Computer chess scene: a heap of ruins

[Rebel]

[http://www.open-chess.org/viewtopic.php ... 477#p12968
http://www.open-chess.org/viewtopic.php ... =10#p12994
http://www.open-chess.org/viewtopic.php ... =20#p13058
http://www.open-chess.org/viewtopic.php ... =30#p13076

Roger,

You are forgetting of course Bob declared full war on me after my initial teasing remark that notable came with a smiley. So if you quote, quote correctly, it was never about copying code.

http://www.open-chess.org/viewtopic.php?p=13104#p13104

And you CAN NOT just copy code from one engine to another, variable names differ to start with.

[Roger Brown]

Your links actually fit in what I say.

BTW, I wrote Gaviota w/o studying other programs. Can I say that I was not influenced by them? No. Even when I tested ideas before they implemented them. For instance, I tested LMR/LMP before Glaurung ever existed. But I was influenced by it!! How? It did not work for me, and discarded it (same with Bob, because I tested something like that inspired in a comment from him, around 2001). But, when I came back to CC in 2005-6 after three year hiatus, I saw the success of the technique, and I put it in my to-do list. Knowing that it should work, I worked until I found a successful condition (last year).

Miguel

Hello Dr. Ballicora,

Respectfully, we disagree.

Ed is not describing what you are describing up top.

Dr. Hyatt has always given credit where it is due in Crafty.

Always.

I accept that Gavota is 100% original which means that any ideas in it were interpreted by you and implemented by you in your distinct style. I have always been a fan of your engine from way before Rybka incidentally. Not sure why you mention its genesis here but there has never been a doubt here....

I accept the same about Crafty. In a sense, what I accept is irrelevant, because Crafty is out there, under continuous development for decades, for all to see.

Yet there was even an attempt to indicate that Crafty copied from Fruit.

Yes I am aware that you said nothing of the sort Dr. Ballicora but it requires a literal mindset to conclude that merely learning from ideas was what was intended.

Perhaps I am unreasonable in my interpretive skills.

Later.

[Rebel]

Read again: http://www.open-chess.org/viewtopic.php?p=13104#p13104

The topic from the beginning was (and always has been) your flat out denial of the obvious, the denial your mind remained unaffected looking at Strelka (=Rybka) sources, discussing Strelka sources in fora etc.

After my initial teasing remark (programmer to programmer) to remove all Rybka code from Crafty that came with a smiley you declared full war on me.

You took it the wrong way Bob and you wouldn't listen and became unreasonable.

You still do.

I reached my hand out here on CCC to you, instead of taking it you decided to bite by bringing up an old score.

So now what? Two old men have proven today they can behave at Rybka forum so why not here?

I will answer your questions nevertheless.

Simple and easy to answer question: You gave a specific version that saw an improvement in the branching factor, as your "smoking gun" that I had copied ideas (or code) from strelka/robo*.

It should have been an eye-opener because you don't know (and can't know) the origin of the idea (double LMR reductions), explained in the link on top.

I gave you a diff of that version and the previous version. Did you see ANY robo* idea that was ADDED? Or did you see two lines of code that were tuned, constant-wise, and which are not even present in robo*?

Wrong question because you were (and still are) moving outside the scope of my initial teasing remark from programmer to programmer (!!!) to remove all Rybka code from Crafty that came with a smiley.

Explain to me how you possibly could take that literal since we both know that copying CODE from an external source into your own code is nearly mission impossible due to all kind of conficting stuff, variable names to begin with.

It was always about idea's. And explained to you numerous times.

Your goal here, and then, was simply to divert attention away from the fruit/rybka discussion.

Funny, it was the time I held Vas for a copy boy.

[Rebel]

If you're going to reach out your hand, you should make it on a point where you gave offense with false accusations (emphasis mine):

Conveniently quoting huh?

Skipping the rest of the posting you refer too ?

What's causing the huge branch factor difference between 23.2 and 23.3 ?
Whatever the answer, it's not your original idea. You heard it from someone. And that person heard it from another one.
And In the end the origin of the idea comes from the hacked Rybka.
You Robert Hyatt are using idea's in Crafty that smell Rybka.
Hacked Rybka.
Idea's never meant to be yours.
Yet you use them.

It's what you get if you declare full war on someone, things get a bit more spicy.

Within the scope (the red) it simply is valid. Still is, for every chess programmer, this from the beginning of CC times. Programmers taking ideas they hear, read in fora, read sources. All okay as long as you write you own CODE.

Now look back in that thread and show me where I accused Bob of copying. You won't find it. Don't refer to my initial remark, that was supposed to be a self-understood joke between 2 chess programmers which Bob took the wrong way.

[JuLieN]

Distinguished sirs... The AIM of this thread was to make you realize (and grant the fact) that you could keep discussing for CENTURIES and still not being able to reach an agreement, because none of you CAN.

But, instead of understanding this, and making the only logical conclusion (which is "ok, let's settle for a truce and see what we can do to restore good relations between each others"), you just KEEP having your POINTLESS debates about who came first between the egg and the chicken...

You are the guys fighting bare hands in the rubbles of my first post.

PUT AN END to this, admit that there comes a moment when knowing who's right just doesn't matter anymore as much as surviving. Settle this by acknowledging you ALL are in a dead end. Let Vas (the man who is totally quiet and don't give a damn, you know...) handle his OWN problems, and put your energy and time where it belongs:
- producing better engines
- improving the ICGA and other organizations' ways of handling such cases in the future.

If any of you come here to, AGAIN, answer someone of the other camp about details from the x Rybka thread on the y forum, he'll get awarded a dunce cap.

[Rebel]

l lEd decremented to rowing with one oar long before the rybka issue, somewhere around 2007.

Thank you brother Matt.

[Roger Brown]

Distinguished sirs... The AIM of this thread was to make you realize (and grant the fact) that you could keep discussing for CENTURIES and still not being able to reach an agreement, because none of you CAN.

But, instead of understanding this, and making the only logical conclusion (which is "ok, let's settle for a truce and see what we can do to restore good relations between each others"), you just KEEP having your POINTLESS debates about who came first between the egg and the chicken...

You are the guys fighting bare hands in the rubbles of my first post.

PUT AN END to this, admit that there comes a moment when knowing who's right just doesn't matter anymore as much as surviving. Settle this by acknowledging you ALL are in a dead end. Let Vas (the man who is totally quiet and don't give a damn, you know...) handle his OWN problems, and put your energy and time where it belongs:
- producing better engines
- improving the ICGA and other organizations' ways of handling such cases in the future.

If any of you come here to, AGAIN, answer someone of the other camp about details from the x Rybka thread on the y forum, he'll get awarded a dunce cap.

Hello Julien,

Actually I agree with the tone of the post.

One question:

If Vas the quiet man says nothing but proposes to enter his engine - version 5 - in ICGA or WBEC or...what then? Would those problems you say are his alone remain so?

What I will say, is that to say that computer-chess is in ruins because of any one man or program is to elevate that man or program to a status he or it does not deserve.

Computer-chess will survive me, Talkchess and yes, Vas, Rybka, Crafty and even Dr. Hyatt. To think otherwise is to be unduly pessimistic.

Later.

[Rolf]

Distinguished sirs... The AIM of this thread was to make you realize (and grant the fact) that you could keep discussing for CENTURIES and still not being able to reach an agreement, because none of you CAN.

Dear Julien, hi all,

I'm observing all this as a lay, I'm just a chessplayer. When this all started (it wasnt yesterday!) years ago, I contacted Bob (because he's for me the expert number one) and begged him to consider the consequences in case that this would develop into a yearlong campaign. Bob disagreed. So this is no natural hurricane, but it's man-made.

Often peers claimed that Vas remained silent which would send bad signals. I disagreed and contradicted because Vas has spoken with a very clear statement. He felt singled-out and confirmed that he didnt do anything what all did per usual, probably he meant all the commercial guys with their closed sources. Again I contacted Bob but he disagreed again. It would be outlandish to investigate others if someone did something wrong. So, IMO this is the circle of argumentation that you observed, Julien. Because it's trivially clear that if others did the same like Vas, then what could legal justice do? The ICGA and its supporters however made unfair moves. I cant jusge if that is justified. If others did the same in a similar way like Vas, IMO the movess of the ICGA were wrong.

I agree that Vas must take legal steps if he thinks he was treated unfairly.

But as I could foresee it, the problems and mistrust in our scene came from the suspicion what others might have done but still they remained intact. Only Vas was singled out. That could be repaired if the peers would agree that the wrong should and could be healed.

The disadvantage of a declared silence is the idea who could possibly be next as being singled out in computerchess where almost all details are basied on common knowledge.

If however new controls are proposed so that the demands of the ICGA could be better met, the whole situation will quickly change back towards friendship. It's the best for creative minds.

I beg you to find better protection against stolen code which then is published for free. RE code is a private learning tool, but we should not tolerate that such contructed code is being published. If we dont solve these two problems at best with new ethical rules and social control, it is evident that commercial closed source programmers will lose their motivation to compete anylonger. Although they are traditionally the top guys who produced progress. It would be counterproductive to enforce all players to become open source, so that they dont even get a minimal recompensation for their ideas. Academic players with their open source get their living elsewhere so that their wishes should be politely ignored. Good players who could make money with their commercial engines shouldnt be handicapped or destroyed by open source campaigns.

With Ed Schroeder I ask all of you, do we really want to influence the standards of living of our best programmers after they could make a living with their talents? For what is our legal justice system there if we in such hobby areas begin to practice self-justice? IMO this is the reason for the actual situation in our community, the lack of legal justice, not that a singular member did something irregular. Again, it has not been examined if Vas is correct with his defense that he did nothing what isnt common practice.

Last but not least I beg you all for your understanding that as a lay I am not the one who could discuss all this. Let's have our experts into this. I could give you my observations from the outside. I wish you all a nice weekend. In Germany we will have our Unification Day on Oct the 3rd.

[JuLieN]

Distinguished sirs... The AIM of this thread was to make you realize (and grant the fact) that you could keep discussing for CENTURIES and still not being able to reach an agreement, because none of you CAN.

But, instead of understanding this, and making the only logical conclusion (which is "ok, let's settle for a truce and see what we can do to restore good relations between each others"), you just KEEP having your POINTLESS debates about who came first between the egg and the chicken...

You are the guys fighting bare hands in the rubbles of my first post.

PUT AN END to this, admit that there comes a moment when knowing who's right just doesn't matter anymore as much as surviving. Settle this by acknowledging you ALL are in a dead end. Let Vas (the man who is totally quiet and don't give a damn, you know...) handle his OWN problems, and put your energy and time where it belongs:
- producing better engines
- improving the ICGA and other organizations' ways of handling such cases in the future.

If any of you come here to, AGAIN, answer someone of the other camp about details from the x Rybka thread on the y forum, he'll get awarded a dunce cap.

Hello Julien,

Actually I agree with the tone of the post.

One question:

If Vas the quiet man says nothing but proposes to enter his engine - version 5 - in ICGA or WBEC or...what then? Would those problems you say are his alone remain so?

What I will say, is that to say that computer-chess is in ruins because of any one man or program is to elevate that man or program to a status he or it does not deserve.

Computer-chess will survive me, Talkchess and yes, Vas, Rybka, Crafty and even Dr. Hyatt. To think otherwise is to be unduly pessimistic.

Later.

Simple answer to an actually simple question:

- He's banned from ICGA, and WBEC enforces ICGA's decision. So if he wants to enter their tournaments, he'll get nothing. If Vas wants to get back to an ICGA or WBEC event, he (and him only) will have to appeal from the first decision. This can be done by one or two ways:

1- I suppose that ICGA would not object to review his case again, this time with him presenting his defense.
2- Or he could go directly to court: in all countries, arbitral decision from a sport authority can get reformed by appeals courts.

And all his supporters would be happy to concur, and there would be nothing to object to that.

Now, about CC: I'm not saying Vas killed it, I'm saying that pro-Vas and anti-Vas sides are seriously damaging it. Not Vas.

[JuLieN]

@Rolf

Hello Rolf. The ICGA didn't practice self-justice. The ICGA has to be seen here as a sport authority. They organize competition events for which they have rules. If they feel some rules were broken by one of the competitors, they are perfectly right to investigate, judge and, eventually, ban this competitor from their events. All sport authorities do that (for instance, several players from France's football national team were banned by the french football federation from playing in the team after their rebellion during the last World Cup).

Also, there was nothing unfair with this trial: Vas was offered to present his defense, which he did not. The ICGA did what any other sport authority would do in the same situation: proceed anyway. And they did it by considering pro and cons arguments.

Now, Vas can appeal from this decision. Either directly to the ICGA or to a civil court.

It is not someone else's job to do that in his place. Those who do that are making a lot of damages to CC.