Computer chess scene: a heap of ruins

[bob]

Yes, Ed, I got that point: having signed a bit too fast the ICGA letter and then having second thoughts make you feel responsible for Vas.

Absolutely not my friend. I would do it for Bob in a similar situation.

Best to you,

Ed

Hmm from the SAME person that accused me of copying code from ippolit/robolito??? I didn't notice you defending me there. I noticed you making false statements and then being unable to back them up. I even gave you the diff output for the search code you said contained robo* code.

There's more to this story than just "I believe (now) that he didn't copy anything."

I witness the discussion, and he did NOT accused you of copying CODE.

Miguel

You see Miguel, the kind of roadblocks thrown up. I was right there the night you repeatedly asked Bob to show you proof of "A and B". Since obviously HE COULD NOT, he played the game of ignoring what you said, giving an answer to something entirely different. Then answering the same request with a question. Never did he take it on directly. Couldn't have been a communication failure- not as long as you stayed with it. Over and over you tried to pin him down- and he NEVER faced you directly. Does that sound to you like someone who sees the truth as important?

Then, I will be damn if a few days later, on another issue of the case, he did not pull the EXACT PLOY with Sven. He just could not follow the point Sven was trying to make. And he never took that issue on directly.

Look, I admit I don't know a grain of computer science. I have college degrees in 2 different majors. But I imagine both combined with a dollar bill might buy me a coke, if I'm lucky. But I could have stopped after elementary school and still understood what was going on both times.

Now he says Ed accused him of copying code. Must have slipped his mind that you were there, because you witnessed the discussion and said it never happened. Lo and behold- he's caught again.

I remember very well when a day or so later you had had enough, and told him you were not one of his students, and this was the 2nd time you had asked him to stop talking down to you.

Is this the stuff you should have to fight when simply looking for the truth?


gts

I was right there the night you repeatedly asked Bob to show you proof of "A and B".

What on earth are you talking about. What is "proof of A and B?"

[bob]

Yes, Ed, I got that point: having signed a bit too fast the ICGA letter and then having second thoughts make you feel responsible for Vas.

Absolutely not my friend. I would do it for Bob in a similar situation.

Best to you,

Ed

Hmm from the SAME person that accused me of copying code from ippolit/robolito??? I didn't notice you defending me there. I noticed you making false statements and then being unable to back them up. I even gave you the diff output for the search code you said contained robo* code.

Why bring up this old cow when the above was obviously meant as reaching my hand out to you?

So, one more time,

I never accused you of copying code. It was about your refusal of the obvious that when reading and intensively discussing the Strelka sources (=Rybka) in fora the mind of a chess programmer would not remain unaffected by it.

What started as a humorous remark (with smiley!) to emphasize that point you took it the wrong way. It was explained to you numerous times the issue was not about COPYING CODE but ideas.

Hint, attack me elsewhere, CCC as I understand is pretty done with the Rybka issue.

Do you see any "humor" in accusing me of taking stuff from ip*, when we are, in the same thread, discussing a direct accusation, with overwhelming proof, that Vas copied code from Crafty and Fruit? Somehow, any "humor" escapes me. And I never saw a statement that said "OK, I looked at the changes you posted from diff, and there is no new code or ideas that you added. You simply tuned. And your <= vs < bug has happened to quite a few people over the years, and occasionally a "bug" is a good thing.

To refresh your memory, I cleaned up search, and rewrote the reduction and forward pruning code (futility pruning). A simple error of using <= rather than < let it prune one ply farther from the tips. I thought the code matched and at the same time Tracy sent me some eval changes. The rating jumped by maybe 10-15 Elo. We then found a bug in part of his code. I started removing pieces to see which piece gave that Elo boost. Couldn't find it. Removed all of his changes. Boost was still there. Further debugging eventually led me to the <= change, and that "bug" led me to try going even further. I now prune in last 4 plies, not having been able to produce any improvement going to 5 and beyond (yet). Code in Crafty was not changed. A constant was changed to allow pruning deeper into the tree, in code that has no match in robo*.

You made an accusation. You NEVER corrected it. Even when shown it was false...

As the saying goes, "with friends like you, who needs enemies?"

Your present arguments are doing about the same level of harm to Vas. The arguments are so ridiculous..

[JuLieN]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpeF067Hx2Y

Fine.

[bob]

Yes, Ed, I got that point: having signed a bit too fast the ICGA letter and then having second thoughts make you feel responsible for Vas.

Absolutely not my friend. I would do it for Bob in a similar situation.

Best to you,

Ed

Hmm from the SAME person that accused me of copying code from ippolit/robolito??? I didn't notice you defending me there. I noticed you making false statements and then being unable to back them up. I even gave you the diff output for the search code you said contained robo* code.

There's more to this story than just "I believe (now) that he didn't copy anything."

I witness the discussion, and he did NOT accused you of copying CODE.

Miguel

I saw some of it. Ed accussed Bob of copying code.

No.

Miguel

YES!

Open Chess, go look.

Look at page 1 of General Topics. Bob started a thread "Still waiting for Ed". The topic was whether or not ideas from Robbolito could be found in Crafty 23.4.

I've read it.

Talking about VR's legacy and how he indirectly influenced top programs
http://www.open-chess.org/viewtopic.php ... 1&start=13

And how the "ideas" word "turned" into "code" word
http://www.open-chess.org/viewtopic.php ... 1&start=32

Ed clearly did not mention code. But the myth propagated and stayed in many people's mind. It was repeated several times, and now, he is constantly accused of accusing Bob of copying CODE, and being called nuts because of that. Nobody remember how it started, but I do.

And by the way, Ed was completely right about the "legacy point" and how it was completely ignored in the press, when they released the news.

Miguel

No rational person discusses legacy when discussing a criminal act. "This guy donated millions to various charity organizations. Unfortunately, the ponzi scheme he was running caused WorldCom to fail and millions lost a big part of their retirement in the aftermath?" What a legacy. Would Vas have even had a "legacy" if he had not copied the code of others? Impossible to say.

[wgarvin]

Fabien would have still held the copyright in case of an open source program with no license, but the GPL restriction would not have been enforceable, the FSF would not have able to defend Fabien's rights etc.

I read on open-chess.org that Fabien transferred the copyrights to the FSF in April of 2007. So its now their copyright to defend (even for infringements that occurred before the transfer).

Edit: link to BB's post

[michiguel]

I witness the discussion, and he did NOT accused you of copying CODE.

Miguel

Hello Doctor Ballicora,

This is some fine dancing - a bit like dancing between individual raindrops.

I read that thread and these posts by Rebel (Ed) would have led any reasonable reader to believe that Doctor Hyatt borrowed inappropriately from Rybka.

Not at all, because everybody knows that "stealing" ideas is ok.

Interestingly Vincent (Diep's author) stated that the ideas seemingly attributed to Rybka et al were tested by him years before the emergence of that engine.

That would not surprise me, but I do not see how this relates to this particular issue.

You want to make the case that the word code was not used is a bit like saying I stole stuff but I did not kick the door down - I picked it open.

I am not making a "case" that the word "code" was not used, I am stating it as a fact. You can see it from the links I provided. The one who used it was Bob, and he was corrected immediately.

Tell me this, if someone had stated as Ed stated that you took ideas from Crafty in such a way that Gaviota behaved exactly like Crafty in terms of search etc. would you be drawing this fine a line between code and ideas?

If Ed is _explicitly_ saying that he does not refers to code, why should I complain he is referring to code?

Would you not be asking for evidence of what in your code suggested this similarity in behaviour and when such a change was in fact introduced?

I know I would.

Later.

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

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

[Eelco de Groot]

Fabien would have still held the copyright in case of an open source program with no license, but the GPL restriction would not have been enforceable, the FSF would not have able to defend Fabien's rights etc.

I read on open-chess.org that Fabien transferred the copyrights to the FSF in April of 2007. So its now their copyright to defend (even for infringements that occurred before the transfer).

Edit: link to BB's post

Yes, that is true, we heard about that (the transference of rights) from Ryan Benitez on TalkChess when Fabien was not really present in any of the forums. But I doubt that if Fabien would be no longer willing to pursue this, or reached some sort of settlement with Vas, that the FSF would still continue investigating. A deal or settlement seems not very likely to me as long as the FSF has not produced any official statements on this matter, and BB is only quoting a personal communication from the License Compliance Engineer I believe. That Fabien was in contract negotiations with Convekta was news for me and that would surely be of some weight in a civil case, however it may not be important if the FSF is pursuing it as a pure GPL compliance case. In my layman's opinion that is.

Regards, Eelco

[mhull]

Why bring up this old cow when the above was obviously meant as reaching my hand out to you?

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):

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.

[mhull]

I am not making a "case" that the word "code" was not used, I am stating it as a fact.

And you are of course wrong.

It has surprised me you made such a big deal about my initial teasing remark to remove all Rybka code from Crafty. You had to blow it up. --Rebel
http://open-chess.org/viewtopic.php?p=13104#p13104

[michiguel]

I am not making a "case" that the word "code" was not used, I am stating it as a fact.

And you are of course wrong.

It has surprised me you made such a big deal about my initial teasing remark to remove all Rybka code from Crafty. You had to blow it up. --Rebel
http://open-chess.org/viewtopic.php?p=13104#p13104

Of course I am not wrong. You have to read the original statement, and when Ed clarified it right away. It is possible that in a very long thread you can have a lapsus. And if you are going to take that sentence as an evidence, you also have to emphasize the word "teasing remark".

Miguel