It walks like a clone, it quacks like a clone ...

[Koivisto]

I've always wondered where the hundreds of engines come from... we should have 500 active people on this forum. We don't... when looking for engines in the 1600-2100 space, it actually seems most are abandoned/broken/unfindable.

Almost no discussion that is relevant to development of chess engines goes on in this forum, why should we be active here? Talkchess really is not the centre of the chessprogramming world.

[mvanthoor]

Almost no discussion that is relevant to development of chess engines goes on in this forum, why should we be active here? Talkchess really is not the centre of the chessprogramming world.

Maybe you're right, if you know everything that is to know about chess programming.

What is this illustrious place outside of Talkchess, where all the relevant discussions do take place?

Maybe this forum? http://outskirts.altervista.org/forum/

I don't know... without actually registering, I can't actually read anything there, but it does seem to have a lot of members.

[AndrewGrant]

As the author of several of these “clones,” I’m not comfortable with this term. None of them play like each other or like stockfish. Let’s face it, the age of exchangeable networks came with leela and now with nnue has turned most ab engines into nnue “players.” “Clone” was always a pejorative term rather than a diagnostic one and has become even more meaningless with nets. Unless you can say what “clone” actually means, I’d leave the name calling in the past.

Suppose I was from Belgium, and I started my new project by executing the following command in a terminal:

Code: Select all

$ git clone https://github.com/Official-Stockfish/Stockfish
$ cd Stockfish
$ git remote add upstream <my secret repo>
$ git push -u upstream master

Would there be a technical word to describe the origins of this project?

[gaard]

As the author of several of these “clones,” I’m not comfortable with this term. None of them play like each other or like stockfish. Let’s face it, the age of exchangeable networks came with leela and now with nnue has turned most ab engines into nnue “players.” “Clone” was always a pejorative term rather than a diagnostic one and has become even more meaningless with nets. Unless you can say what “clone” actually means, I’d leave the name calling in the past.

Suppose I was from Belgium, and I started my new project by executing the following command in a terminal:

Code: Select all

$ git clone https://github.com/Official-Stockfish/Stockfish
$ cd Stockfish
$ git remote add upstream <my secret repo>
$ git push -u upstream master

Would there be a technical word to describe the origins of this project?

Technically, you are talking about an illusionist-and-stunt-performer.

[MikeB]

I guess people really don't care and that may be the best response.... on many different levels...

[mar]

I guess people really don't care and that may be the best response.... on many different levels...

what do you want then?
I expressed my opinion on several occasions so it's clear (argued with Graham, went too far).

FF2? yes, not happy about it. legal? yes

boycotting CCRL? nonsense

I'm not sure why you of all people are so upset about FF2, considering you made more (legit) SF clones than anyone else.

[MikeB]

I guess people really don't care and that may be the best response.... on many different levels...

what do you want then?
I expressed my opinion on several occasions so it's clear (argued with Graham, went too far).

FF2? yes, not happy about it. legal? yes

boycotting CCRL? nonsense

I'm not sure why you of all people are so upset about FF2, considering you made more (legit) SF clones than anyone else.

who said "boycott"???? I just asked for voices to be heard and we did hear from a few which was good and I appreciate that , but overall ,the response was timid - so I don't think people really care - which is fine.

[mar]

who said "boycott"???? I just asked for voices to be heard and we did hear from a few which was good and I appreciate that , but overall ,the response was timid - so I don't think people really care - which is fine.

ok, sorry, I believe it was Andrew who called for a boycott, not you.

[JVMerlino]

As a "member" of the computer chess community for 25 years, I only have one question. What's Fat Fritz 2?

[MikeB]

As a "member" of the computer chess community for 25 years, I only have one question. What's Fat Fritz 2?

The engine is a fork of Stockfish that you can buy from Chessbase, it comes with the latest Fritz GUI. It also comes with a unique net (NNUE) by Albert Silver and some helpers that is not available anywhere else. The net size is about double the standard SF 20MB size net. There are several threads on this forum and the origin forum ( must be a member to view, and I know you are, but just in case anyone visiting this site s not aware) . In total, we see no more than just a few lines of code changed. If there are more lines of code changed, we are not aware of them. I actually suspect there may be, but I am a trained skeptic and from Missouri, you must show me for me to believe. And if there are more lines of code changed from Stockfish and they have not shared those lines of code, then they clearly violated the SF GPL license.