Programmers Open Letter to ICGA on Rybka/Fruit

[Jeremy Bernstein]

Say am trying to put on some muscles and a friend hands me a bottle of what he says was creatine, but rather than gaining muscles am becoming more mentally unstable. So being suspicious that it might be really cocaine, I send the bottle to my good friends Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan (they being experts on the matter) to help verify. Have I committed a crime? Silly analogy, I admit.

But seriously, I don’t know because it is always gray with software.

I think what Olivier did was both ethical and legal. The ethical part is opinion. The legal part is fact. NDAs are a simple matter of contract law. There's not much room for discussion there -- either you signed a legally binding NDA [a contract, looks like this: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/sample-nda.html] (a legally valid digital signature is OK, but an email does not a digital signature make) or you didn't. If you didn't you're not bound to anything. If you violate a trust, that's where the ethics come into play.

Jeremy

[benstoker]

Say am trying to put on some muscles and a friend hands me a bottle of what he says was creatine, but rather than gaining muscles am becoming more mentally unstable. So being suspicious that it might be really cocaine, I send the bottle to my good friends Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan (they being experts on the matter) to help verify. Have I committed a crime? Silly analogy, I admit.

But seriously, I don’t know because it is always gray with software.

I think what Olivier did was both ethical and legal. The ethical part is opinion. The legal part is fact. NDAs are a simple matter of contract law. There's not much room for discussion there -- either you signed a legally binding NDA [a contract, looks like this: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/sample-nda.html] (a legally valid digital signature is OK, but an email does not a digital signature make) or you didn't. If you didn't you're not bound to anything. If you violate a trust, that's where the ethics come into play.

Jeremy

You don't need a signature to make a contract. If you send an email "Do you agree to do X?" and the other party replies "Yes", that's sufficient to indicate a meeting of the minds and a binding contract. Signatures are certainly important and preferred. However, the days of waxed seals and imprints and such are long gone. Point is that the absence of signatures by itself does not negate the formation of contract. On the other hand, if the parties simply exchanged proposed contracts and modifications and never signed a proposed written agreement, that suggests there was no meeting of the minds.

[kingliveson]

Say am trying to put on some muscles and a friend hands me a bottle of what he says was creatine, but rather than gaining muscles am becoming more mentally unstable. So being suspicious that it might be really cocaine, I send the bottle to my good friends Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan (they being experts on the matter) to help verify. Have I committed a crime? Silly analogy, I admit.

But seriously, I don’t know because it is always gray with software.

I think what Olivier did was both ethical and legal. The ethical part is opinion. The legal part is fact. NDAs are a simple matter of contract law. There's not much room for discussion there -- either you signed a legally binding NDA [a contract, looks like this: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/sample-nda.html] (a legally valid digital signature is OK, but an email does not a digital signature make) or you didn't. If you didn't you're not bound to anything. If you violate a trust, that's where the ethics come into play.

Jeremy

There's no disagreement that he did the right thing, but the right thing is not always legal, and of course am not suggesting what he did was illegal.

For the sake of argument and that only, what if I sent you a copy of my software without any stipulation not to re-distribute, would it be considered legal for you to send it to 50 others or in the worst case, set up a server where others can download it. I don’t think it is that clear.

[Harvey Williamson]

Say am trying to put on some muscles and a friend hands me a bottle of what he says was creatine, but rather than gaining muscles am becoming more mentally unstable. So being suspicious that it might be really cocaine, I send the bottle to my good friends Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan (they being experts on the matter) to help verify. Have I committed a crime? Silly analogy, I admit.

But seriously, I don’t know because it is always gray with software.

I think what Olivier did was both ethical and legal. The ethical part is opinion. The legal part is fact. NDAs are a simple matter of contract law. There's not much room for discussion there -- either you signed a legally binding NDA [a contract, looks like this: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/sample-nda.html] (a legally valid digital signature is OK, but an email does not a digital signature make) or you didn't. If you didn't you're not bound to anything. If you violate a trust, that's where the ethics come into play.

Jeremy

There's no disagreement that he did the right thing, but the right thing is not always legal, and of course am not suggesting what he did was illegal.

For the sake of argument and that only, what if I sent you a copy of my software without any stipulation not to re-distribute, would it be consider legal for you to send it to 50 others or in the worst case, set up a server where others can download it. I don’t think it is that clear.

I think under normal circumstances it would be wrong to pass on your program. However if I was convinced there was compelling evidence that your software may not be original I would have a tough choice to make.

[kingliveson]

Say am trying to put on some muscles and a friend hands me a bottle of what he says was creatine, but rather than gaining muscles am becoming more mentally unstable. So being suspicious that it might be really cocaine, I send the bottle to my good friends Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan (they being experts on the matter) to help verify. Have I committed a crime? Silly analogy, I admit.

But seriously, I don’t know because it is always gray with software.

I think what Olivier did was both ethical and legal. The ethical part is opinion. The legal part is fact. NDAs are a simple matter of contract law. There's not much room for discussion there -- either you signed a legally binding NDA [a contract, looks like this: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/sample-nda.html] (a legally valid digital signature is OK, but an email does not a digital signature make) or you didn't. If you didn't you're not bound to anything. If you violate a trust, that's where the ethics come into play.

Jeremy

There's no disagreement that he did the right thing, but the right thing is not always legal, and of course am not suggesting what he did was illegal.

For the sake of argument and that only, what if I sent you a copy of my software without any stipulation not to re-distribute, would it be consider legal for you to send it to 50 others or in the worst case, set up a server where others can download it. I don’t think it is that clear.

I think under normal circumstances it would be wrong to pass on your program. However if I was convinced there was compelling evidence that your software may not be original I would have a tough choice to make.

This is the gray area.

[Jeremy Bernstein]

I think under normal circumstances it would be wrong to pass on your program. However if I was convinced there was compelling evidence that your software may not be original I would have a tough choice to make.

And. There is a world of difference between giving the program to an organization for testing/research v. posting it on a file-sharing platform. This is where "fair use" as mentioned previously by Mark would come into play.

Jeremy

[benstoker]

I think under normal circumstances it would be wrong to pass on your program. However if I was convinced there was compelling evidence that your software may not be original I would have a tough choice to make.

And. There is a world of difference between giving the program to an organization for testing/research v. posting it on a file-sharing platform. This is where "fair use" as mentioned previously by Mark would come into play.

Jeremy

Vas' 'rag tag ad hoc beer swilling candy cigarette smoking internet legal team' farts dust. He will NEVER go to court to claim "he bad because he show everybody me bad." What a load of crap. Enter a suspicious engine in an ICGA tournament and then cry 'illegal' when ICGA investigates whether the engine violates the tournament rules. That does not even merit a response. Pathetic.

[BB+]

It was in all cases legal. NDAs are contracts and an email exchange doesn't cut it, whatever the Rybka peanut gallery purports to know.

I'd have to disagree, partially. I think that Rajlich could fairly assume that Deville would keep Rybka 1.6.1 private, that is, as an implicit non-disclosure agreement. OTOH, Deville certainly expected to receive a legal non-derivative engine in exchange for this confidence. In practise, verbal (or email) agreements might not be worth the paper they are written on, but I think they do still exist in theory.

I guess it comes down to whether you think any implicit NDA was of the form "I am giving you X. You must not share X", as opposed to "I am giving you something that I claim is X. Whatever it is, you must not share it." Given that Y was actually given, the receiver had no reason not to share Y in the first case. [I am only talking of an NDA here -- copyright infringement is another layer on top of this, but as I stated earlier, I think it fails under fair use]. I am no expert, but would guess that the former is more typical of the conditions of an NDA, and would thus be the natural candidate for anything "implicit".

Vas' 'rag tag ad hoc beer swilling candy cigarette smoking internet legal team' farts dust. He will NEVER go to court to claim "he bad because he show everybody me bad." What a load of crap. Enter a suspicious engine in an ICGA tournament and then cry 'illegal' when ICGA investigates whether the engine violates the tournament rules. That does not even merit a response. Pathetic.

I think the primordial error the Rybka forum makes is an exaggeration of what might take place. Right now, it seems that the level of "non-originality" that the ICGA is currently investigating is rather tame -- for instance, in another thread I suggested that the "punishment" might be nothing more than something like: an admission of guilt and formal apology, perhaps disqualification for 2006, changing the winner to "Fruit/Rybka" and "Rajilch/Letouzey" in 2007, and maybe some sort of a fine as a punitive measure to deter future incidents (this assumes Rybka 2.3.2a is the last one that contains any significant parts from Fruit). If the ICGA finds stronger evidence, a stronger punishment might apply. [Contrary to "popular" opinion, the ICGA and/or the Panel are not quite raving lunatics, and might very well decide to have the punishment fit the offence, as it were].

[Olivier Deville]

I think under normal circumstances it would be wrong to pass on your program. However if I was convinced there was compelling evidence that your software may not be original I would have a tough choice to make.

And. There is a world of difference between giving the program to an organization for testing/research v. posting it on a file-sharing platform. This is where "fair use" as mentioned previously by Mark would come into play.

Jeremy

Vas' 'rag tag ad hoc beer swilling candy cigarette smoking internet legal team' farts dust. He will NEVER go to court to claim "he bad because he show everybody me bad." What a load of crap. Enter a suspicious engine in an ICGA tournament and then cry 'illegal' when ICGA investigates whether the engine violates the tournament rules. That does not even merit a response. Pathetic.

I'm pretty sure I did nothing wrong according to french laws. As Mark said, ethics are another matter, and people may have different feelings about it.

Olivier

[BB+]

I'm pretty sure I did nothing wrong according to french laws. As Mark said, ethics are another matter, and people may have different feelings about it.

Maybe it will reduce the number of "clone" engines you receive for ChessWar, now that they know that you could expose them. Well, Levy did suggest that "name and shame" was part of the ICGA anti-clone plan...