veritas wrote:he robbed everyone , he gave one buggy update for free (4.1 ) hoping to appease and buy time , and that was 2 years late and still did not address the original faults , trading standards would have had him by the short and curlies had he lived somewhere else .
Despite its bugs and flaws, Rybka was the strongest engine available for a very long time, with a fairly reliable evaluation under most circumstances (with the same weaknesses that most engines have [bad eval of closed positions, limited endgame knowledge, etc.]). Since most engine users are ELO queens, this was certainly enough to keep sales up, even with the understanding that the goods weren't perfect. I've never heard of a trade commission going after a software manufacturer for bugs or difficult-to-use/half-implemented features.
he gave engines to his cronies and CERTAIN others to buy there cooperation and keep them quite he charged EVERYONE else , way over the odds ,
I don't think there's any evidence for any of that, nor a reason to believe that this was the case. Freebies are part of software development, and are generally not given out with strings attached. Whether the recipients considered themselves beholden to Vasik, who can say (CCRL testing policies would give one the impression that there was some interest in not rocking the boat, but I doubt that the impetus came from Vasik, more from "true hobbyists" like Graham Banks who were (in my personal opinion) afraid of losing "privileges"). Peter Skinner, who was apparently quite critical of Rybka, at least at the outset, received free copies, as well, so this just doesn't really hold water.
worse still he labeled all REAL competitors as clones and thieves
This is ironic, of course. Time will tell if Ippolit and friends are, in fact, "clones" -- the jury is still out on that. I tend to think that they aren't, at least not in the sense of "stolen code", but probably in the sense of "functionally equivalent on the basis of reverse engineering". Which is probably reason enough to keep them out of ICGA tournaments.
,and still hides behind his wife's skirt rather than come out and hold his hands up , as a ReaL man would , she must be sorely embarrassed , or should be
It furthers no one's arguments to drag Iweta Rajlich into this (I guess you're just making a snipe at Vas' manhood here, which is also pretty beside the point, but as long as you bring her up...). She's neither a programmer nor responsible for the deception at hand. I think it's unfortunate that Metro took the opportunity to publish that silly photo of the two of them and call her "the computer chess world equivalent of Posh". But that's the yellow press for you. Anyhow, leave her out of it -- this is his mess.
I guess my point is, Vas is just a programmer who made about the worst mistake you can make in the programming world, and compounded it with his (initial) denials and subsequent silence. He doesn't get any pity from me: as a programmer, I consider his actions professionally heinous; and as a Rybka licensee, I have a ton of issues with the way he conducts his business and serves his customers, but that's another matter which is better solved by no longer feeding the meter.
Nevertheless, I assume that he's a reasonably smart, averagely nice guy and doesn't deserve to be personally demonized on top of the disgrace he's been served this week.
So let's try to keep it civil -- a lot of ugly words are flying around CC fora this week, and a bit of perspective and restraint would go a long way.
Jeremy
