Progess (often) is ugly, a summary try

[Gerd Isenberg]

I share your critique concerning the life-time ban, the media coverage, and that Chris W. was banned from the panel.

Gerd

Just for the record, Chris applied, there was a 1-2 day lag as each applicant was screened, we did not want anonymous people, nor people with no technical background. During that lag in admission, Chris did his usual and started his complaining. The group generally decided that they could do without his noise. I did not vote to deny him admission, but then I did not object due to the usual flare-up while he was waiting. And in retrospect, it was a + for the panel, Chris had already made a zillion bogus arguments about why vas "might not have actually copied" fruit code, even though they are identical. Those discussions are still available. Might have been here, am not sure, or at CCC perhaps...

It would have been about as productive to include Rolf. Wonder if some of you guys would have criticized us had he applied and been turned down???

You can not compare Chris with Rolf on that matter. Chris was commercial chess programmer, and played multiple ICGA tournaments. I am more or less aware of Chris' agenda with the ICGA. Nevertheless, he would be a valuable "devils advocate", which was otherwise appreciated by Mark Lefter directed to other panel members.

For the media coverage, the ICGA should have published the disqualification first on their own side or the investigation wiki rather than on ChessVibes.

Beside these points and the life-time ban, which is too hard for my taste, I am in agreement with the ICGA decision.

[BB+]

Briefly, I agree the "lifetime ban" is a bit of salesmanship, as the Rajlich-ICGA feelings are likely mutual. And presumably Rajlich could ask for reconsideration in any event [which as likely as ...]. The main aspect of it might be to make other organising bodies somewhat less likely to accept a Rajlich entry.

Regarding the mainstream media, having been involved in various attempts to popularise maths research, I can say it is almost impossible to guess what direction they will go, once a ball starts rolling [in whatever direction]. I have no idea if the ICGA was a major instigator or not (beyond ChessVibes, which seems decent to me). If so, I agree that it has mushroomed beyond what I think to be the due proportion.

Concerning Chris Whittington, I exchanged a few long emails with him, and also intervened with the Secretariat on his behalf at one point. I can discuss the issue more if desired, but the main points are: he was overly rude regarding a request for identity check [his email was not the one the ICGA on record, he doesn't have a fixed landline (IIRC), and most notably he used the phrase "little Hitlers" regarding the identity verification process], and it was unclear whether he would be civil in the discussions (there was also some issue that Bob replied erroneously to him regarding an internal UAB email [with a "groan" type comment], and CW felt the "groan" was actually directed at him, and Bob was making a cover-up excuse).

Secondly, I received some assurance from Levy and the Secretariat that if Rajlich was going to join in the discussions of the Investigation Panel, then everyone (in particular CW) who was "known" to be favouring his side of things would be admitted. OTOH, if the Panel was going to proceed without input from VR [and so, he would speak directly Board, if at all], then I had to agree that there didn't seem any specific reason to admit CW under the immediate circumstances. Finally, the "ban" by the Secretariat on CW was only for a fixed amount of time (either 2 weeks or a month), at which point he could apply again. I communicated this temporal aspect to him at the start, but by the time it rolled around he seems to have lost interest (he was more concerned about whether some sort of deal could be worked out with FL and VR, so as to avoid tearing the already-broken CC community apart).

As I say, the process was imperfect in many regards, but I can't say that it was particularly unfair.

[Jeremy Bernstein]

There is no such thing as a stolen idea, just stolen code. You know that, as well, so I'm not sure what your point is. That other chess authors learned from Vas' improvements and implemented similar in their programs? That's the normal state of affairs. "Guilty of plagiarism" doesn't mean "free of originality". So what is your point?

Rybka was re-engineered into readable source code, with that it was easy to extract the basic idea's of Rybka's superiority and thus the implementation in other engines began. We have seen all the spectacular elo jumps. The hacker being hacked. So in one hand Vas has been rightfully convicted, on the other hand there are programmers doing exactly the same, using hacked stuff that is not theirs and never was intended to be theirs.

If that is not a moral dilemma then my mother did not raise me well.

PS, notice the subject of the thread.

Reverse engineering for purposes of discovery isn't illegal or improper. Just because Vas' program is closed-source doesn't prohibit other programmers from researching it to whatever extent they want, in order to figure out its "secrets". Possibly some of them were determined by examining the output, as well.

As for the Ippos, well, they have been punished in advance -- no one lets them compete. This goes for Houdini as well.

And as for the "good" programmers who use ideas that are now out in the wild due to the Ippos? Information wants to be free, and you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Ignoring good ideas isn't clever, either.

Sure, it's dirty, ugly and problematic. But I disagree with the idea that closed-source commercial software is somehow "holy" and untouchable -- that's not the way any software production anywhere works. If you distribute unencrypted, unprotected binaries, you have to expect that people will try to peek inside and learn how they work. If there were no patents on the algorithms or methods used, and those methods were re-used in other software, that's simply a risk of being commercial.

jb

[Jeremy Bernstein]

Secondly, I received some assurance from Levy and the Secretariat that if Rajlich was going to join in the discussions of the Investigation Panel, then everyone (in particular CW) who was "known" to be favouring his side of things would be admitted. OTOH, if the Panel was going to proceed without input from VR [and so, he would speak directly Board, if at all], then I had to agree that there didn't seem any specific reason to admit CW under the immediate circumstances.

Seems sort of short-sighted to say "if he won't defend himself, he deserves no defense whatsoever", though. Again, I doubt it would have changed anything, but it conveys an impression that the ICGA would probably prefer to avoid.

jb

[BB+]

Seems sort of short-sighted to say "if he won't defend himself, he deserves no defense whatsoever", though. Again, I doubt it would have changed anything, but it conveys an impression that the ICGA would probably prefer to avoid.

There was indeed a brief discussion (between myself and the Secretariat) about how the "outside world" would view the process, especially as CW was so vocal concerning evidentiary issues back in 2008 [he was also a CCC mod at that time, IIRC, and did quite a decent job concerning the thread in question]. In short, there were already some voices who seemed sufficient to divert the Panel from a mere "Vas-kill" mode, and the ban on CW was temporal in any event [for the timeline, this was right when the Crafty/Rybka evidence became available, so it was likely that the Fruit/Rybka issues would not be the first thing discussed].

[Rebel]

I share your critique concerning the life-time ban, the media coverage, and that Chris W. was banned from the panel.

Gerd

Just for the record, Chris applied, there was a 1-2 day lag as each applicant was screened, we did not want anonymous people, nor people with no technical background. During that lag in admission, Chris did his usual and started his complaining. The group generally decided that they could do without his noise. I did not vote to deny him admission, but then I did not object due to the usual flare-up while he was waiting. And in retrospect, it was a + for the panel, Chris had already made a zillion bogus arguments about why vas "might not have actually copied" fruit code, even though they are identical. Those discussions are still available. Might have been here, am not sure, or at CCC perhaps...

It would have been about as productive to include Rolf. Wonder if some of you guys would have criticized us had he applied and been turned down???

How nice to notice this tribunal gave the word "independent" a new meaning.

I won't comment on the pre-ban of Chris. I have my own data. I leave the favor to Chris, that is, if he would wish so.

[Ted Summers]

There is no "legacy" when you steal something, use the money for good, then get caught.

So now you are going to remove all the stolen Rybka idea's in Crafty ?

Please feel free to point out _one_ block of stolen code from Rybka that is in Crafty. Then we will talk...

You should not twist my words, the issue here is the stolen legacy of Vas, the stolen ideas good for 300-400 elo points. If you are going to argue the big elo jumps Crafty made had nothing to do with the stolen idea's from Vas then it's more likely the Earth is flat after all.

Any others you want to mention???

Oh absolutely. Any programmer who spoke the verdict "guilty" at the tribunal and at the same time has profited from the stolen ideas of Rybka is a fence.

I guess what goes around, comes around huh !? If so then now Vas knows how it feels to have your work lifted. Not saying that I am buying your argument either.

[Rebel]

I guess what goes around, comes around huh !? If so then now Vas knows how it feels to have your work lifted. Not saying that I am buying your argument either.

The story of the hacker been hacked certainly has an element of irony.

[hyatt]

I share your critique concerning the life-time ban, the media coverage, and that Chris W. was banned from the panel.

Gerd

Just for the record, Chris applied, there was a 1-2 day lag as each applicant was screened, we did not want anonymous people, nor people with no technical background. During that lag in admission, Chris did his usual and started his complaining. The group generally decided that they could do without his noise. I did not vote to deny him admission, but then I did not object due to the usual flare-up while he was waiting. And in retrospect, it was a + for the panel, Chris had already made a zillion bogus arguments about why vas "might not have actually copied" fruit code, even though they are identical. Those discussions are still available. Might have been here, am not sure, or at CCC perhaps...

It would have been about as productive to include Rolf. Wonder if some of you guys would have criticized us had he applied and been turned down???

Except that Rolf is a troll with no technical background whatsoever, whereas Chris is a respected chess engine programmer with years of experience and plenty of technical background. No matter how annoying he is. As a secretariat member, your role was, in fact, to determine which of the panel members had "bogus" arguments before passing along your recommendation to the Board, not to filter the panel ahead of time and prevent unwanted, "unproductive" input.

EDIT: the result, in this case, is unlikely to have been affected, given the weight of the technical evidence. But in a process like this, it's kind of important to demonstrate a willingness to hear all points of view.

Jeremy

For the record, David had the final say on EVERY single panel member. Mark Lefler did his best to authenticate each user, unless one of the secretariat (or the board) spoke up and said "I can vouch for this person, he has played in several events, he has participated in several technical discussions (Wylie Garvin comes to mind here as I spoke up immediately having read hundreds of his posts on CCC, as just one example of how it worked.) Any request was seen by David, and the final decision was always his. We did not "hide" requests from him, the Wiki sign-up process sent emails to each of us for every applicant.

But even David got irritated with the bitching and complaining in the case under discussion. Everyone did.

[hyatt]

"exactly the same" is pure bullshit. The only case where that would be true is if you can show that any program copied _code_ from the rybka clones and used that. Rybka did not copy "ideas". Rybka included copied _code_. There is a monumental difference between the two things.

But in any case, I'm waiting for you to point out the ideas that are in Crafty that showed up only _after_ the ip* or Robo* sources became available. You were certain enough, that should be easy to show.