Strelka -- Open source

[ozziejoe]

My guess, Hristo, is that the "author" of strelka will modify it to such an extent that it will make it difficult to say it is a clone, although all that may be essential about it is "stolen "

I doubt anything can and will ever be done legally. It sounds complex, and lets face it, the stakes are really small (There is not much money in chess software. and strelka/rybka beta is far behind rybka 2.3.2a and I am sure vas put in better protection against decompoling in the newer versions)

It looks like the chess engine community has some power to discourage this kind of behaviour, by not including strelka in tournaments and rating lists. If i recall correctly, some people in ccrl made the decision to exclude strelka after Vas came out and said it was a clone

best
J

[hristo]

My guess, Hristo, is that the "author" of strelka will modify it to such an extent that it will make it difficult to say it is a clone, although all that may be essential about it is "stolen "

Joseph,
I couldn't guess what Strelkas' "author" will do. The question "is it a clone?" has become pointless, IMO, because the second issue is the damage that this act can cause to Vas. If the "stolen" pieces in Strelka are essential to the way Rybka plays chess then Vas will suffer and his business opportunities will dwindle -- from this perspective it becomes significantly less important whether Strelka is a verbatim clone or if it is merely a different expression of someone else ideas. The damage will be done to the original creator (inventor) and this a travesty.

It is understandable to be unable to create a strong chess engine (there are so very few who have succeeded), but it is quite another to do everything possible to hurt someone else's chances for success.

I doubt anything can and will ever be done legally. It sounds complex, and lets face it, the stakes are really small (There is not much money in chess software. and strelka/rybka beta is far behind rybka 2.3.2a and I am sure vas put in better protection against decompoling in the newer versions)

All of this is true.
From a principle standpoint, however, nothing changes, IMO. While it is difficult to imagine Vas spending the money on legal proceedings it is possible to contact the Free Software Foundation and explain the situation, they might take up the legal action against Strelka on their own money, since the GPL clearly doesn't need to be polluted with ill-gotten goods.
(FSF is just an idea, a venue that would cost nothing)

It looks like the chess engine community has some power to discourage this kind of behaviour, by not including strelka in tournaments and rating lists. If i recall correctly, some people in ccrl made the decision to exclude strelka after Vas came out and said it was a clone

Indeed ... there is some leverage, but when the stakes are as is the case the only one who stands to lose is Vas. Obviously, the other side [Strelka] has nothing on the table and all that is being done here (as it seems) is to hurt Vas.
(This is really ugly ...)

Regards,
Hristo

p.s.
I'm sorry I called you "Josepe"!

[Alexander Schmidt]

I don't think it is our interpretation of "free" that is different. I think it is our interpretation of "without restriction" that is different. For me "without restriction" means "without restriction".

There is no law that I am not allowed to stick my pencil in your eye, and you didnt say to me that I shall not do it. So it is legal and OK for you if I do so?

Cant believe this discussion...

Alex

[ozziejoe]

I am very much in sympathy with your position , Hristo.

[hgm]

If you invent something, i.e. have a new and useful idea, the only way to legally protect it is to file it as a patent. This does force you to divulge the idea, though, and opens the possibility for others to improve on it further, perhaps to such an extent that what they get is no longer protected by the patent, but would not have been possible without knowledge of the patented invention.

The alternative approach to protect your idea is to depend on secrecy. But this will only provide protection for a limited time. At some point the secret will come out. It might take some time because it was merely difficult, and getting the secret might even have been illegal, but as it is usually not possible to prove that the idea was not re-invented independently, there is little you can do about it. And once the secret is out, legally or illegally, it is not illegal to use it. The idea itself is not protected. Your only recourse is to sue the perpetrator of the illegal act of divulging it for the damage that you now suffer by others using the idea he disclosed. But you cannot touch the others.

This system emerged as a compromise between protecting the interests of individual inventors versus protecting the interests of mankind as a whole (who have interest in quick distribution of knowledge). Too bad for Vas.

[Alessandro Scotti]

There is no law that I am not allowed to stick my pencil in your eye...

Of course there is such law, covering all kind of injuries. And in addition to being a penal crime, you will probably be sued for millions.

[Alexander Schmidt]

There is no law that I am not allowed to stick my pencil in your eye...

Of course there is such law, covering all kind of injuries. And in addition to being a penal crime, you will probably be sued for millions.

Yes, and of course there is a law protecting the intellectual property.

Alex

[hristo]

If you invent something, i.e. have a new and useful idea, the only way to legally protect it is to file it as a patent. This does force you to divulge the idea, though, and opens the possibility for others to improve on it further, perhaps to such an extent that what they get is no longer protected by the patent, but would not have been possible without knowledge of the patented invention.

Hello Dr. Muller.
Indeed, by using patents one can protect intellectual property, but I don't believe that patents can be used to protect abstract ideas and this limits the scope of what can be protected. For example: The idea of DFT/FFT cannot be patented (because it isn't a patent mater), however a particular implementation (say, calculate the frequency content of the universe by using pigeons) or a particular usage of an FFT can be patented.

Although ideas aren't patentable there are some ways of obtaining those ideas that aren't legal. For instance: breaking into your house and then taking pictures of all your documents. One can say that by doing this the society as a whole might benefit, but I would suggest that this is thievery and illegal trespassing -- nothing more. (I would certainly like to see more pictures of you with that Redhat of yours, for I believe this would bring piece to the world )

The alternative approach to protect your idea is to depend on secrecy. But this will only provide protection for a limited time. At some point the secret will come out. It might take some time because it was merely difficult, and getting the secret might even have been illegal, but as it is usually not possible to prove that the idea was not re-invented independently, there is little you can do about it. And once the secret is out, legally or illegally, it is not illegal to use it. The idea itself is not protected. Your only recourse is to sue the perpetrator of the illegal act of divulging it for the damage that you now suffer by others using the idea he disclosed. But you cannot touch the others.

Yep. Once your idea is out in the open there is nothing you can do to stop people from using it. In this sense you, as the inventor, can get screwed by some jerk.

This system emerged as a compromise between protecting the interests of individual inventors versus protecting the interests of mankind as a whole (who have interest in quick distribution of knowledge). Too bad for Vas.

Yes, too bad.

Regards and Happy New Year,
Hristo

[GenoM]

My condolences.

[smirobth]

Hi Hristo,

I don't think it is our interpretation of "free" that is different. I think it is our interpretation of "without restriction" that is different. For me "without restriction" means "without restriction".

Hi Robin,
perhaps you are correct and our differences are in the term "without restriction". Of course, there are always implied or explicitly stated restrictions and one cannot pull out a few words from a legal document and then scrap the rest as if it didn't exist. I've been to court with regard to related matters and have had to deal with lawyers ... and I'm almost certain that "without restrictions" doesn't mean what you think it means.

Anyway, legalize can be incredibly twisted and nonintuitive. The point is that one cannot blindly state that disassembly is legal in all cases and it is even less likely that the information obtained through this process can be legally used in the way Strelka's author might do it.

Regards,
Hristo

There isn't much "legalize" in the Rybka beta 1.0 license agreement to "pull out a few words from". Here is the full text of the Rybka 1.0 "Contents & License" section of the readme:

Contents & License

In this package, you will find the Rybka 1.0 Beta chess engine (dated Dec 4, 2005), as well as the Turk opening book by Djordje Vidanovic. Both versions of these components are free and can be used and transmitted without restriction.

Hristo, I am sympathetic to your point of view and I am not in any way advocating software piracy. But I also think the simple fact is that if Vas didn't want people to decompile his code he blew it. He would have had more protection with no user agreement at all.