FIDE Rules on ICGA - Rybka controversy

[Harvey Williamson]

On ICGA headquarters. levy stated here is no obligation ti register for legal or tax purposes. i take that to mean there is no registration in any domain. In which case icga doesn't actually exist, legally it is simply the individuals that make up its "board", I guess is anyone wanted to sue it, they would sue the individuals direct, in the jurisdiction they reside or have assets. Personally, I see it as a business. For example, the Olympiad has been transferred into the iCGA. The Olympiad is a business, in the sense that it traded as a limited company. at one point it went bust and into receivership or whatever. Tne assets were available from the liquidator for sale. assets included things like use of name, stretching through to T-shirt rights (I kid you not). I bid 500 GBP for these assets from the liquidator, but was outbid by someone else subsequently the assets, presumably, were transferred to the icga, when the olympiad was somehow transferred to the icga. This means to me that the icga owns business assets, has the olympiad under its wing, and is therefore a business itself. Yet it is also apparently a private club not required to register for tax or legal purposes. Confused? I am. maybe there is some explanation.

This is from David's notes written on the day of the hearing he attended

They asked where and under what legal authority the ICGA is registered. I explained that it isn't registered and the chairman said it is not necessary for an organisation such as ours to be registered anywhere - some are and some are not.

What hearing is this? Or are you referring to the Chessbase interview?

The EC hearing.

[BB+]

This is from David's notes written on the day of the hearing he attended

This was from the EC hearing. One interesting point is that Levy's notes assert that Rivello opened by saying that the claims against the ICGA had been reduced by the EC to just one alleged violation of the CoE, namely 2.2.3 (organisers/directors who fail to perform duties in an impartial and responsible manner), yet the EC turned around and used the catch-all 2.2.10 in the end. [To the extent that the EC considered such a 2.2.3 violation, they found the evidence to be insufficient].

[Chris Whittington]

For example, the Olympiad has been transferred into the iCGA. The Olympiad is a business, in the sense that it traded as a limited company. at one point it went bust and into receivership or whatever ... when the olympiad was somehow transferred to the icga.

Note that there was "Mind Sports Olympiad Ltd" and also the spinoff "Mind Sports Organization Worldwide Ltd". And some others. I'm not sure which one merged into the ICGA (if any), as they have the "Computer Olympiad", not the "Mind Sports Olympiad"?

03829591 		D 	MIND SPORTS LTD. 	Dissolved 06/02/2007
03307916 		D 	MIND SPORTS OLYMPIAD LIMITED 	Dissolved 21/01/2003
02400386 		D 	MIND SPORTS OLYMPIAD LIMITED 	Dissolved 02/08/1994
03785356 		D 	MIND SPORTS ORGANISATION WORLDWIDE LIMITED 	Dissolved 03/09/2003
07515072 		D 	MIND SPORTS PARTNERS LIMITED 	Dissolved 06/12/2011
FC030291 		D 	MIND SPORTS PARTNERS PTE. LTD. 	Dissolved 04/07/2014
BR015286 		D 	MIND SPORTS PARTNERS PTE. LTD. 	Dissolved 04/07/2014
02713411 		D 	MIND SPORTS PROMOTIONS LIMITED 	Dissolved 23/07/1996
03298145 		D 	MIND SPORTS PROMOTIONS LIMITED 	Dissolved 27/01/2015
08099257 			MIND SPORTS (INTERNATIONAL) LIMITED 	
02969808 		F 	MIND SPORTS OLYMPIAD LIMITED 	Change of Name 27/01/1997
 04712990 			M S O LIMITED 	[msoworld.com]

If you care about the Keene/Levy dirt, some of it is recycled here.

T-shirt rights (I kid you not)

He and Iweta are still awash in ”I ♥ Rybka” pens, wall hangings, and other marketing tchotchkes.

I think I muddled Mind Sports Olympiad related "dissolves" with the Computer Olympiad, and the liquidation referred to ('where I offered to buy the assets, but not the liabilities) is of a MSO company, if I remember right the one associated with Alexandra Palace in 2000. I think there are some MSO companies missing from your list btw.
Is the Computer Olympiad trading as a ltd company, I am not sure, it appears to be a business, in the sense that it charges entry fees and hosts events, and iirc it is written that it is "taken over" or "transferred to" or whatever to the icga in 2003 or so. Which implies, to me at least, that if a business that trades is "merged" into the icga, then icga is a business that trades (ref Levy Chessbase article "issues invoices"). Clearly there is no evidence it was a dissolved company however, I got that muddled up with the MSO's.

Re T-shirts somehow I find T-shirts ok, but T-shirt rights a bit sick. But that's probably just my anti-capitalist middleman prejudice.

[Chris Whittington]

On ICGA headquarters. levy stated here is no obligation ti register for legal or tax purposes. i take that to mean there is no registration in any domain. In which case icga doesn't actually exist, legally it is simply the individuals that make up its "board", I guess is anyone wanted to sue it, they would sue the individuals direct, in the jurisdiction they reside or have assets. Personally, I see it as a business. For example, the Olympiad has been transferred into the iCGA. The Olympiad is a business, in the sense that it traded as a limited company. at one point it went bust and into receivership or whatever. Tne assets were available from the liquidator for sale. assets included things like use of name, stretching through to T-shirt rights (I kid you not). I bid 500 GBP for these assets from the liquidator, but was outbid by someone else subsequently the assets, presumably, were transferred to the icga, when the olympiad was somehow transferred to the icga. This means to me that the icga owns business assets, has the olympiad under its wing, and is therefore a business itself. Yet it is also apparently a private club not required to register for tax or legal purposes. Confused? I am. maybe there is some explanation.

This is from David's notes written on the day of the hearing he attended

They asked where and under what legal authority the ICGA is registered. I explained that it isn't registered and the chairman said it is not necessary for an organisation such as ours to be registered anywhere - some are and some are not.

What hearing is this? Or are you referring to the Chessbase interview?

The EC hearing.

It would depend on the nature of activities that the "association" engaged in.

[BB+]

All I know is from wikipedia pages (I don't have the relevant ICGA Journal years at hand).

1st Computer Olympiad - 1989, London, United Kingdom
2nd Computer Olympiad - 1990, London, United Kingdom
3rd Computer Olympiad - 1991, Maastricht, Netherlands
4th Computer Olympiad - 1992, London, United Kingdom
5th Computer Olympiad - 2000, London, United Kingdom
6th Computer Olympiad - 2001, Maastricht, Netherlands
7th Computer Olympiad - 2002, Maastricht, Netherlands
8th Computer Olympiad - 2003, Graz, Austria ...

The 5th Computer Olympiad took place at Alexandra Palace, the West Hall in London, UK from 21 August 2000 to 25 August 2000. After an eight-year hiatus, it was revived by bringing it into the Mind Sports Olympiad.

The 6th then was in Maastricht and included the WMCCC 2001, the 7th was also in Maastricht and included the WCCC 2002. The 8th was in Graz, etc., After the ICCA became the ICGA (2002), holding these together was more clear. So I think having the Computer Olympiad as part of the MSO was a one-off in 2000.

See also ICCA becomes ICGA:

Your President donated the Computer Olympiad to the ICCA in order to ensure its continuance.

I'm not quite sure how one would value this "donation"... I guess one would want to determine under what auspices (of a company or whatever) the prior Computer Olympiads were held.

[Chris Whittington]

I bid 500 GBP for these assets from the liquidator, but was outbid by someone else

This is covered in the Bjorn Bjornsson letter to Private Eye (among other "ludicrous rantings").

This didn’t stop Mr. Levy restarting his company under a new name “Mind Sports Olympiad WorldWide Ltd.”, in which he bought back the original MSO assets (actually there no assets, only the software) from the receiver for next to nothing. All the money we’d paid for the software development went to other companies owned by or controlled by Levy. And guess who was Receiver? Why none other than Levy’s personal accountant Gendall Phillip.

I was referring to a different liquidation process, in or around 2000, iirc the MSO that covered the Alexandra Palace event. At that time I was in discussions with Keene concerning the big bust (you refer above) and the Norwegian investor(s). One can choose who to believe in these cases of course (bit like who to believe in Rybka case) but I found the writings of Bjorn Bjornsson and Mrs (ex-wife) Levy matched with Keene's story in a consistent sort of way. Keene has certainly been subject to a long-going name and shame operation in the Magazine Private Eye - I can remember a time (I used to read PE when in UK) when there was hardly an edition going by without telling us he was called "Penguin" or some "ludicrous ranting" Not at all sure why PE was re-printing the material btw, it was clearly a hit campaign. Maybe because they didn't like the Spectator Magazine, of which Keene was Chess Correspondent. Not to say that plenty of people don't dislike Keene btw.

[Chris Whittington]

Seriously, Levy was offered a rebuttal by the Chessbase folks which he took and basically you did most of the work

"Seriously", are you are calling the Levy "interview" by ChessBase(/Riis/Schröder/Whittington) a "rebuttal" opportunity that ChessBase "offered"? The ICGA's rebuttals of Riis were already published a month earlier (ChessBase was kind enough to allow Levy the first reply in their "reader feedback" which linked to said rebuttals, though they cheekily blamed Levy for the "sequential" nature of his up-coming "interview", saying: It is being currently conducted by sequential emails, but may take a while, since David is consulting experts who live in different time zones around the globe -- I am pretty sure that Levy would have been happy to have it all be done at once, rather than drip-dropping the questions, and the latter was ChessBase's choice to try to wring him as tightly as they could). After the first 2 parts of Riis, MarkL had noticed that I was posting quite extensively in forums about it, and asked me to turn it into an official ICGA response (on technical matters). As I was already doing the work on my own interest, this was fairly reasonable to do.

If ChessBase had any sense of evenhandedness in the matter, they would (as with Riis) allowed Levy/ICGA to post a multi-part series in their own words, as opposed to an "interview" with rather leading (and often irrelevant) questions. Or maybe they should have allowed Levy/Hyatt/Lefler to ghost-conduct such an "interview" with Rajlich (rather than publish Riis)?

I realy didn't understand why you dragged me (and notable Dalke) into that discussion but it was quite revealing how sensitive you often are. it was quite revealing how sensitive you often are.

Not my recollection -- it was you who put Dalke into the debate (even though he made it clear, both to you and in his first statement to me that he couldn't give a hoot about the ICGA decision, but only possible GPL infringement). And as is typical, you seem to care more about your psychoanalytic prognoses (regarding the participants) than actual evidence.

the question is how to set up the review.

Back in my Riis rebuttal I had suggested (4.4) that:

In the hopes of reaching a resolution, a goal that endless Rybka Forum posts will certainly not approach, let alone reach, I might propose that Rybka and Rajlich agree to a binding (this is a key aspect) review by an uninterested party. I would suggest Ken Thompson, but he has already weighed in. Similarly, Jonathan Schaeffer should suffice, but perhaps they would fret that he has old-school ICGA connections. It should be possible to procure a suitable panel from eminent programming doyens, though this is likely no longer gratis, and the loser should be yoked with the associated costs – thus I doubt any such resolution will ever occur.

I could still suggest a few names of people I know (inevitably, though, the fact that I know them would be seen as "bias", if nothing else in the aftermath). However, given that the ICGA itself is considered biased by the official Rajlich representatives the only venue I can imagine is a case before a "national judge" (as in the EC document), which would obviously be less concerned with technical questions and more concerned with the ICGA's authority to apply Rule #2 in the manner they did, whether procedural aspects were regarded, etc. It would not be a matter of whether Rajlich's broke Rule #2, but rather whether the ICGA's conclusion on this met certain legal standards and guarantees. There is a relevant quote in (part of) the EC conclusion: By carrying out proceedings against Mr Rajlich for an alleged violation of ICGA tournament rules and by deciding to disqualify Mr Rajlich from the World Computer Chess Championships 2006/2010, the ICGA has not violated the FIDE Code of Ethics, nor any other FIDE rule or general principle of law.

[Incidentally, why is it difficult to figure out where the ICGA is "based" or "headquartered"? I could determine this in a couple minutes of Internet searching, corroborated by 3 separate data points.. Or was the reason simply to harangue the ICGA over its "tax status"? ].

Yesterday CW wrote:

on your review concept ....

well, yes, I agree, in principal. The decision process woudl need to be fully transparent and open. One lone judge is not an good idea, imo, there's no way to tell the WHY, and therefore discussion to reach a conclusion is needed and that requires a transparent judging GROUP. There is an unbalance on verdict acceptance. ICGA woudl have to agree to abide by decisions, but it is too much to ask an innocent person to "accept guilt" when he is not, verdict or no verdict. However, it is conceded that a guity verdict woudl take the wind out of the sails of a future will to keep arguing.

I'll think about this a bit more.


Got a bit sidetracked and am busy today, tomorrow ......

[BB+]

Hmm, now that I look at more sources, I spot a discrepancy...

Recall that the "limited hardware" event (also termed "software championship") in Pamplona (2009) was in fact the WCCC, and the "open division" was part of the Computer Olympiad. [This, of course, was seen in Rybka Forum as a slap against the cluster -- Rajlich did not compete in the 2010 software champ, presumably so Hans could do more sight-seeing in Kanazawa]. However, the Verdict against Rajlich does not list this Computer Olympiad victory as annulled. Similarly, the 2006-2008 appearances of Rajlich/Rybka in the Blitz [finishing 2nd each time] are not explicity mentioned in the verdict (in 2009-10, Rybka won the Blitz, and item [6] annulled these titles).

[Rebel]

22. The programs have different Zobrist hash keys.
23. The programs have different user interface options.

Well, at least these last two were so ridiculous (or added too late) that you didn't have Riis copy them over to his Entertainment Computing article.

I tell you what really ridiculous is - when I just explained (to you) why I collect differences between Rybka and Fruit, that the more I find, the more unlikely it becomes Vas verbatim copied Fruit (the real accusation) and that in a deveopment period of only 5½ months.

Regarding Soren, I don't know why you are constantly are picking on him. I haven't read the article you refer to so I can't judge. And regarding your complaint to Chessbase about Soren's article, you got your rebuttal, didn't you?

And if I may add, Soren's article was brilliant to the audience it was directed. Try to explain a technical case only understandable for (chess) programmers provided they have invested CONSIDERABLE time and then in the end after 4 years still can't reach a consensus and that to the average Chessbase reader, that's almost mission impossible. That group did a fantastic job. On a scale of 10 I would give it a 9+ for a bunch of non chess programmers.

And about your rebuttal, well, it's understandable that you did, but of course Soren (a non programmer) is no match for you when it comes down to some of the technical aspects. Instead, why don't you try me and and write a rebuttal about the contra investigation, whole different game. But I predict you will pass, like Levy passed.

[BB+]

it becomes Vas verbatim copied Fruit (the real accusation)

This is only the "real accusation" to you. "Verbatim copying" was never the point of the matter for the ICGA. It was never the point of the matter for Letouzey. Even his words (regarding Strelka) make clear that Strelka/Rybka was not a direct copy, but a "copy with different words" (like a translation). This is only about the 100th time you've made this claim, I guess if you repeat enough you think someone else might believe it.

Regarding Soren, I don't know why you are constantly are picking on him.

I do not think I am picking on him. He made a significant number of substantial errors in his ChessBase article (any of which would greatly mislead someone interested in forming their opinion based upon the actual facts), and repeated many of them in his Entertainment Computing article (even when corrected by Levy or myself in our rebuttals). I would use the term "grossly incompetent", but you would probably just think it is a term of art, rather than having a specific meaning (as in "not competent", and in a "gross" manner, particularly for a computer scientist). If you want me to cite (technical) examples, well, I already did so in my rebuttal, but I will be happy to copy 30 or 40 of them here.

And regarding your complaint to Chessbase about Soren's article, you got your rebuttal, didn't you?

No. The ICGA published my technical rebuttal to Riis. ChessBase had nothing to do with it (and later even published his comments on my work, ostensibly in response to Levy's interview, though they eventually removed the libelous remarks he made therein regarding me).

And if I may add, Soren's article was brilliant to the audience it was directed. Try to explain a technical case ... On a scale of 10 I would give it a 9+ for a bunch of non chess programmers.

Unfortunately, it was based upon false statements and outright lies regarding the technical evidence. If this is your definition of "brilliant", I can only conclude that the word "truth" is essentially meaningless to you. I would give it 0 out of 10, for it did nothing but mislead the reader concerning the evidence. Riis did not "explain a technical case" in any sense, instead he (gravely) mis-represented what the Rybka/Fruit case was about. Even if was OK for ChessBase as a (rabidly) pro-Rybka piece, it was garbage for an ostensibly "research article" as he later published in Entertainment Computing.

And about your rebuttal, well, it's understandable that you did, but of course Soren (a non programmer) is no match for you when it comes down to some of the technical aspects.

Then why did he present himself (quite superciliously) as a master of said technical aspects, and spend time "refuting" the claims therein (many of which weren't actually relevant to the ICGA decision)? If he knew nothing about the technical aspects, perhaps he should just be silent about them (indeed, as you/Dalke convinced me that I should have done regarding copyright). Instead, he presented many technical points quite falsely to the ChessBase audience. And if you don't understand the technical aspects, most likely you don't understand the case at all!

Instead, why don't you try me and and write a rebuttal about the contra investigation, whole different game. But I predict you will pass, like Levy passed.

I have already explained to you why the "contra investigation" is garbage. I would agree with anyone who says that Rybka Reloaded is a waste of time to read.

Briefly: Introduction, quotes Dalke, who specifically said he didn't care about the ICGA decision (only GPL), thus mostly irrelevant. Pages 5-49, you largely do not argue against Zach's claims, only that "verbatim copying" was not done. I could pick out some specifics on other matters, such as your claims regarding PST, but I think they have already been discussed other places (like in my rebuttal to Riis), and nothing new is really said. For the "code copying", let's take a specific place, say the bottom of page 28 (in Material) when you say: As already stated everything is different as the code itself shows. We don't understand the relevance if your goal is to proof code theft, this more or less is evidence of the opposite, original ideas [MIT] and own code. It was never the goal, of Zach's work, my work, the ICGA investigation, or Letouzey's open letter, to prove "code theft", so your (long) ramblings are irrelevant. Similarly on page 42: If one wants to make a case for code theft this isn't a very good example. As the ICGA didn't make "a case for code theft", your comment is irrelevant.

Chapter II, about my RYBKA_FRUIT, you again talk about "copy theft", and you do not mention EVAL_COMP. I don''t see anything relevant here. Section 3, I already pointed out your "neglectful 3%" distortion, and your imagined "red zone" with no statistical quantification of it. Furthermore, I think the DHW paper covers the topic much more fully than you do. Chapter 4 (historic evidence) is not relevant, it again just argues that there are worse copy jobs than Rybka/Fruit (also, LION++ was not a "copyright breach", given the GPL aspect). Chapter 5, I have already pointed out how silly your list of "36 indisputable differences" is. You could easily make "a million indisputable differences" by pointing that bits 0,3,4,7,13,17,19,22,23,24,27,.... in the executables differ. And with the last chapter, again I answered it above, it is the same error as in Chapter 4, you are only arguing that Fruit/Rybka is not as bad as X/Y, which is a different argument than disputing whether Rybka had its origins in Fruit.

I don't see any reason to continue posting on this matter. As long as you are arguing about "code theft", and/or comparing Rybka/Fruit to direct clones, the relevance of your work to the ICGA investigation and decision is almost nil.