Strelka and source code experts

[Matthias Gemuh]

This is all strange !

1) First, Strelka is suspected of being a clone.
2) Second, clone unveilers start digging for the truth.
3) Third, source code "experts" inspect Strelka and declare: "not clone".
4) Fourth, some say: "Stop searching for the truth. Shut up. The experts have spoken".
5) Fifth, clone unveilers put pressure on Y.Osipov by stubbornly digging deeper.
6) Sixth, Y.Osipov steps forward and declares: "The experts are wrong. Strelka is a sophisticated clone of Fruit and Rybka".


Question: Should efforts to unveil a clone be stopped in future because "experts" have seen source code ?


Regards,
Matthias.

[Guetti]

Hm,

Flashback:

http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopi ... 58&t=13716

I agree with Brian. Although it uses parts of Beowulf's I/O, the engine itself is an original work (or if it started out as something else, it does not resemble it any more). I have read the source code to every open source engine and perhaps two dozen closed source engines. His engine uses techniques that are different than any other engine I have seen (by that I mean he implements things differently). In fact, it took me a couple hours to understand what he was really doing. Now as far as chess ideas go (alpha-beta, pvs, etc.) most of his stuff is not unusual. But he implements it differently than other programs I have seen. The sort of thing you would expect to see if someone read an article and then wrote an engine based on what he read, and then compared the engine of someone else who did the same thing. He has some approaches that are fresh and interesting.

He did use stuff from Beowulf, but it is only a trivial bit of I/O stuff. Perhaps it could possibly be a frankenstein of one dozen chess engines but I don't think that is what happened.

Here is the outline of my guess:

He wrote a chess engine using chess programming articles that had a proprietary interface. After some time, he found out about Winboard/Xboard, and decided to tack on a Winboard interface. He found Beowulf was easy for him to understand and so he used the I/O portion as a starting point (the exact Winboard functions supported by Beowulf and Strelka are different).

His code is not much like Fruit or Glaurung. If he used Beowulf's search and evaluation as a starting point, then it is a complete rewrite so that search and evaluation are no longer recognizeable (besides being 450 Elo or so stronger).

If he grabbed open source and copied from it to make his strong engine, then which?
I am familiar enough with the structure of:
Fruit
Glaurung
Scorpio
SlowChess
Crafty
to say for sure it is not a clone of any of those. With that having been said, then which strong open source engine has he borrowed from?

Whatever the case may be, I can say that he has done enough work making this engine to call it his own. He may certainly have collected ideas from some other engines, to make it stronger. But there is nothing wrong with that.

[Dave McClain]

This is all strange !

1) First, Strelka is suspected of being a clone.
2) Second, clone unveilers start digging for the truth.
3) Third, source code "experts" inspect Strelka and declare: "not clone".
4) Fourth, some say: "Stop searching for the truth. Shut up. The experts have spoken".
5) Fifth, clone unveilers put pressure on Y.Osipov by stubbornly digging deeper.
6) Sixth, Y.Osipov steps forward and declares: "The experts are wrong. Strelka is a sophisticated clone of Fruit and Rybka".


Question: Should efforts to unveil a clone be stopped in future because "experts" have seen source code ?


Regards,
Matthias.

Matthias,

It seems the "experts" can't agree on anything. Who do you believe? Perhaps better "experts" are needed. The human race put people on the moon but can't distinguish out a cloned chess engine from a paper doily.

[Christopher Conkie]

This is all strange !

1) First, Strelka is suspected of being a clone.
2) Second, clone unveilers start digging for the truth.
3) Third, source code "experts" inspect Strelka and declare: "not clone".
4) Fourth, some say: "Stop searching for the truth. Shut up. The experts have spoken".
5) Fifth, clone unveilers put pressure on Y.Osipov by stubbornly digging deeper.
6) Sixth, Y.Osipov steps forward and declares: "The experts are wrong. Strelka is a sophisticated clone of Fruit and Rybka".


Question: Should efforts to unveil a clone be stopped in future because "experts" have seen source code ?


Regards,
Matthias.

Matthias,

It seems the "experts" can't agree on anything. Who do you believe? Perhaps better "experts" are needed. The human race put people on the moon but can't distinguish out a cloned chess engine from a paper doily.

I use my eyes.



Christopher

[Matthias Gemuh]

[quote="Christopher Conkie]

I use my eyes.



Christopher[/quote]





I hope more people would do likewise !!

Matthias.

[Daniel Mehrmann]

This is all strange !

1) First, Strelka is suspected of being a clone.
2) Second, clone unveilers start digging for the truth.
3) Third, source code "experts" inspect Strelka and declare: "not clone".
4) Fourth, some say: "Stop searching for the truth. Shut up. The experts have spoken".
5) Fifth, clone unveilers put pressure on Y.Osipov by stubbornly digging deeper.
6) Sixth, Y.Osipov steps forward and declares: "The experts are wrong. Strelka is a sophisticated clone of Fruit and Rybka".


Question: Should efforts to unveil a clone be stopped in future because "experts" have seen source code ?


Regards,
Matthias.

Hi Matthias,

[General statement for all people which attacking Dann and Bryan]

"Nobody is perfect"

Dann and Bryan are only humans and humans making mistakes. That's absolut normal. Both guys did a great job in the past and having an very good background knowledge.

If you don't know what do you must search for, because it never happend before, and you see "self-written" code in your view, you're not looking at details to find other engines. Also we don't know how much code was changed. I suppose it's near 99% anyway.

It's just unfair to say now these guys are incompetent. They are not and i hope they learned a lot now and doing it better in the future. There is no need to attack Dann or Bryan. I guess they are disapointed about themself already. I think we should support Dann and Bryan now.

They have my support.

Best,
Daniel

[Graham Banks]

[General statement for all people which attacking Dann and Bryan]

"Nobody is perfect"

Dann and Bryan are only humans and humans making mistakes. That's absolut normal. Both guys did a great job in the past and having an very good background knowledge.

If you don't know what do you must search for, because it never happend before, and you see "self-written" code in your view, you're not looking at details to find other engines. Also we don't know how much code was changed. I suppose it's near 99% anyway.

It's just unfair to say now these guys are incompetent. They are not and i hope they learned a lot now and doing it better in the future. There is no need to attack Dann or Bryan. I guess they are disapointed about themself already. I think we should support Dann and Bryan now.

They have my support.

Best,
Daniel

Well said Daniel.

[George Tsavdaris]

Hi Matthias,

[General statement for all people which attacking Dann and Bryan]

"Nobody is perfect"

Dann and Bryan are only humans and humans making mistakes. That's absolut normal. Both guys did a great job in the past and having an very good background knowledge.

If you don't know what do you must search for, because it never happend before, and you see "self-written" code in your view, you're not looking at details to find other engines. Also we don't know how much code was changed. I suppose it's near 99% anyway.

It's just unfair to say now these guys are incompetent. They are not and i hope they learned a lot now and doing it better in the future. There is no need to attack Dann or Bryan. I guess they are disapointed about themself already. I think we should support Dann and Bryan now.

I don't think they have the need for any support, because they haven't done anything wrong, to need support, etc!

They just expressed their opinion about whether the code was genuine or not. And since it seems the author of Strelka wrote enough code of his own(based on Fruit-Rybka anyway) they thought that this code is genuine.
They couldn't believe that this code could possibly be based on Fruit or Rybka.
It seems they were wrong but that's it. Nothing more.....

[Matthias Gemuh]

I am not criticizing the "experts".
I do have problems with whoever wages war against clone unveilers, basing their arguments on "some 2 or 3 experts have seen the source code, so it is a crime to continue searching for the truth".
If clone unveilers would allow themselves to be intimidated by such people, where would our nice computer chess hobby end ? in a sea of expert-unrecognized clones ?


Matthias.

[GenoM]

this whole discussion is because of not clearing WHAT IS CLONE and what is DERRIVATIVE