Eelco de Groot wrote:Glad you got the permission Raimund!
One caveat though, some programmers say that the code from Eugene can not really be licensed under the GPL that is a reason why for instance Tord did not want to implement EGTBs at least not Nalimov's code in Glaurung. Maybe you will have to consider another form of licensing? Crafty uses Nalimov code but a different license. I would not really know the pros and cons. I don't want to do difficult or anything but it's probably better to look at that now than later? I do hope you can go through with Protector!
Regards,
Eelco
Thanks, Eelco.
Meanwhile I'm of course aware of these pros and cons. The topic has become rather complex and I will try to discuss things with Andrew Kadatch and Eugene Nalimov. I will have to consider:
- Not GPL could mean I cannot host the sources on Sourceforge anymore. Not funny.
- Playing without tablebases seems to hurt Protector's rating severly, although I've added some eval terms for very basic endings (KNB vs K seems to work at 5 sec per move). But I still don't have sufficient terms for e.g. KP vs. KP without passers. So adding the tablebase code is still the most favourable option.
And last but not least the permission from Eugene Nalimov itself is still missing. But after all there's some progress in the case now...
RaimundHeid wrote:adding the tablebase code is still the most favourable option.
And last but not least the permission from Eugene Nalimov itself is still missing. But after all there's some progress in the case now...
Good to hear you have that permission, I am sure that Nalimov will give his as well.
BTW, I can't see why each and every author has to apply for a licence. Will they refuse to give their permission to some of them? Thereby they would put those at handicap, is that fair? And what if the tablebase authors become permanently unreachable?
There must be some reason why they haven't issued a general licence which does not require individual permission, but I can't guess what.
I suppose by demanding a permission they want to keep things under control. Don't know if this really works. Might work well for them but for the developers it's not very comfortable.
I've sent a mail to Andrew Kadatch to discuss the topic with him. I assume they don't want to publish their code under GPL since that would mean anyone can modify it and publish the modifications (and in the worst case Kadatch/Nalimov will get requests to fix the bugs). I suppose an easy solution would be an address where the official version of the tablebase code is located. But currently this is only speculation. Will keep you updated.
SzG wrote:BTW, I can't see why each and every author has to apply for a licence. Will they refuse to give their permission to some of them? Thereby they would put those at handicap, is that fair?.
I believe Diep has been refused permission. I am therefor of the opinion that Nalimov tablebases should not be allowed in competitive events.
I've given up hope now. Eugene Nalimov doesn't reply in any way. I'm pretty sure my mails have reached him since Andrew Kadatch has forwarded them to him. But I never got any reply at all from him, neither positive nor negative.
So my new goal will be to add some endgame knowlegde. The first results are promising (e.g. KBNK is much easier than I thought and takes only a few lines of code) and I assume that the rating has not dropped more than 10-15 points after removing the egtb access code.
Nonetheless I think it's a pity because I loved these "Mate in 95" announcements in KNNKP and KQPKQ endings too much...
Someone please close the thread, don't wait for updates anymore.
SzG wrote: And what if the tablebase authors become permanently unreachable?
... a fate awaiting all of us
.
I hope this fate finds it's way fast to a certain member here so that we can get rid of his spamming posts
Dr.D
_No one can hit as hard as life.But it ain’t about how hard you can hit.It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.How much you can take and keep moving forward….
RaimundHeid wrote:I read that several other freeware authors got the permission to at least *use* (maybe not 'publish') the sources
... Besides, I have never seen such a written permission ...
The permission looks like this:
Andrew Kadatch wrote:
He Raimund,
Please accept my sincere apologies for the delay -- I do not check that account often.
Yes, you can. If the program is commercial I would like to ask you to send me 2 copies.
Eugene is currently not available, he'll be back after Nov. 2nd -- I'll forward your message to him.
Good luck!
-- Andrew
I received this message today. Hope is rising again. Will keep you updated ...
Congratulations Raimund,I'm so happy the situation has cleared up for you
One of the finest chess engines I've ever tested....Protector 1.2.8 x64 using 4CPU is laready in my rating list....I will add this new version as soon as possible....
Dr.D
_No one can hit as hard as life.But it ain’t about how hard you can hit.It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.How much you can take and keep moving forward….
Final word on this topic: I received the permission from Eugene Nalimov in a mail from Jan 8, 2010. He wrote:
"Yes, I am giving my permission on the same terms as Andrew. Distribution is Ok, putting my code under GPL is not Ok.
Sorry for not replying earlier. I changed jobs recently and currently overloaded with information...
Thanks,
Eugene"
I will include the EGTB access code in the next version of Protector (1.3.3). Plase note that the last official version is 1.3.2 and it doesn't contain the EGTB access code.
Graham Banks wrote:The Protector author posted in the Russian forum:
Since the first release of Protector there has been some debate if Protector should be regarded as a Fruit clone. Of all comments written on this topic I would like to pick one that summarizes the complexity of the question pretty well. It can be found at
I didn't write Protector from scratch in order to have an "original" engine and I don't plan to modify Protector towards that goal. This would be a futile task anyway. The answer to the question if Protector is a Fruit clone depends on the personal notion of 'clone' -- my impression is there will always be some people who are not satisfied by the 'distance' between the Protector and the Fruit sources. Currently I don't plan to enter Protector in a serious tournament and thus it isn't an important topic for me.
The Fruit and Toga sources are freely available and cannot be unpublished anymore. Everyone who wants to judge about cloning needs to draw his own line of separation but if it is drawn with too much distance from Fruit this will restrict other programmers severly. I don't believe that this was Fabien Letouzey's intention when he published Fruit -- well, my opinion."
As already mentioned above I have modified several things in Protector that orginally have been analogous to Fruit/Toga. I will do so in the future but my only goal was, is and will be to create a strong chess program that is as competitive as possible -- version 1.2.8 scores about 80% vs. Fruit 2.1 on Linux (the latest open source Fruit version); pretty good for a 'clone', isn't it?. To a certain extend I can understand people who didn't find anything 'new' or 'original' in the Protector source code -- I was also disappointed when I first saw the Fruit source code. There wasn't much new in it but nonetheless Fruit played much stronger than many other programs who seemed to comprise almost the same ingredients.
Oh,
it seems you are visiting the places whose links and references you intend to ban if elected for moderator.
Hypocrisy (redhanded) or what?
"Well, I´m just a soul whose intentions are good,
Oh Lord, please don´t let me be misunderstood."
that is a reason why for instance Tord did not want to implement EGTBs at least not Nalimov's code in Glaurung. Maybe you will have to consider another form of licensing? Crafty uses Nalimov code but a different license. I would not really know the pros and cons. I don't want to do difficult or anything but it's probably better to look at that now than later? I do hope you can go through with Protector!
