Surprise...

[Don]

It's not relevant whether Ippo is itself a clone because that has not been legally established.

Not at the moment, but as soon as someone would take legal action against the ippolit publishers, all redistributers would also be liable. They could get out without criminal conviction in case they can plausibly assure that they where not aware of the copyright violations. But this would be nearly impossible in the ippolit case with all the data in the web

In my opinion now the only one who could go after Ipppolit is Fabien and he would have an uphill struggle to prove it's a derivative. It's a heavily modified copy of a heavily modified copy of Fruit.

Aren't you stretching this a little bit?

I'm not stretching, I honestly believe he would have a uphill battle making his case. You don't honestly believe this would be simple do you?

Miguel

Perhaps after the Rybka case he could then make the case that Ippo is derived from Rybka and that would be good enough but in my opinion he would have an uphill battle and by the time it's all over with Houdini will be a long forgotten memory. This has turned into a multi-headed monster.

I think the best defense is to wait for Komodo, Critter, Stockfish and hopefully others to surpass Houdini.

[michiguel]

It's not relevant whether Ippo is itself a clone because that has not been legally established.

Not at the moment, but as soon as someone would take legal action against the ippolit publishers, all redistributers would also be liable. They could get out without criminal conviction in case they can plausibly assure that they where not aware of the copyright violations. But this would be nearly impossible in the ippolit case with all the data in the web

In my opinion now the only one who could go after Ipppolit is Fabien and he would have an uphill struggle to prove it's a derivative. It's a heavily modified copy of a heavily modified copy of Fruit.

Aren't you stretching this a little bit?

I'm not stretching, I honestly believe he would have a uphill battle making his case. You don't honestly believe this would be simple do you?

I meant to say he has not case at all. I think it is too big of a stretch to think ippolit is a derivative of fruit.

Miguel

Miguel

Perhaps after the Rybka case he could then make the case that Ippo is derived from Rybka and that would be good enough but in my opinion he would have an uphill battle and by the time it's all over with Houdini will be a long forgotten memory. This has turned into a multi-headed monster.

I think the best defense is to wait for Komodo, Critter, Stockfish and hopefully others to surpass Houdini.

[vijayendran]

Houdini is not a clone of any other engine. In my opinion, People are jealous seeing it's impressive strength that no other engine could ever reach.
Mr. Houdart should not waste his precious time in replying to these unwanted threads.
We all should thank Mr. Houdart for giving Houdini 1.5a free of charge that would have fetched him a lot of money if he had sold in that period when it was released.
It's very generous of him.
We all should never forget that without the work of Mr. Houdart, we would have never got an experience to play with a chess engine rated over 3350 Elo .
Kudos to Mr. Houdart.
Keep up the good work and don't care about these jealous people.

Vijayendran

Is this a sect?

No it's the fact.

Vijayendran

[geots]

OK so you say you were basically joking about not giving a hoot if a program is illegal
fair enough

as to my accepting the decision of the ICGA Panel given that i am not a programmer

we have almost every world champion programmer in the last two decades signing the open letter decrying Rybka's involvement in the ICGA World Championships
we have several recognized experts in the field offering evidence
we have a decision handed down after much deliberation
i accept the findings as any lay person accepts the finding of an expert body
I am not an attorney or an expert in constitutional law but i accept the decisions of the Supreme court

i scoff at the nonsense deployed by friends and fans to discredit the entire process from start to finish
as i posted here before ..protests by friends and fans are similar to the family of an convicted criminal complaining that justice was not served to their loved one...
with everything being done wrong from the arresting officers ..to the jury.. to the judge

Rajlich could come on here tomorrow and freely admit he broke the ICGA rules and some from the Rybka forum would even argue with him that he didnt do it

Time to move on George...
aside from a handful of friends and fans and the Dutch federation and their ridiculous decision to allow Rybka to compete in their events..the rest of the CC community has accepted the decision and has moved on
Rybka..as we once knew her .. is no more

Best Regards
Steve

Number 1. If FSF or some court of law disagrees with ICGA, and finds for Vas- you going to accept that ruling, say Fabien had his day in court, smile and not be critical of their decision?

Number 2. I will move on and to where- when and if I choose to.

Number 3. I "give a hoot" as to whether or not a program is legal. But I won't be losing any sleep over it. And the fact that one is not legal WILL NOT keep me from using it. And enjoying it just as much. If their is a difference of opinion about said program, I don't have a horse in that race. If I want to use it- I will use it. Be sure you understand I want all programs to be legal- but legal or not HAS NO BEARING on whether or not I use it and enjoy it.

Number 4. You don't know much about the Rybka forum. There are plenty of people there who think Vas is guilty. And they tell you that. Difference is they can live with an opinion opposite theirs without getting their drawers in a wad.

Number 5. "Rybka as we knew her is no more." I agree- if he does what he is considering and just stays with the "Rybka Cluster"- being tired of everyone stealing from HIM. But if he does decide to come out with Rybka 5, I will certainly be using it. I may need 2 copies. And his sales won't be hurt, no matter how some will stroke over it.

Number 6. I never said there was no evidence in the Rybka case. And no one else has. But it is the interpretation of the evidence that will be in question. Experts on both sides will make compelling cases. Then he will subpoena someone like Dann Corbit, who does not really want to get involved. And I don't blame him. He will have to say what he told me- that there is so much gray area, who can be sure of what? Then a judge is going to be getting a hell of a headache, and will decide to err on the side of caution. He will say evidence is there, but both sides have points. And he is not going to issue a verdict that will ruin the man's way of making a living, when he faces good arguments from both sides.

That is my opinion of how it will play out. But trust me, if I am wrong I don't plan on slitting my wrists. Life will go on. And I will continue to use the engines of MY CHOICE, legal or not. If someone thinks badly of me, that's sorta "tough shit". It is not like, after all these years, I am going to wake up in the morning and give a rat's ass what anyone thinks of me. Won't happen.

gts

[Ajedrecista]

Hello Jury, Pablo et al:

I was reading in Open Chess forum a topic about Houdini 2.0 and I discovered a file of two days ago that is claimed to be the code, pseudocode, source, decompilation or whatever it is of Houdini_20_w32 (I do not know if it comes from the official version or the cracked one in another forum). I hope this crossposting is not illegal because who posted it in Open Chess (Matthias Gemuh) also posts here and does an incredible job with Chess GUI (congrats Matthias!). The link is of Hotfile server. The size is 4.92 MB more less. As everybody an see, there is an error at the end of the Notepad:

Code: Select all

#error "There were 98 decompilation failure(s) on 1074 function(s)"

And there are more 'errors' in the Notepad, as the last 'error' tell us.

It would be nice that Mr. Robert Houdart will enlighten us if this Notepad is a leg-pull or not. If not, he can explain the differences (or some of them) between Houdini (a fantastic engine IMO) and IPPOLIT family engines (which are claimed to be derived from, and I have nothing against it) to people that can understand it (not me). I hope this post will be useful.

(Robert, please keep improving Houdini because IMO it is a worthwhile engine).

Regards from Spain.

Ajedrecista.

[Steve B]

Number 1. If FSF or some court of law disagrees with ICGA, and finds for Vas- you going to accept that ruling, say Fabien had his day in court, smile and not be critical of their decision?

If I want to use it- I will use it. Be sure you understand I want all programs to be legal- but legal or not HAS NO BEARING on whether or not I use it and enjoy it.

And I will continue to use the engines of MY CHOICE, legal or not. If someone thinks badly of me, that's sorta "tough shit". It is not like, after all these years, I am going to wake up in the morning and give a rat's ass what anyone thinks of me. Won't happen.

gts

Of course i will respect the findings of the FSF no matter which way it goes
chances are strong it will go the way of the ICGA though
in the unlikely event that Rybka is found not in violation ..one thing i wont do is start throwing spaghetti all over the walls to see what sticks in an effort to discredit the entire FSF process from start to finish
ill wager mega bucks that there will be some F&F's(Friends and Fans )who will not accept the FSF findings if it does not go their way
F&F's will open up threads of protest in all of the forums ..where the only difference in content from their threads of protest now about the ICGA process will be the replacement of the initials "ICGA" with "FSF"

Its your choice to happily enjoy a knowingly illegal engine George
(if it turns out to be illegal ..that is)
as i said before IMHO ..that is a breakdown in morality and a slap in the face to honest programmers everywhere who try to eek out a living in chess programming

i know i know ..you dont give a rats ass about other hard working honest programmers and their miserable livelihoods or what what anyone thinks anyway..
although you do post alot..and you do reply to folks who respond to your posts..which indicates you do care what others think..unless you just want to hear yourself talk

Regards
Steve

[Osipov Jury]

Hello Jury, Pablo et al:

I was reading in Open Chess forum a topic about Houdini 2.0 and I discovered a file of two days ago that is claimed to be the code, pseudocode, source, decompilation or whatever it is of Houdini_20_w32 (I do not know if it comes from the official version or the cracked one in another forum). I hope this crossposting is not illegal because who posted it in Open Chess (Matthias Gemuh) also posts here and does an incredible job with Chess GUI (congrats Matthias!). The link is of Hotfile server. The size is 4.92 MB more less. As everybody an see, there is an error at the end of the Notepad:

Code: Select all

#error "There were 98 decompilation failure(s) on 1074 function(s)"

And there are more 'errors' in the Notepad, as the last 'error' tell us.

It would be nice that Mr. Robert Houdart will enlighten us if this Notepad is a leg-pull or not. If not, he can explain the differences (or some of them) between Houdini (a fantastic engine IMO) and IPPOLIT family engines (which are claimed to be derived from, and I have nothing against it) to people that can understand it (not me). I hope this post will be useful.

(Robert, please keep improving Houdini because IMO it is a worthwhile engine).

Regards from Spain.

Ajedrecista.

This message means that HexRays could not decompile 98 functions from binary, and these functions are absent in the file. HexRays not yet perfect.

[K I Hyams]

Number 1. If FSF or some court of law disagrees with ICGA, and finds for Vas- you going to accept that ruling, say Fabien had his day in court, smile and not be critical of their decision?

If I want to use it- I will use it. Be sure you understand I want all programs to be legal- but legal or not HAS NO BEARING on whether or not I use it and enjoy it.

And I will continue to use the engines of MY CHOICE, legal or not. If someone thinks badly of me, that's sorta "tough shit". It is not like, after all these years, I am going to wake up in the morning and give a rat's ass what anyone thinks of me. Won't happen.

gts

Of course i will respect the findings of the FSF no matter which way it goes
chances are strong it will go the way of the ICGA though
in the unlikely event that Rybka is found not in violation ..one thing i wont do is start throwing spaghetti all over the walls to see what sticks in an effort to discredit the entire FSF process from start to finish
ill wager mega bucks that there will be some F&F's(Friends and Fans )who will not accept the FSF findings if it does not go their way
F&F's will open up threads of protest in all of the forums ..where the only difference in content from their threads of protest now about the ICGA process will be the replacement of the initials "ICGA" with "FSF"

Its your choice to happily enjoy a knowingly illegal engine George
(if it turns out to be illegal ..that is)
as i said before IMHO ..that is a breakdown in morality and a slap in the face to honest programmers everywhere who try to eek out a living in chess programming

i know i know ..you dont give a rats ass about other hard working honest programmers and their miserable livelihoods or what what anyone thinks anyway..
although you do post alot..and you do reply to folks who respond to your posts..which indicates you do care what others think..unless you just want to hear yourself talk

Regards
Steve

It must be very rare indeed in a minor case such as this one for a panel of experts of that quality to focus in the intense way in which those that supplied the ICGA with evidence focussed on Rybka. Either way, the findings were clear and a court is not going to be able to refute that evidence, especially as Vas will be required to show source code that his sidekick, Cimiotti, conveniently confirmed was still in Rajlich’s possession at the time of the enquiry.

If a court case turns out favourably for Rajlich, although the Rybka forum members will have a gigantic collective and simultaneous orgasm irrespective of how it was arrived at, some of us will think carefully before accepting it as significant. The difference between legality and justice may mean that he can wriggle away on a legal technicality. If he does, many of us will not respect a legal rather than a just ruling.

George has told us that he posts his “stuff” because Vas once sent him some nice emails. Plenty of con men are adept at sending out nice emails and so it is fortunate that most of us base our allegiances on more sophisticated considerations.

Many of Rajlich’s apologists base their positions on the notion that this was a victimless crime. It was not a victimless crime. If code was stolen and abused in the way that now seems certain, there were many victims. They include engine authors who lost money, tournament directors who were deceived, competitors who were deprived of prizes and end-users who were sold products under false pretences. Perhaps such considerations do not bother George because he has his emails to treasure.

[Steve B]

George has told us that he posts his “stuff” because Vas once sent him some nice emails. Plenty of con men are adept at sending out nice emails and so it is fortunate that most of us base our allegiances on more sophisticated considerations.

Many of Rajlich’s apologists base their positions on the notion that this was a victimless crime. It was not a victimless crime. If code was stolen and abused in the way that now seems certain, there were many victims. They include engine authors who lost money, tournament directors who were deceived, competitors who were deprived of prizes and end-users who were sold products under false pretences. Perhaps such considerations do not bother George because he has his emails to treasure.

Hi Keith
ah...now i see
i missed that telling admission by George
explains alot

you know i was the chief sponsor of the GM Joel Benjamin V Rybka ..Draw odds match ..held a few years ago
of course at the time i was not aware of Rybka's illegality
anyway....i think i have some emails from Rajlich thanking me for sponsoring the match
im not sure..i have to check back
if so i will send them along to George for his collection

F&F Regards
Steve

[Don]

Many of Rajlich’s apologists base their positions on the notion that this was a victimless crime. It was not a victimless crime.

What they mean is that it doesn't affect THEM. People often think in terms of only themselves and judge things accordingly. If a crime is not perceived as a personal threat to us, we have a tendency to judge it much less severely. If the crime actually is perceived to be a benefit to us somehow, we tend to be EXTREMELY sympathetic, even if it hurts someone else. Lots of example of that. Many years ago there was a subway killing where a guy killed some gang members vigilante style. A lot of people viewed him as a hero even though it seemed likely that he planned the killing.

Especially in the early part of the century in the US there were many ethnic crimes which were often completely overlooked. In some cases it was common knowledge what had been done and who done it, but most (white) people were not seeing it as that serious. But it was a completely different story if the crime was against a white person - then it was considered an extremely vile act of pure evil.

This is big part of the sentiments happening here. Rybka has brought a lot of pleasure to a lot of people and it's no surprise that they cannot see what the big deal is.

If code was stolen and abused in the way that now seems certain, there were many victims. They include engine authors who lost money, tournament directors who were deceived, competitors who were deprived of prizes and end-users who were sold products under false pretences. Perhaps such considerations do not bother George because he has his emails to treasure.