The Evidence against Rybka

[hyatt]

You just created, presumably inadvertently, the necessity to adopt an entirely different approach to "copyright infringement" of open source. I, as a chess program developer (once apon a time, thank god), am now penalised simply by having read it, something I am encouraged to do.

If you read it, and then create from this knowledge something that is "substantially similar" (always the over-riding criterion, as says the last sentence quoted above), then indeed you have infringed its copyright. If you read it, and then use that knowledge in a way that is not "substantially similar" to the original, then you've done what open source expects. . Here "it" refers to a computer program, but note that I left it as "it", rather intentionally, as the argument is abstract.

Similarly, if you are a novelist, and you read someone's book, you might get some ideas for a new novel. If your rendition of these ideas is "substantially similar" to the book you read [or perhaps just a section of it], then you have infringed copyright. If you separate the idea/expression sufficiently well so that your novel isn't "substantially similar" to what you've read, then you've enjoyed the book in the manner that was intended (by the author/publisher), and created something original of your own to boot.

As I think I said in a different post, for some reason the existence of the "computer" in this programming picture has a tendency to warp common thinking -- but copyright law (for better or worse) classifies many types of computer programs to be literary works, rather than functional devices.

How can I help but use it, for it is now in my memory, influencing me? Ah, of course, I will remember the academic gestapo will chase me forever if I dare even have those bitboard or PST thoughts.

So, Herr Albert Speer, that's a very nice thought crime you've created with your prissy open source, my reading it, and your GPL for babies nonsense.

I think there has to be another way. Don't you?

And there I was wondering who would verify Godwin's Law first.

Jeremy

Had to be him or Rolf, almost certainly. Maybe 1-2 other names might come to mind after those...

[Chris Whittington]

You just created, presumably inadvertently, the necessity to adopt an entirely different approach to "copyright infringement" of open source. I, as a chess program developer (once apon a time, thank god), am now penalised simply by having read it, something I am encouraged to do.

If you read it, and then create from this knowledge something that is "substantially similar" (always the over-riding criterion, as says the last sentence quoted above), then indeed you have infringed its copyright. If you read it, and then use that knowledge in a way that is not "substantially similar" to the original, then you've done what open source expects. . Here "it" refers to a computer program, but note that I left it as "it", rather intentionally, as the argument is abstract.

Similarly, if you are a novelist, and you read someone's book, you might get some ideas for a new novel. If your rendition of these ideas is "substantially similar" to the book you read [or perhaps just a section of it], then you have infringed copyright. If you separate the idea/expression sufficiently well so that your novel isn't "substantially similar" to what you've read, then you've enjoyed the book in the manner that was intended (by the author/publisher), and created something original of your own to boot.

As I think I said in a different post, for some reason the existence of the "computer" in this programming picture has a tendency to warp common thinking -- but copyright law (for better or worse) classifies many types of computer programs to be literary works, rather than functional devices.

How can I help but use it, for it is now in my memory, influencing me? Ah, of course, I will remember the academic gestapo will chase me forever if I dare even have those bitboard or PST thoughts.

So, Herr Albert Speer, that's a very nice thought crime you've created with your prissy open source, my reading it, and your GPL for babies nonsense.

I think there has to be another way. Don't you?

And there I was wondering who would verify Godwin's Law first.

Jeremy

you'll be needing the funny guy with the moustache for that one, however, your confusion of technocracy is matched only by your lack of understanding of the Speer character who would have risen high, if not to the top, in any political economy. The lesson of Speer, a very intelligent technician, so absorbed by numbers, line, diagrams, documents, plans, graphs, models that it was too late for him to have realised that the technician must not operate in a vacuum, but must have regard for the place and implication of his work within the wider system. In other words the technician must not set his system boundaries at the technical alone. Well, I say too late, but his belated introspection saved him. This being computer chess, we have many Speer characters, too many. Only a few, if any, have the smartness to reflect and change. So, it's part criticism, part flattery, but, as your simplistic understanding failed to get, quite independent of political system.

[Jeremy Bernstein]

I think I've understood you pretty well, in fact. My humble suggestion: stop bullying and blustering and try to focus on the evidence. So far, you haven't come up with anything relevant, except that you are certain that Vas got a raw deal. Which isn't actually relevant either, so I guess that means you've come up pretty empty so far.

We know that you think that geniuses can take whatever they want from the suckers who actually produce work for a living, that open-source kills innovation and deserves to be punished for existing, preferably via thorough plunder, etc. etc. That philosophy is, however, at odds with the rules at ICGA and, probably, with the laws of most western countries.

Jeremy

[Chris Whittington]

I think I've understood you pretty well, in fact. My humble suggestion: stop bullying and blustering and try to focus on the evidence. So far, you haven't come up with anything relevant, except that you are certain that Vas got a raw deal. Which isn't actually relevant either, so I guess that means you've come up pretty empty so far.

We know that you think that geniuses can take whatever they want from the suckers who actually produce work for a living, that open-source kills innovation and deserves to be punished for existing, preferably via thorough plunder, etc. etc. That philosophy is, however, at odds with the rules at ICGA and, probably, with the laws of most western countries.

Jeremy

I've not comp up with anything relevant? Very funny. The section of document, PST tables, has been surgically destroyed by logical argument, dissection and facts. The only thing that prevents "your" side from agreeing to tear it all up and move on is the problem of loss of face, coupled with the danger of the idea of the cancerous spread of the lying techniques used in promoting the PST document - if they lied with that section, what says it about the other sections?

[Chris Whittington]

I think I've understood you pretty well, in fact. My humble suggestion: stop bullying and blustering and try to focus on the evidence. So far, you haven't come up with anything relevant, except that you are certain that Vas got a raw deal. Which isn't actually relevant either, so I guess that means you've come up pretty empty so far.

We know that you think that geniuses can take whatever they want from the suckers who actually produce work for a living, that open-source kills innovation and deserves to be punished for existing, preferably via thorough plunder, etc. etc. That philosophy is, however, at odds with the rules at ICGA and, probably, with the laws of most western countries.

Jeremy

and, btw, I am on record, several times, of stating that my ideal solution to this witchhunt would be to alter the rules of engagement such that everything is allowed within the law, including copyright law. It's a straightforward libertarian anarchist position, freedom within the law.

It seems you are not reading because you don't want to know that which conflicts with your pre-conceived notions. And the enemies of your pre-conceived position must have bad motives, innit?

[Jeremy Bernstein]

I think I've understood you pretty well, in fact. My humble suggestion: stop bullying and blustering and try to focus on the evidence. So far, you haven't come up with anything relevant, except that you are certain that Vas got a raw deal. Which isn't actually relevant either, so I guess that means you've come up pretty empty so far.

We know that you think that geniuses can take whatever they want from the suckers who actually produce work for a living, that open-source kills innovation and deserves to be punished for existing, preferably via thorough plunder, etc. etc. That philosophy is, however, at odds with the rules at ICGA and, probably, with the laws of most western countries.

Jeremy

and, btw, I am on record, several times, of stating that my ideal solution to this witchhunt would be to alter the rules of engagement such that everything is allowed within the law, including copyright law. It's a straightforward libertarian anarchist position, freedom within the law.

It seems you are not reading because you don't want to know that which conflicts with your pre-conceived notions. And the enemies of your pre-conceived position must have bad motives, innit?

Nah, I don't think that you have bad motives, but I think you're supporting the wrong guy for the wrong reasons. By my count, every technical point that you've raised has been refuted, except for those points which are more or less designed to break any analysis machine (complaining about filtration without providing a realistic filtration function which might meet your needs), etc.

When you can't make progress with chess arguments anymore, you talk about math, when you can't get further with math, you fall back on chess. You're fraying the corners of a large blanket and then insisting that it couldn't possibly keep anyone warm, to coin a metaphor. So you sow "libertarian, anarchistic" chaos, which is fine, of course, but fairly transparent, superficial and ultimately unhelpful to anyone on any "side" of the argument.

Jeremy

[hyatt]

I think I've understood you pretty well, in fact. My humble suggestion: stop bullying and blustering and try to focus on the evidence. So far, you haven't come up with anything relevant, except that you are certain that Vas got a raw deal. Which isn't actually relevant either, so I guess that means you've come up pretty empty so far.

We know that you think that geniuses can take whatever they want from the suckers who actually produce work for a living, that open-source kills innovation and deserves to be punished for existing, preferably via thorough plunder, etc. etc. That philosophy is, however, at odds with the rules at ICGA and, probably, with the laws of most western countries.

Jeremy

I've not comp up with anything relevant? Very funny. The section of document, PST tables, has been surgically destroyed by logical argument, dissection and facts. The only thing that prevents "your" side from agreeing to tear it all up and move on is the problem of loss of face, coupled with the danger of the idea of the cancerous spread of the lying techniques used in promoting the PST document - if they lied with that section, what says it about the other sections?

You have a wonderful imagination, if nothing else. The PST data has not "been surgically destroyed." It is still there. It is still damning. No other program matches all PST values using the fruit initialization code to create them. That didn't happen by accident...

[BB+]

How can I help but use it, for it is now in my memory, influencing me? Ah, of course, I will remember the academic gestapo will chase me forever if I dare even have those bitboard or PST thoughts.
So, Herr Albert Speer, that's a very nice thought crime you've created with your prissy open source, my reading it, and your GPL for babies nonsense.
I think there has to be another way. Don't you?

There are standard philosophical reasons for copyright infringement being (most typically) an inferred offence [that is: accused had access to the material, and "substantial similarity" exists between created works]. In the alternative case, where the evidentiary standard principally relied on the physical process of copying, one might imagine (perhaps as esoterica) a scenario where the protection of copyright degenerated into spying on all those who possessed copies of the original [lest one guffaw, industrial counter-espionage does indeed follow this to some degree]. The fact that copyright infringement is typically an inferred offence is OTOH one reason why it is not typically a criminal matter.

The ONLY way out of this mess, created heavily by you and your "good intentions" is a wholesale rethink and rewrite of copyright law, icga rules and general mindset to a state of general usage and freedom.

and, btw, I am on record, several times, of stating that my ideal solution to this witchhunt would be to alter the rules of engagement such that everything is allowed within the law, including copyright law.

I was going to dredge up exactly the recollection [that VR, as a commercial, would be more conversant with copyright law than "plagiarism"] that you make in the second quotation here, but rather to point out the seeming inconsistency compared to the first one, where you seem to wish to re-write the underlying laws for copyright.

[hyatt]

You should read the book "The Eagle Has Landed." It describes the development of the Data General MV8000 computer, which was designed as a direct to the very popular DEC VAX 11/780 product. In it, the engineers from DG talk about walking into the Maynard MA factory where DEC was busy both building VAXes for delivery as well as designing newer generations, and acting like they belonged, and going into a lab and disassembling a vax and studying the design in great detail. "Eagle" was the "code name" for the MV8000/MV10000 product line they were starting up... It is amazing what they got away with just by acting like they belonged... DEC was WAY laid back back then... I mean their primary plant was an old feed mill with sagging floors and such... I've walked through it more than once.

[BB+]

Minority Report 5, Not plagiarism unless feature is unique

This is a limited definition of plagiarism. In the Rybka/Fruit case, the principal aspect was the overlap in the set (and specification) of features, not any single feature itself. This has been discussed so often, both in the abstract and in the case here, it is almost pointless to reiterate.

I refer to this post, with the quotations Originality requires neither novelty or uniqueness, and The Appellate Court found that the term original should be read to mean "owes its origin" to a particular author, and not that the work was "startling, novel or unusual, or a marked departure from the past." In the Rybka/Fruit case, the specific choice of evaluation features in Fruit 2.1 "owed its origin" to Letouzey, and various Rybka versions were found (by the ICGA) to derive from this origin.