the statements of David Levy and Dann Corbit? Certainly, it is proper that the role MSCP played in the development of Plan 9 be acknowledged. Yet, if none of his code remains, how can he be considered a coauthor? Is the difference in the processes of Scenario 1 and Scenario 2 an important distinction?

[BB+]

This is rapidly becoming one of those metaphysical debates about how a given piece of code came to be... Back in 2008, Christophe Théron was one of the biggest promoters of the idea that one couldn't circumvent copyright (or the GPL) by rewriting all the code (in your scenario #2). My answer would be that (contrary to the case in the blurb quoted byThéron) if you managed to change everything so that it was no longer "substantially similar", even at the nonliteral level, then you are OK for copyright. Certainly not before.

The ethics of originality (and/or authorship) is a somewhat different question. Naming rights can even be a battleground. For instance, once Toga gets associated as the name of a Fruit derivative, a vestige-less re-write should probably be re-named to avoid confusion. I think this name-association was part of the point being made by both Corbit and Levy. As a related example, Kaufman is still considered by many to be the (or an) author of the Rybka evaluation, even though his name was omitted in the Rybka 4 UCI author string.

[Adam Hair]

This is rapidly becoming one of those metaphysical debates about how a given piece of code came to be... Back in 2008, Christophe Théron was one of the biggest promoters of the idea that one couldn't circumvent copyright (or the GPL) by rewriting all the code (in your scenario #2). My answer would be that (contrary to the case in the blurb quoted byThéron) if you managed to change everything so that it was no longer "substantially similar", even at the nonliteral level, then you are OK for copyright. Certainly not before.

You are right about the metaphysics

I am in agreement with your assessment.

The ethics of originality (and/or authorship) is a somewhat different question. Naming rights can even be a battleground. For instance, once Toga gets associated as the name of a Fruit derivative, a vestige-less re-write should probably be re-named to avoid confusion. I think this name-association was part of the point being made by both Corbit and Levy. As a related example, Kaufman is still considered by many to be the (or an) author of the Rybka evaluation, even though his name was omitted in the Rybka 4 UCI author string.

This is where opinions in general differ. It is common practice for some to use a different name for a different project. And perhaps, when considering a process akin to Scenario 2, a different name should be chosen at the end to signify the metamorphosis of the engine. Yet, I can not fault a person for keeping a name that they like just because they used it too soon.

[User923005]

Isaac Newton said, "I stand on the shoulders of giants." It is not by accident that Newton, Leibniz and Pascal all simultaneously invented calculus. All the needed precursors were available at the time. Newton's attitude was very refreshing to me.
Every chess program has a heritage that is deep and varied. People who claim that their program is entirely original are complete and utter liars.
As an example, no decent chess program can play without using Alpha-Beta or similar shaved search (C-Star, MTD(f)...) which the author of the chess program did not invent. Or, if by some stroke of genius a chess program author should happen to invent something better than and yet not related to alpha-beta, there are still thousands of other things that have been borrowed from others.
Writing a chess program should be exactly the same as writing any other program.
When material from another author is used, it should be used properly and with citations of some sort. If the use is extensive from some particular source, then internal comments for the code itself is not enough and there should be external mention of the legacy.
The heritage of anything and everything grows over time, but the roots never go away. Not ever.

IMO-YMMV

My actual view is even more radical than this. I think that each and every computer program should be written like a reference book, complete with footnotes, endnotes, citations, etc. in a format that is acceptable for the programming language at hand. This could be used to prove the rightful lineage of every line of the program. But then again, I would do away with software patents entirely, which feel like a criminal act to me, even though they are not.

[noctiferus]

I read a book, many years ago, on Leibnitz- Newton controversy. First case of thieving ideas (or non-literal copying)?
If I can find that book again, I'll post here the original title, because it was really interesting. But, don't be too optimistic

[tano-urayoan]

Isaac Newton said, "I stand on the shoulders of giants." It is not by accident that Newton, Leibniz and Pascal

First time I read Pascal invented calculus.

[User923005]

Isaac Newton said, "I stand on the shoulders of giants." It is not by accident that Newton, Leibniz and Pascal

First time I read Pascal invented calculus.

It is well known that Pascal "almost" invented calculus. See, for instance:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/40147343/Tran ... o-Calculus
See also:
http://www.angelfire.com/zine/baptistsu ... ascal.html

[User923005]

This is salient:
http://books.google.com/books?id=V_B5SI ... al&f=false

[tano-urayoan]

It is well known that Pascal "almost" invented calculus. See, for instance:

Are you sure about your references that indicate that Pascal almost invented calculus? Which by the way is different from your previous remark: "Newton, Leibniz and Pascal all simultaneously invented calculus"(which is already false as Pascal precedes the other 2) If that is the case We should include Archimedes, Fermat and others also.