Thomas, don't go!

[Michael Sherwin]

Hey Tony,

This has been a very sad couple of days. Was it not Alessandro that you were saying was such a great guy and that he never made a negative post about anyone. How ironic that the first negative post would be about you. I guess that proves that you did not know what you were talking about after all!

No one is allowed to disagree with certain people and live. It is just that simple. But, they are immortal, because, they never sin and never, never, never are they wrong.

The Terry's of this world rule here. There is no room for mere mortals on their planet. The dead horse that they beat is their own soul and they don't even know it.

Your friend,
Mike

Alessandro wasnt talking about me, he was talking about people who attacks Thomas all the time. So I just posted back with another picture that says stop the beating already.

My apologies then to Alessandro. But, his post was right after CC told you to go away. That made it look like to me that he was saying that telling you to go away was like beating a dead horse. A quote would have been a good way to specify the target of the dead horse beating. BTW, that horse was just sleeping and is going to be very pissed when it wakes up!

[Tony Thomas]

My apologies then to Alessandro. But, his post was right after CC told you to go away. That made it look like to me that he was saying that telling you to go away was like beating a dead horse. A quote would have been a good way to specify the target of the dead horse beating. BTW, that horse was just sleeping and is going to be very pissed when it wakes up!

Oh brother, I see that you have lost your sense of humor. It wasnt I (Tony) who was beating the dead horse, rather some else whose name rhymes with luda's real name.

[Michael Sherwin]

My apologies then to Alessandro. But, his post was right after CC told you to go away. That made it look like to me that he was saying that telling you to go away was like beating a dead horse. A quote would have been a good way to specify the target of the dead horse beating. BTW, that horse was just sleeping and is going to be very pissed when it wakes up!

Oh brother, I see that you have lost your sense of humor. It wasnt I (Tony) who was beating the dead horse, rather some else whose name rhymes with luda's real name.

Yes, Tony. But after that battle in the ctf and what else is going on in my life right now I had my humour reserves switched over to weapons and shields. All my reserves are a bit drained at the moment, but, I will make it a priority to recharge the fun and humour deck first. Sorry once again that a friendly showed up on the scanners as an enemy ship. I hope that I have fixed that particular bug.

[Cubeman]

I don't pretend to know the whole history of the Fruit and Toga versions but I have always known that Toga was based on Fruit since I first became aware of it about 2 years ago.I will not say it is a clone as the lastest versions of both engines play very different moves and when they do make the same moves the times are somtimes out by a factor of 6 or so.I suppose that since Fabien made Fruit open then no-one can complain.

[Peter Fendrich]

Of course Toga is a clone.
There are legal clones and there are illegal clones.

Toga is without any doubt a legal clone.
Maybe it was illegal for a short period of time but that is corrected.
AFAIK even Fabien agrees to this.

Please put your energy on the really illegal ones instead.
This community needs your for what you do best. Kick them down!
/Peter

[Peter Fendrich]

Let me add that I enjoy to see Alaric lose to engines like Toga and Glaurung. It is like looking at good art, the skilled chef or craftman working or listening to good music.
I enjoy to see and try to understand what cleverness is built in to the engine that sometimes lets Alaric look like a beginner.
Don't think I don't want Alaric to win but these engines gives motivation and challenges!

[Alessandro Scotti]

Let me add that I enjoy to see Alaric lose to engines like Toga and Glaurung. It is like looking at good art, the skilled chef or craftman working or listening to good music.
I enjoy to see and try to understand what cleverness is built in to the engine that sometimes lets Alaric look like a beginner.
Don't think I don't want Alaric to win but these engines gives motivation and challenges!

Peter, you made my day and week with this post! That's my feelings too, and what makes this hobby worthwhile.

[pijl]

I assume that you would have no objection to 2 programmers working on an engine jointly if they state in the notes that this is what they have done. If this is the case, why would you object to one programmer working on an engine after another programmer has left it, if he states clearly that this is what he has done?

These are two very different things.
In the first situation you have a cooperating team. Both working together to produce something. They might succeed better than when doing things on their own. One of the very clear examples of this is Spike.
In the second case there is no cooperation. This is not necessarily a bad thing as the result might be a more complete product that would benefit its audience. This one of the cornerstones of the GPL. Toga is one example of this. It is also a good example of the fact that the original author did not accept the cooperation. Fabien wrote some time ago that whatever changes he made to Fruit were his own. Nonetheless, Toga has been valued as a nice piece of software by quite a few people and as an honest GPL program earned its place in the software collection of many.

However, any competition and especially the world championships are not really about establishing which entry is better than the other. It is a sporting event. And in sporting events there are rules to make the competition a fair one. In the WCCC it has afaik always been the rule that all authors of an entry should be in the same team. This prevents entering multiple versions of the same program which would enlarge the chances of winning the competition. In my opinion that also excludes the second type of cooperation. There is no gridchess team that includes all programmers. Neither is there a Toga team. And in case both would like to register and the original authors just give permission to both: Who decides which entry should register?

Another viewpoint.
Suppose that entering programs like Toga in the WCCC would be legal.
Then why should I 'be so silly' to reinvent the wheel and not take Fruit or Glaurung myself as the base for my development? Why should anyone build something themselves? Why would anyone be interested in participating in such a tournament? I would not, Stan obviously would not, and many others I spoke with would not either. Which is exactly why I try to prevent that.

Richard.