Robodini

[Matthias Gemuh]

If Robodini is improved till it is better than Houdini, Chessbase and ChessOK may be interested.
Who would have thought that they would hook up with Houdini ?

Matthias.

[Jeremy Bernstein]

If Robodini is improved till it is better than Houdini, Chessbase and ChessOK may be interested.
Who would have thought that they would hook up with Houdini ?

Matthias.

I guess that Robodini won't be improved much. Either it's a joke (http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... 248#505248) and a distraction from Richard's work on Critter, or it's really a shot over Houdart's bow, will be improved to the point where it's equivalent to Houdini 3, but for free. But then it will also be a distraction and left to gather dust. Just a pundit's prediction. I wish Richard the best of luck in damaging Houdini sales, though.

As for Chessbase and ChessOK, well... they just want to make money with "the best", right? They were super-critical about Rybka's origins until Rybka was undeniably the best, at which point they started selling it. Likewise with Houdini. And so it will continue...

jb

[Matthias Gemuh]

I guess that Robodini won't be improved much. ... for free. ...

I hope that Robodini goes commercial so that it can be improved.
Unfortunately, if the author is Richard, Robodini may not go commercial because Richard doesn't love money.
Telescope guys do differ in ethics.

Matthias.

[Jeremy Bernstein]

I guess that Robodini won't be improved much. ... for free. ...

I hope that Robodini goes commercial so that it can be improved.
Unfortunately, if the author is Richard, Robodini may not go commercial because Richard doesn't love money.
Telescope guys do differ in ethics.

Matthias.

What's the point of replacing a commercial version of a Robbolito derivative with a different commercial version of a Robbolito derivative?

Actually, I would feel much better about buying a Richard Vida Robbo which is 100% clear about its Robbo origins. I suspect that Robodini is a revenged Houdini, though, in which case it can't really be sold. Two wrongs not making a right and so on.

jb

[Jeremy Bernstein]

rvida wrote:
Q: Robodini is a clone of Houdini3?
A: Yes, that was the intent

After your and Jury Osipov's reverse engineering of Houdini 1.5 and the production of Strelka 5, there is a strong feeling of "déja vu".

Oddly you failed to mention in your Q&A that for over 18 months you've had access to the RE Houdini 1.5 sources provided by Jury Osipov, and that this most certainly is 100 times more relevant for RE'ing Houdini 3 than your quoting some unknown Robbolito sources...

Based on past experience, let me predict the near future:
1) In a couple of weeks or months you'll release Critter 1.8 or Critter 2.
2) It will feature a nice Elo jump of, say, 40 Elo. You will feign indignation at any suggestion that the Elo jump would be in any way related to the RE of Houdini.
3) In the similarity diagram the new Critter will be very close to Houdini 3, just like Critter 1.4 and 1.6 are indistinguishable from Houdini 1.5 (and Strelka 5). Again you will feign outrage at mentioning this simple fact, claiming that the 99% similarity with Houdini is the result of using identical PST (LOL).
4) Afterwards Critter progress will once again stall... probably until the release of Houdini 4 and subsequent RE.

That's my bet... let's see in a couple of months whether I win it .

While RE'ing Houdini seems to you a fun thing to do and has given you some nice forum exposure over the last 18 months, all the evidence suggests that it has killed any originality in chess engine development you previously had. Critter 0.9 was a great engine, unfortunately afterwards you've turned it into a weak Houdini clone.

Robert

Hehe... when the mask comes off, so do the gloves. Robert Houdart, it just takes 3 little words to pull yourself out of your self-dug hole: "Houdini was Robbolito".

jb

[kingliveson]

I guess that Robodini won't be improved much. ... for free. ...

I hope that Robodini goes commercial so that it can be improved.
Unfortunately, if the author is Richard, Robodini may not go commercial because Richard doesn't love money.
Telescope guys do differ in ethics.

Matthias.

What's the point of replacing a commercial version of a Robbolito derivative with a different commercial version of a Robbolito derivative?

Actually, I would feel much better about buying a Richard Vida Robbo which is 100% clear about its Robbo origins. I suspect that Robodini is a revenged Houdini, though, in which case it can't really be sold. Two wrongs not making a right and so on.

jb

Pretty much!

[kingliveson]

rvida wrote:
Q: Robodini is a clone of Houdini3?
A: Yes, that was the intent

After your and Jury Osipov's reverse engineering of Houdini 1.5 and the production of Strelka 5, there is a strong feeling of "déja vu".

Oddly you failed to mention in your Q&A that for over 18 months you've had access to the RE Houdini 1.5 sources provided by Jury Osipov, and that this most certainly is 100 times more relevant for RE'ing Houdini 3 than your quoting some unknown Robbolito sources...

Based on past experience, let me predict the near future:
1) In a couple of weeks or months you'll release Critter 1.8 or Critter 2.
2) It will feature a nice Elo jump of, say, 40 Elo. You will feign indignation at any suggestion that the Elo jump would be in any way related to the RE of Houdini.
3) In the similarity diagram the new Critter will be very close to Houdini 3, just like Critter 1.4 and 1.6 are indistinguishable from Houdini 1.5 (and Strelka 5). Again you will feign outrage at mentioning this simple fact, claiming that the 99% similarity with Houdini is the result of using identical PST (LOL).
4) Afterwards Critter progress will once again stall... probably until the release of Houdini 4 and subsequent RE.

That's my bet... let's see in a couple of months whether I win it .

While RE'ing Houdini seems to you a fun thing to do and has given you some nice forum exposure over the last 18 months, all the evidence suggests that it has killed any originality in chess engine development you previously had. Critter 0.9 was a great engine, unfortunately afterwards you've turned it into a weak Houdini clone.

Robert

Hehe... when the mask comes off, so do the gloves. Robert Houdart, it just takes 3 little words to pull yourself out of your self-dug hole: "Houdini was Robbolito".

jb

We need to get Robert on Oprah.

[JcMaTe]

all this time I been thinking that Richard Vida Knows more that we think he knows

[BB+]

I can't say that I agree with what RV did, but the question of whether it was legal seems to be have been broached. My understanding is that (somewhat sadly from my philosophical standpoint) it that it depends on exactly how he did the "reverse engineering".

Indeed, parsing such a phrase seems to be the root of a lot of disputes, as it can mean various things. It seems clear that "decompilation" (transformation of the machine code) is illegal in the relevant jurisdiction, and to me "disassembly" (listing of the machine code [which makes a copy of it to do so], possibly with opcode annotations) is close enough to this to fall into the same.

However, RE can also be done by "observation" of a program, and this contrariwise seems to be quite legal. For instance, tracking every instruction executed by a program (e.g. via running it in a virtual machine) and then collating the results appears to be a valid method.

To put this differently, if one treats the code as a literary work, copying it and transforming it, then the law applies, but if one treats the running of the program as a "tool", then its workings can be legally observed. This seems in line with both the letter of the law, and the philosophy behind it.

As I say, in practise this can often be little more than a metaphysical difference, but there can be minor substantive differences in the end result. For instance, suppose there is code that is rarely executed (or even dead code). In the second case, one could possibly miss it (though the observer is also entitled to choose inputs to try to exercise the program to his delight). Another pertinent example could be, say, the determination of the contents of a large array in memory (such as material imbalance info) -- if this is done via legitimate tracking of memory probes during actual program execution it seems valid, but not if one simply dumps the contents of memory. Again a bit metaphysical from my standpoint.

Below I list the relevant Slovakian laws, which are the implementation of various EU directives, most notably 91/250/EEC, which has been superseded by 2009/24/EC.

Slovak Copyright Act 383/1997

Section 26.2: [allowing observation]

(2) The lawful acquirer of a copy of a computer program may, without the authorisation of the author or other holder of rights, observe, study or test the functionality of the program to determine the ideas or principles underlying any part thereof in the course of the downloading, display or transmission, functionality test and storage of the program into computer memory that he/she has been authorised to do.

See also recital 14 and Article 5 in EU document (better worded IMO): 3. The person having a right to use a copy of a computer program shall be entitled, without the authorisation of the rightholder, to observe, study or test the functioning of the program in order to determine the ideas and principles which underlie any element of the program if he does so while performing any of the acts of loading, displaying, running, transmitting or storing the program which he is entitled to do.

Translation is mentioned in 11.3 and 16.2b, and regards Decompilation in section 27 -- the latter is mainly to list exceptions, but does give a sense of what "translation" intends.

The EU directive has Decompilation in Article 6 (see also recital 15: The unauthorised reproduction, translation, adaptation or transformation of the form of the code in which a copy of a computer program has been made available constitutes an infringement of the exclusive rights of the author), and specifically restricts "translation" in 4.1b (I don't think there is a direct Slovakian counterpart of the latter).

[ThinkingALot]

If releasing Robodini is illegal, didn't those guys who decompiled large chunks of Rybka 1.0 & 2.3.2a & 3 code violate the law in the same way? Even worse: exact evaluation values, probably produced by running a bunch of computers for countless hours (imagine the electricity bills), were revealed for everyone to copy. And it was pretty clear from the report that these values were obtained by RE-ing, not by "observation". Sounds pretty illegal and immoral to me.