Programmers Open Letter to ICGA on Rybka/Fruit

[thorstenczub]

his interest is not the truth, it is to fit the interest of his
own, of chessbase or hiarcs company.

the emails he has send to me when he banned me showed the
signature of hiarcs company.
so he is not a private person separated from mark uniacke.
he works for the company. he bans people for hiarcs company.
he supported rajlich and
the chessbase business of selling rybka and banning all
people from playchess server who used "clone"-engines
that could hurt chessbase' business.

harvey williamson cannot be part of a panel of secretary that
SOLVES the rybka issue.

One last time I am not an employee of Hiarcs or playchess. I have never been paid 1 penny by either.

harvey. its unimportant if you get money or good vibrations or a kiss from mark.
you are in the hiarcs team. and you work for chessbase.
you ban people. you censor them for the interest of the companies you work for.

its completely unimportant what you get for this.
you are in an interest conflict.

you have sent me emails where you ban me, and these emails
were signed with the hiarcs company signature.
so don't deny that you work for them.
anybody knows you as a despotic sysop for chessbase.
you ban people.
why do you ban them ? because they used "clone" programs.
and you made sure only the commercial clone rybka is used.
or fritz. this was in the interest of the company who employed you.

[thorstenczub]

But you _are_ somehow part of the organization "HIARCS", you represent the company on the forum, you travel on their behalf, write open letters regarding alleged pirate activity, etc. And some people believe (I am not among them, I might note) that this is a conflict of interest for your work on the tribunal. So you can continue to play coy and pretend like you don't know what anyone's talking about, or you could address the topic head-on.

jb

exactly. harvey is not the right person for such a function in a panel. he cannot
work without beeing in an interest conflict.

he is a member of the hiarcs team. and by working for chessbase as sysop
he is a member of the chessbase team.

how can somebody so deeply involved in commercial software
act and decide about something important ?

imagine the following:
i worked with chris whittington on chess system tal.
now consider somebody says: there is xyz code in chesssystemtal. lets
found a panel and thorsten is in the secretary


how would harvey react ? or others ? they would of course complain that i am in a team
with whittington.
or construct the same with christophe theron and me. or whatever other
team of people.

interest conflict is interest conflict.

harvey has to give up the position. gerd or somebody else without interest conflict should
replace him.

[kingliveson]

On a different subject: Serious concerns have been raised regarding Bob being a judge on the ICGA panel that will render final opinion on the matter. These are legitimate complaints given the fact that he has already publicly expressed his opinion, and therefore must recuse himself.

Franklin

Again, read David's letter. I do not get to render any "final opinion". Nor, in fact, any opinion at all. I am a member of a group of 3 that is going to conduct the investigation, giving Vas multiple chances to respond to each point of evidence presented by anyone. The three of us will then produce a report from this and forward it to David, where the ICGA will then convene a new group to decide what should be done in light of the evidence and rebuttals presented....

You are correct Bob that the final decision rests upon ICGA board members and not the Secretariats. You are however an "administrative officer," part of a panel set up by the ICGA to investigate misconducts. It so happens unfortunately that your current investigation involves a case that you’ve already expressed an opinion.

To complicate matters further:

...there is evidence that pre-Fruit Rybkas contained significant portions of Crafty, there could be a heightened danger of Bob "wearing two hats" (both as an "investigator" and a "moderator").

Below are portions extracted from U.S.C Judicial Code with regards to recusal:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/ ... -000-.html

Code: Select all

(a) Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.

(b) He shall also disqualify himself in the following circumstances:
(1) Where he has a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party, or personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts concerning the proceeding;

(2) Where in private practice he served as lawyer in the matter in controversy, or a lawyer with whom he previously practiced law served during such association as a lawyer concerning the matter, or the judge or such lawyer has been a material witness concerning it;

(3) Where he has served in governmental employment and in such capacity participated as counsel, adviser or material witness concerning the proceeding or expressed an opinion concerning the merits of the particular case in controversy;

[...]

So, shut up about bias.

To be clear, this is not saying Bob is biased or partial, but rather the appearance or potential there of is the issue.

[thorstenczub]

I thin it is a conflict of interest to post here on this topic so I will leave you to it. I will be back when the final report is published,

harvey, we discuss if YOU are the person to report about the topic.
in our opinion you should not be allowed to be in this position at all.
of course you can run away now.

but what does this tell us about the seriousness of this panel you are part of.
what shall we believe about an ICGA that puts somebody into a position who is
deeply biased ? a team member of one of the complaining people who could benefit from
a decision against rybka...

the fish is rotten. it stinks.

[Harvey Williamson]

I thin it is a conflict of interest to post here on this topic so I will leave you to it. I will be back when the final report is published,

harvey, we discuss if YOU are the person to report about the topic.
in our opinion you should not be allowed to be in this position at all.
of course you can run away now.

but what does this tell us about the seriousness of this panel you are part of.
what shall we believe about an ICGA that puts somebody into a position who is
deeply biased ? a team member of one of the complaining people who could benefit from
a decision against rybka...

the fish is rotten. it stinks.

Final post - I thought I was bad because I was a sys op on Playchess and protected Rybka's interests?

[thorstenczub]

Turns out Rybka 1.6.1 copied the same bug.

Ouch, that's embarrassing.

jb

this is not a surprise. at the time crafty was the only available source...
for rajlich.
rybka was on the level of crafty at that time, or even worse than crafty.
it was ranked at the end of the tournament table.

until fruit appeared as new open source platform for people ...

[orgfert]

imagine the following:
i worked with chris whittington on chess system tal.
now consider somebody says: there is xyz code in chesssystemtal. lets
found a panel and thorsten is in the secretary

I don't imagine you're trying to say that if cstal is accused of stolen code, you would defend Chris anyway and try to subvert the findings. But if you concur with guilty findings and help to discover them, how much more damning is the evidence against Chris, seeing that one of his own is blowing the whistle? In a way, you can only be suspect if you are seen to be opposing the evidence or trying to prevent it coming to light.

[Jeremy Bernstein]

To be clear, this is not saying Bob is biased or partial, but rather the appearance or potential there of is the issue.

It just seems to me like we can argue ad infinitum about the various conflicts of interest embodied in the personnel of the secretariat, and completely lose sight of the actual object of interest: the investigation and the evidence/rebuttal of said that results. Since I believe that, ultimately, the personnel of the secretariat want the investigation to be taken seriously (after all, they are taking some personal and professional risks by administering this sort of tribunal), they will all be professional about the position and the administrative work involved.

jb

[thorstenczub]

Final post - I thought I was bad because I was a sys op on Playchess and protected Rybka's interests?

harvey i like your "final posts". this reminds me much on quisinsky or nemeth.


but back to the topic:

you are bad because you behave like a despotic person. no matter in which team you do it.

but far from this: when you worked for chessbase, you banned people who used "clone" engines.
so you are on of the people who claimed: we protect computerchess and commercial programmers because we fight those ugly cloners.
but what you did in fact was, and your limited horizon protected you from seeing this yourself,
you ALLOWED a cloner to exploit a market .

your kind of rigid anti-cloning censorship and ban behaviour
made it possible for rajlich to continue year after year ...

same counts for the rating lists guys from CEGT and CCRL.

By preaching hatred against "the cloners" you and the rating-list guys allowed rajlich to
continue his "business" . while you did your censorship and ban behaviour,
he made money with code/ideas fabian letouzey had developed and published.

the whole issue came back as a boomerang with strelka. when rajlich claimed that
strelka is rybka, he commited suicide.
without "the cloners" rajlich could have continued like he did, because
people like you and the rating guys and conkie and skinners etc.
protected him indirectly.

for you he was holy grail, sold via chessbase, winning the championships, so he
HAD TO BE original.
he had to be kosher.
CEGT and CCRL tested rybka but not strelka, not ippollit, not houdini.

so they ALLOWED rajlich to continue his "business".


in all this witch-hunt against "cloners", you fought for the interest of chessbase,
and you fought for the interest of hiarcs company.

so we can come to the conclusion that you will continue to fight for the interest of these
companies.

is this the function you have been chosen into the secretary of the panel ? to fight for the interest of these companies ? so how will they profit ?

[kingliveson]

To be clear, this is not saying Bob is biased or partial, but rather the appearance or potential there of is the issue.

It just seems to me like we can argue ad infinitum about the various conflicts of interest embodied in the personnel of the secretariat, and completely lose sight of the actual object of interest: the investigation and the evidence/rebuttal of said that results. Since I believe that, ultimately, the personnel of the secretariat want the investigation to be taken seriously (after all, they are taking some personal and professional risks by administering this sort of tribunal), they will all be professional about the position and the administrative work involved.

jb

In fact, I tend to agree with Bob that the evidence speaks for itself. But that's besides the point. Many Rybka supporters, non-supporters, and neutral individuals have raised a valid point in my view.