Author of NGplay_61 should give credit to tscp

[Pablo Vazquez]

You are, of course, wrong about the origin of Ngplay, but that does not really matter much.

Because you say so?

So far, the only proof you have given is a call to a signal function, which can be found in almost any winboard program. And you haven't addressed any of Pedro's points.

[lucasart]

You are, of course, wrong about the origin of Ngplay, but that does not really matter much.

Because you say so?

So far, the only proof you have given is a call to a signal function, which can be found in almost any winboard program. And you haven't addressed any of Pedro's points.

It's ok Pablo, he's just a notorious troll / thread hijacker. Fortunately, there is a solution to that problem:

User Control Panel -> Friends & Foes -> Manage Foes -> add User923005

I've already done it myself, and reading this forum is already a much more pleasant experience.

[Samer]

So far, the only proof you have given is a call to a signal function, which can be found in almost any winboard program. And you haven't addressed any of Pedro's points.

I put the headers joking.

but when he put it...

Here there is more...
TSCP
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <signal.h>
NGPlay
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <signal.h>

Very perceptive of you to note the use of signal, which is rather rare among Windows chess engines.

I stood in shock.

[velmarin]

You are, of course, wrong about the origin of Ngplay, but that does not really matter much.

Because you say so?

So far, the only proof you have given is a call to a signal function, which can be found in almost any winboard program. And you haven't addressed any of Pedro's points.

It's ok Pablo, he's just a notorious troll / thread hijacker. Fortunately, there is a solution to that problem:

User Control Panel -> Friends & Foes -> Manage Foes -> add User923005

I've already done it myself, and reading this forum is already a much more pleasant experience.

You are not an example,
Rather a pain in the ass.

You mentioned me free and insult me.

[velmarin]

At least he made his code available to everyone. That is both honest (not trying to hide anything) and very nice (as it may help some beginners to read other codes). Frankly if you want to go on a witch hunt against the usurpers, you're choosing the wrong one. Have a look at Bouquet, that's some SERIOUS usurpation:
- based on a GPL version of IvanHoe (by Kranium and Sentinel)
- author tried to hide it, but as evidence started to pile, he finally admitted
- the author of Bouquet doesn't wan't to release his source code (which is a patent GPL violation)
- and goes on spamming everyone on CCC, pretending to be the genious who wrote a 3000+ elo engine from scratch... And as most people out there are morons, he actually has a fan club on CCC's Tournament forum.

So hitting the poor little guy who developped a weak engine, for free and source code published, because he took some help from other open source on implementing the xboard protocol, is unfair.

Looking more fronts, lucas.

You're my number one fan.
Are you in love with me, I have grandchildren.

Ippolit is PUBLIC DOMAIN.
And I just do one more project, with support and continuity.
And with obvious improvements.
But the saying
"They talk about you, because we are alive"
 
Soon will come an Open Source version and in the public domain, some mouth shut or be worse???

http://ippolit.wikispaces.com/FAQ

A coward who does not show his face,
post itching to belittle others.

[Pablo Vazquez]

You are, of course, wrong about the origin of Ngplay, but that does not really matter much.

Because you say so?

So far, the only proof you have given is a call to a signal function, which can be found in almost any winboard program. And you haven't addressed any of Pedro's points.

It's ok Pablo, he's just a notorious troll / thread hijacker. Fortunately, there is a solution to that problem:

User Control Panel -> Friends & Foes -> Manage Foes -> add User923005

I've already done it myself, and reading this forum is already a much more pleasant experience.

Yes, better ignore him, as well as velmarin.

[velmarin]

No friend Pablo,
You will not do that,

you write to annoy
  and see my answer
I will not ignore me.
You want to see fight and instead of being constructive,
made fuel to the fire.



It's pretty sad to come into a thread that has nothing to do with you and find the same people leaving messages against you where not applicable,
Do not you think?
This thread had nothing to do with Bouquet nor Velmarin,
  nothing.
I have only defended, but the truth stings.
Merry Christmas for all.

[yggeorgo]

Hello all,

Sorry for nor participating earlier, as I was away for holidays.

Anyway, to be short, I feel I should give credit to TSCP program for inspiration about chess programming and especially the xboard interface code.
However, the NGplay search, move generation and evaluation was written completely from scratch.
I will try to improve my engine (as a hobby) as long as I have time available.

Happy new year to all.

George Georgopoulos

[User923005]

Also the book code (but anyone will agree the TSCP book code is trivial).
I certainly applaud your honesty and integrity in this regard.

I also fail to see why so many see offering a line of credit as some deep, insulting punishment.

As to why I singled this particular instance out (certainly it was unfair considering other more severe transgressions that I am aware of...), it has to do with similarity to another slightly more famous incident.
When the Rybka author was convicted (on data far less convincing than what I provided here) he had already supplied the suggested credit lines in his readme files.
However, he was given punishments so unbelievably severe that I found them shocking.

Where was the formal hue and cry over injustice then?

Just for a fun exercise, consider the evidence I supplied (taken from actual code) and compare it with the reverse engineered data used to convict Vas of wrongdoing.
Consider also the counter-arguments found on Ed Schroder's site.

Now, I would like to differentiate between things that I find distasteful and things that are wrong. Vas clearly took a lot of concepts from both Fruit and Crafty. I don't particularly like this. But that does not make it wrong.

In many ways, he was doing what every other chess programmer does (perhaps on a slightly larger scale than many/most but that is neither here nor there).

Is there any top ten program that does not use LMR? If so, I would like to see it. Now, according to article 2 of the ICGA {and according to my opinion -YMMV}, all of these programs are in violation. The authors using that technique did not invent it and instead lifted it from other programs. In fact, all advanced chess programs are Frankenstein collections of great ideas found by misc. game programmers and cobbled together into an advanced collection. I freely admit that there is nothing wrong with doing that. However, when someone is arbitrarily singled out for doing it and all the others are not, I see something wrong with that picture. True, many chess authors did not borrow on the same scale as Vas did. So (by ICGA rule 2, they stole a Monet and not a Da Vinci).

I do not expect any change from the chess programming community about giving credit where credit is due. And, it seems, it does not really help when the community decides to drop the hammer on someone that they don't like. But I should hope it is food for thought.

[pedrox]

These are yours first words in the thread.

It obviously came from TSCP.
And Tom K. is not happy with derivatives that give no credit.

I do not know if you agree now that these words were a mistake. In those words you say that NGplay is a derivative of TSCP. You keep thinking the same?

If you're not convinced of your mistake, I propose the following, looks Micro-Max engine 4.8 of HG Muller

http://home.hccnet.nl/h.g.muller/umax4_8w.c

HG acknowledges that xboard protocol in Micro-Max is inspired TSCP. Your also consider Micro-Max a derivative of TSCP?

The NGPlay program's author has said in his message that he initiated the generation of moves, search and evaluation from scratch. You agree?

The author acknowledges that TSCP was an inspiration for him to program a engine and if he wants to give to Tom credit for it, it will be great, but you make no mistake, he gives credit to Tom because he has been able to learn of TSCP and not because NGplay is a derivative of TSCP.

I think in this thread talking about Rybka and Vas and rule number 2 of the ICGA has little to do with NGPlay.