gull chess

[ThinkingALot]

Here http://lefounumerique.xooit.com/t891-Cr ... ss-0-4.htm Patrick Buchmann (the guy who runs UEL) believes that Gull is a clone.(lol). He had even provided two reasons

Salut,

Deux raisons:
1- thinkingalot
2- Grapefruit

Patrick

which certainly don't look convincing . Does anybody know how to contact him in order to clarify this issue? I failed to find the e-mail.

P.S. Gull 0.8 is out: https://sourceforge.net/projects/gullch ... p/download. Estimated strength: 2900 - 3000 CCRL.

[Matthias Gemuh]

Does anybody know how to contact him in order to clarify this issue? I failed to find the e-mail.

.

Go and click on "mp" under his post.

[ThinkingALot]

Gull 0.9 is out: https://sourceforge.net/projects/gullch ... p/download. This is a bugfix release. 10 - 30 ELO increase is expected.

[Martin Thoresen]

Gull 0.9 is out: https://sourceforge.net/projects/gullch ... p/download. This is a bugfix release. 10 - 30 ELO increase is expected.

Thanks!

I would very much appreciate some sort of readme file in the archive, with version changes and general info...

[UncombedCoconut]

Gull 0.9 is out: https://sourceforge.net/projects/gullch ... p/download. This is a bugfix release. 10 - 30 ELO increase is expected.

Thanks!

I would very much appreciate some sort of readme file in the archive, with version changes and general info...

At least it would be nice to know what license you are using -- I couldn't find that.
Another question, do you intend this to be a Windows-only engine forever?
It looks like development is early enough that a portable rewrite isn't too bad.
(Of course if you plan to add SMP that's harder to get right across platforms.)
I've checked and it's doable... if your license lets you borrow the ASM from a project like SF, I'm willing to try it.
The parts that aren't totally trivial are BSF/BSR, TT prefetch, GetTickCount(), and non-blocking read from stdin.

Even if you don't want to spend time on portability, I'd look into whether you can include inttypes.h to save yourself some boilerplate code. I thought MS supported inttypes even if it didn't support stdint. :shrug:

[ThinkingALot]

Thanks!
I would very much appreciate some sort of readme file in the archive, with version changes and general info...

I plan to add a readme file to the first "release" version: 1.0.

At least it would be nice to know what license you are using -- I couldn't find that.

Gull is registered at sourceforge.net as a public domain project.

Another question, do you intend this to be a Windows-only engine forever?

At least in the nearest future.

I've checked and it's doable... if your license lets you borrow the ASM from a project like SF, I'm willing to try it.

Simple assembler functions can probably be borrowed from anywhere. I don't think it would be a GPL violation to use these functions and keep the code public domain.

The parts that aren't totally trivial are BSF/BSR, TT prefetch, GetTickCount(), and non-blocking read from stdin.

Porting prefetch isn't absolutely necessary. This function just gives some speedup. It doesn't change the search logic.

[mcostalba]

Simple assembler functions can probably be borrowed from anywhere. I don't think it would be a GPL violation to use these functions and keep the code public domain.

I am sorry but I don't agree here.

In no part of GPL licence it is written that if you copy just a small part of a GPL sorce you are allowed to skip GPL enforcements. Actually it does not change anything if you copy a big or a small part, a difficult or a trivial one, in any case you are forced to accept GPL terms, i.e. to release also your sources under GPL license.

If you want to avoid this simply do not take any code chunk from GPL sources. There are no other legal ways to overcome this. The "quantity" of code copied is not a valid argument at all.

P.S.: Sometime this argument appears in CCC, but is pushed mainly by trolls, or by not technical people. But never by programmers that are expected to have a clear understunding of GPL terms.

[ThinkingALot]

I am sorry but I don't agree here.
In no part of GPL licence it is written that if you copy just a small part of a GPL sorce you are allowed to skip GPL enforcements.

Sure. However you forget about two important issues.
1) If some code is published under GPL it only means that all its parts comply with the GPL or some "weaker" license. This "weaker" may be "public domain". It's pretty plausible that all the assembler intrinsics from SF were implemented long before its appearance.
2) I'm not sure, but "obvoius" algorithms/ideas probably can't be copyrighted. Correct me If I am mistaken.

P.S. Could you please provide a link to the CCC discussion on this topic?

[mcostalba]

I am sorry but I don't agree here.
In no part of GPL licence it is written that if you copy just a small part of a GPL sorce you are allowed to skip GPL enforcements.

Sure. However you forget about two important issues.
1) If some code is published under GPL it only means that all its parts comply with the GPL or some "weaker" license. This "weaker" may be "public domain". It's pretty plausible that all the assembler intrinsics from SF were implemented long before its appearance.
2) I'm not sure, but "obvoius" algorithms/ideas probably can't be copyrighted. Correct me If I am mistaken.

P.S. Could you please provide a link to the CCC discussion on this topic?

I would rather suggest you to careful read this:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html

and also this specific point:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.htm ... CompatMean

where it is stated that public domain is compatible with GPL in the meaning that

"you can combine code released under the other license with code released under the GNU GPL in one larger program.
<snip> they also permit distribution of such combinations provided the combination is released under the same GNU GPL version."


I suggest you this becasue point (1) makes me think it is not very clear to you what GPL means regarding point (2) GPL is not about to copyright ideas but source code: if you use source code from GPL program you have to release the result as GPL. You can use the idea (without the code) and keep your license, also because if this was not true probably now, June 2010, almost all engines (commercial included) should have been released as GPL, but luckly for them this is not the case.


And as a final note let me add that, instead of public domain, the GPL license is one of the _less_ permissive at all out there !

[Sentinel]

Simple assembler functions can probably be borrowed from anywhere. I don't think it would be a GPL violation to use these functions and keep the code public domain.

I am sorry but I don't agree here.

In no part of GPL licence it is written that if you copy just a small part of a GPL sorce you are allowed to skip GPL enforcements. Actually it does not change anything if you copy a big or a small part, a difficult or a trivial one, in any case you are forced to accept GPL terms, i.e. to release also your sources under GPL license.

If you want to avoid this simply do not take any code chunk from GPL sources. There are no other legal ways to overcome this. The "quantity" of code copied is not a valid argument at all.

The things he's talking about are already public domain. You can't take public domain things put them in GPLed program and claim GPL. Things simply don't work that way.