Attack of the Clones (ChessVibes)

[hyatt]

I personally believe, as I have stated many times, that this is going to be a long and involved process. First we have to come to grips with some sort of definition of what is allowable and what is not. For example, the ip*/robo*/Ivanhoe/Houdini family. Perhaps it is eventually decided that the "family" is OK. But all can't participate due to the derivative rule in most tournaments. But we have no objective definition of unacceptable derivative vs acceptable derivative. That's got to be ironed. Then the greyer area of what about a program that has parts of another, but not huge chunks?

It appears, to me, that we first need to figure out what is acceptable or unacceptable before we try to start dropping different programs into those two buckets.

Once that is settled, then there is the issue of the "sentencing guidelines". What justifies permanent ban, what justifies a timed ban, what justifies just a current event ban?

Then we get to the fun part of trying to figure out who has copied who, and how much, and then applying the guidelines to see if an offence was committed followed by a determination of the sentence to be handed down. And this only applies to ICGA sanctioned events such as the WCCC. I would suspect that CCT/ACCA events would take note of the findings however, and follow suit. Rating lists are up to the individual groups running them.

However, a clear finding of guilt would certainly have a negative impact on the program since it could no longer participate and could not use the title "World Computer Chess Champion" since it can't compete.

I doubt this is going to be a quick process, because it is definitely a complex one.

[Rebel]

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?

If found guilty by the tribunal the IGCA could take away all his WC titles in Tour de France style until he has done his GPL duties.

[benstoker]

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?

If found guilty by the tribunal the IGCA could take away all his WC titles in Tour de France style until he has done his GPL duties.

The more I think about it, the more I believe Hyatt and Levy's ICGA tribunal can be a success. It's the "Build it and They Will Come" principle. If a respected team of experts conducts a serious, scientific examination of a program with a well-defined set of criteria, there is really no way to hide from that.

Assume that the ICGA panel completes an examination of prestigious Commercial-Closed-Source-Program-X and determines it to be an "impermissible derivative." Assume that determination withstands peer review. Would the sponsor of this forum (ChessUSA) continue to sell an "impermissible derivative"? Chessbase? Would GMs or FIDE associate or co-sponsor such a program?

One way or the other, it would be a serious problem for the producer of that "impermissible derivative"; that producer (not "author") would be a pariah and shoved off to the computer chess netherworld such as sites like Immortal Chess. Exposed as a fraud, the days of wine and roses would be over. No more parties, fancy crackers and Brie. No more walking into tournaments and experiencing the adoration of chess enthusiasts goo-goo eyeing your very presence.

Moreover, the copyright holder of the original program would have in his possession an invaluable expert report to make use of should he wish to take the matter of copyright infringement to other tribunals. The cost of experts is a fantastic impediment to seeking redress in the courts of law.

If chess itself and computer chess are in the last throes of waning cultural importance and popularity, then, better to go out with a bang and not a whimper.
[FWIW, I posted same thing on talkchess]

[hyatt]

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?

If found guilty by the tribunal the IGCA could take away all his WC titles in Tour de France style until he has done his GPL duties.

At least the WC titles, but there are others such as the ACCA and CCT events that are (currently) outside ICGA jurisdiction. But that is a really messy idea to implement, when you think about it...

[hyatt]

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?

If found guilty by the tribunal the IGCA could take away all his WC titles in Tour de France style until he has done his GPL duties.

The more I think about it, the more I believe Hyatt and Levy's ICGA tribunal can be a success. It's the "Build it and They Will Come" principle. If a respected team of experts conducts a serious, scientific examination of a program with a well-defined set of criteria, there is really no way to hide from that.

Assume that the ICGA panel completes an examination of prestigious Commercial-Closed-Source-Program-X and determines it to be an "impermissible derivative." Assume that determination withstands peer review. Would the sponsor of this forum (ChessUSA) continue to sell an "impermissible derivative"? Chessbase? Would GMs or FIDE associate or co-sponsor such a program?

One way or the other, it would be a serious problem for the producer of that "impermissible derivative"; that producer (not "author") would be a pariah and shoved off to the computer chess netherworld such as sites like Immortal Chess. Exposed as a fraud, the days of wine and roses would be over. No more parties, fancy crackers and Brie. No more walking into tournaments and experiencing the adoration of chess enthusiasts goo-goo eyeing your very presence.

Moreover, the copyright holder of the original program would have in his possession an invaluable expert report to make use of should he wish to take the matter of copyright infringement to other tribunals. The cost of experts is a fantastic impediment to seeking redress in the courts of law.

If chess itself and computer chess are in the last throes of waning cultural importance and popularity, then, better to go out with a bang and not a whimper.
[FWIW, I posted same thing on talkchess]

I am not sure that is true. For example, what if ChessMaster were found to be a derivative? Do people in best buy shopping for a game care? Would they even know? No way to force Best Buy or GameStop to put a red "this is an impermissible derivative by ICGA rules" sticker on the box.

[thorstenczub]

The more I think about it, the more I believe Hyatt and Levy's ICGA tribunal can be a success.

i have nothing against Hyatt or Levy. But - as we all know - there are others.
these people behaved like they burned witches or were a kind of mc_carthy court.
or an anti-cloning-gestapo.

and if these people are IN the forum/board, i don't think the whole thing will be a serious thing/issue.

there are some people who cannot cope with having power. they misuse it.
they even blackmail others. they censor and ban people because these people disagree with them.

I have nothing against hyatt or levy. they are ok. but the other guys...

so i do not think the whole thing makes much sense.

[Jeremy Bernstein]

The more I think about it, the more I believe Hyatt and Levy's ICGA tribunal can be a success.

i have nothing against Hyatt or Levy. But - as we all know - there are others.
these people behaved like they burned witches or were a kind of mc_carthy court.
or an anti-cloning-gestapo.

and if these people are IN the forum/board, i don't think the whole thing will be a serious thing/issue.

there are some people who cannot cope with having power. they misuse it.
they even blackmail others. they censor and ban people because these people disagree with them.

I have nothing against hyatt or levy. they are ok. but the other guys...

so i do not think the whole thing makes much sense.

It doesn't make sense to have non-technical people on this sort of tribunal whatsoever. Harvey, what are you planning to offer? If your contributions resemble your previous non-technical comments about clones, cloning and cloners, I can't imagine how that would be useful to anyone except the propaganda department.

Jeremy

[Harvey Williamson]

The more I think about it, the more I believe Hyatt and Levy's ICGA tribunal can be a success.

i have nothing against Hyatt or Levy. But - as we all know - there are others.
these people behaved like they burned witches or were a kind of mc_carthy court.
or an anti-cloning-gestapo.

and if these people are IN the forum/board, i don't think the whole thing will be a serious thing/issue.

there are some people who cannot cope with having power. they misuse it.
they even blackmail others. they censor and ban people because these people disagree with them.

I have nothing against hyatt or levy. they are ok. but the other guys...

so i do not think the whole thing makes much sense.

It doesn't make sense to have non-technical people on this sort of tribunal whatsoever. Harvey, what are you planning to offer? If your contributions resemble your previous non-technical comments about clones, cloning and cloners, I can't imagine how that would be useful to anyone except the propaganda department.

Jeremy

Thanks for your support!

It takes different kinds of people to make something work. I am quite happy with what I have manahed to achieve today. The Fruits of my labour have been shared.

[thorstenczub]

The Fruits of my labour have been shared.

I do hope that your saying is not breaking the GPL agreement, harvey

[MichaelIsGreat]

Hello to All,

David Levy in his article "Attack of the clones : ChessVibes" at http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/attack-of-the-clones/ is quite pathetic. He wants to transform himself into a kind of inquisitor and he would like to scrutinize the few other programs that would like to participate to the World Computer Chess Championships (WCCC) but that would be FALSELY or not accused of being clones or of being illegitimate.

And the best, he said it at the end of his article by asking people to waste their time going over the code of the incriminated (FALSELY or not) chess programs! I am sure he could find many volunteers who would like to read the code of competing chess programs and find out, the easy way, how on earth did they manage to become so strong!
He says:
"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?"

And he wants to do this kind of inquisition when even the author of Rybka acknowledges very honestly that he benefited from a lot of ideas that were present in the chess engine program Fruit whose source code was made available on the Internet by its French author Fabien Letouzey.

Once again, and it is worth repeating what I have already clearly said in a previous posting:
-----------------------------------
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!!
-----------------------------------

If David Levy reads this posting, I strongly advise him to change completely the way the World Computer Chess Championship (WCCC) is done where the hardware is the same for each chess program competing.
1) Each chess program must play a match of 24 games against each opponent. This requirement means that the way the WCCC is done must change completely. As these 24 games against each opponent would take time, the way the WCCC is done should be changed.
One way to make this change is, for instance, by doing most of the games between each chess engine program BEFORE the official WCCC. This way, there would still be an opportunity for the WCCC to be held and it would not last longer but, at least, a reasonable number of games between each chess program would have been played so that the WCCC could be really a true test of the strength of the chess programs that are competing.
The number of games played during the WCCC is simply too low to determine the true strength of the chess programs that compete in this WCCC.
2) The chess programs that would like to compete in the WCCC where the hardware is not the same for each opponent should be entitled to participate only if they would have entered the WCCC with the same hardware for each opponent.
In 2010, Rybka only participated in the WCCC where the opponent did not have to stick to the same hardware for each opponent but he avoided participating to the WCCC where opponent should use the same hardware. He had, by a wide margin, the best hardware platform and therefore he did not have any problem winning the WCCC with unlimited hardware.

To conclude, there is NO need at all to prevent any chess program from participating to the WCCC with the same hardware for each opponent. Why? Even if a chess program entering the competition would have only one line of code changed compared to the original chess program, if this tiny change would show a dramatic increase in the ELO compared to the original chess program, this simple change should give the author the right to claim full credit for the dramatic ELO improvement he allowed the original chess program to accomplish, no matter how few changes he made to the original chess program. By simple honesty, the author could be completely honest by simply crediting the source code that he benefited from and/or the ideas from other chess programs that he benefited from. Same as the programmer of Rybka did!

Best Regards to All
MichaelIsGreat