How many "official" Toga projects there is now?

[Graham Banks]

It seems there is some sort of entitlement system here that people need praise or credit. If this is the case then people should not be given praise or credit for crating a GPL engine they should be given praise and credit for contributing to the GPL itself. The amount of credit would be proportionate to the amount of contribution. This said the GPL may not be compatible with competitive chess tournaments because the GPL is all one project. Two GPL engines with 2 or more contributors may have no code in common but they do have equal rights to the code in the engines as they are both part of the GPL project. If the engine has only 1 GPL contributor I see no problem pulling back the GPL status for the given event. Beyond that things get far too confusing and I am happy that I am not the one who makes the rules in tournaments.

I see no problems with GPL. But progress, such research and tornaments, Ryan, have nothing to do with one another. You can do your research as much as you want, but you have nothing to do with general tournaments where original programmers show their progs. You dont have your own program but a (possibly and hopefully legal) tunes and experiences new version of a known program of someone else. The same applies to Toga or Strelka. You have just a forbidden strength so to speak. That problem should have been decided long before but until now such versions never have been so strong. Simple as that. Now you must decide for yourself. Are you feeling humuliated, then you have a personal edge in the practice other than sober almost scientific research. But if you are interested in progress then cant feel insulted by my arguments.

Just because somebody invented the wheel doesn't mean that others shouldn't use it.

I'd imagine that most top engines "borrow" ideas from each other that have probably been discovered by way of disassembling the exes of others and looking at the code. And that is far more secretive and naughty than those who at least do things "legitimately" and openly.

As for who and what are allowed in various tournaments, that's purely the prerogative of the organisers and sponsors.

I find it a real scandal that people like Ryan and Thomas (amongst others) should be vilified for contributing to the enjoyment of our hobby in a perfectly legitimate way.

It's almost as if we have a subgroup of Luddites in the computer chess community.

[Rolf]

Just because somebody invented the wheel doesn't mean that others shouldn't use it.

I'd imagine that most top engines "borrow" ideas from each other that have probably been discovered by way of disassembling the exes of others and looking at the code. And that is far more secretive and naughty than those who at least do things "legitimately" and openly.

As for who and what are allowed in various tournaments, that's purely the prerogative of the organisers and sponsors.

I find it a real scandal that people like Ryan and Thomas (amongst others) should be vilified for contributing to the enjoyment of our hobby.

You know that I think you are a class act as mod but often you dont read properly, Graham. I agree with all you wrote but that was not related to what I said. I was arguing against non-original programs. If the Nightmare author would come now and wanted to play in CCT he had all the rights but not Ryan who didnt write Fruit. No way. Thomas neither.

If this is a scandal for you then think of the scandal for authentic programmers.

[Graham Banks]

I was arguing against non-original programs. If the Nightmare author would come now and wanted to play in CCT he had all the rights but not Ryan who didnt write Fruit. No way. Thomas neither.

If this is a scandal for you then think of the scandal for authentic programmers.

Tournament organisers make their own rules and that is their prerogative.

As far as I understand it, Fabien gave over all future development of Fruit to Ryan.
What Thomas and others have done with the open-sourced Fruit 2.1 is also perfectly okay under the GPL.

However, I want you to realise that I respect the authors of all completely original engines very highly.
By that I mean all those who came up with all their own ideas without learning from others or using the ideas of others.
How many are there? Get my point?

Having said that, I appreciate the efforts of all engine authors who have done things legitimately. Without their efforts we wouldn't have a hobby to enjoy.

Yes - I know that some are annoyed, but be annoyed about Strelka and other illegitimate clones instead of those that are okay like Fruit, Toga and Sloppy.

Regards, Graham.

[Rolf]

I was arguing against non-original programs. If the Nightmare author would come now and wanted to play in CCT he had all the rights but not Ryan who didnt write Fruit. No way. Thomas neither.

If this is a scandal for you then think of the scandal for authentic programmers.

Tournament organisers make their own rules and that is their prerogative.

As far as I understand it, Fabien gave over all future development of Fruit to Ryan.
What Thomas and others have done with the open-sourced Fruit 2.1 is also perfectly okay under the GPL.

However, I want you to realise that I respect the authors of all completely original engines very highly.
By that I mean all those who came up with all their own ideas without learning from others or using the ideas of others.
How many are there? Get my point?

Having said that, I appreciate the efforts of all engine authors who have done things legitimately. Without their efforts we wouldn't have a hobby to enjoy.

Yes - I know that some are annoyed, but be annoyed about Strelka and other illegitimate clones instead of those that are okay like Fruit, Toga and Sloppy.

Regards, Graham.

I respect your standpoint but I wont agree with you. Look, if Vas would make a gift to me with another Rybka older version I would then be the legitimate owner and "programmer" of the program and could participate in everything incl China? I would feel like a fool. No way. A gift or a donation cant create authenticity.

[Ryan Benitez]

I was arguing against non-original programs. If the Nightmare author would come now and wanted to play in CCT he had all the rights but not Ryan who didnt write Fruit. No way. Thomas neither.

If this is a scandal for you then think of the scandal for authentic programmers.

Tournament organisers make their own rules and that is their prerogative.

As far as I understand it, Fabien gave over all future development of Fruit to Ryan.
What Thomas and others have done with the open-sourced Fruit 2.1 is also perfectly okay under the GPL.

However, I want you to realise that I respect the authors of all completely original engines very highly.
By that I mean all those who came up with all their own ideas without learning from others or using the ideas of others.
How many are there? Get my point?

Having said that, I appreciate the efforts of all engine authors who have done things legitimately. Without their efforts we wouldn't have a hobby to enjoy.

Yes - I know that some are annoyed, but be annoyed about Strelka and other illegitimate clones instead of those that are okay like Fruit, Toga and Sloppy.

Regards, Graham.

I respect your standpoint but I wont agree with you. Look, if Vas would make a gift to me with another Rybka older version I would then be the legitimate owner and "programmer" of the program and could participate in everything incl China? I would feel like a fool. No way. A gift or a donation cant create authenticity.

Fabien still owns the rights to Fruit, I just happen to be the only active programmer on the team right now. I have never tired to name myself the owner of Fruit. I have never head an argument before now that Fruit should not be allowed to play in events because I am a part of the project. This seems like a very odd argument to me.

[Graham Banks]

Look, if Vas would make a gift to me with another Rybka older version I would then be the legitimate owner and "programmer" of the program and could participate in everything incl China? I would feel like a fool. No way. A gift or a donation cant create authenticity.

You'd be the owner, but not the programmer. Unless of course Vas gave you the exclusive right to develop the engine further.
In that case, you would no doubt feel extremely proud of anything you were able to do to markedly improve that engine.
Many others would also appreciate your efforts as they have with Ryan and his betterment of Fruit.

Regards, Graham.

[Rolf]

Look, if Vas would make a gift to me with another Rybka older version I would then be the legitimate owner and "programmer" of the program and could participate in everything incl China? I would feel like a fool. No way. A gift or a donation cant create authenticity.

You'd be the owner, but not the programmer. Unless of course Vas gave you the exclusive right to develop the engine further.
In that case, you would no doubt feel extremely proud of anything you were able to do to markedly improve that engine.
Many others would also appreciate your efforts as they have with Ryan and his betterment of Fruit.

Regards, Graham.

Ok, in my case that would be nonsense as you know. But what with Thomas, where did he get his call from to call it Toga what Ryan should have been authorised to develop? Dont you realise that alone this donation from Fabien is looking odd to the 300 other active programmers? Not odd for Ryan of course. - We must continue to create ethical basics in computerchess IMO.

[Guetti]

However, I want you to realise that I respect the authors of all completely original engines very highly.
By that I mean all those who came up with all their own ideas without learning from others or using the ideas of others.
How many are there? Get my point?

Regards, Graham.

First, let me quote you, however, my response is not specially directed to you, but was triggered by the things that go on in the last few days on this forum.
What I miss is the respect of the hard handiwork done by all the programmers that wrote their own engine, whether they implemented ideas from other programs, from publications or that they invented themselves. Also Fabien implemented lots of stuff in Fruit that was published or already used in other programs. This is not the point.

The effort to write a programm can not be measured by Elo alone. Both, an original engine of 2800 Elo or one of 2400 Elo take a lot of tedious work to write. As an example, let's look at Fruit 2.1. It contains 15320 lines of code, with 50 lines per page this equal a book of 300+ pages. Now writting a book of this size is a lot of work, but to write code that also compiles and functions is even harder.
Of course, a lot of this 15320 lines of code have absolutely nothing to do with playing strength. On the other side, one can change 50 lines of code and maybe make the engine 150 Elo stronger. This is also very difficult to do, and needs a lot of time testing. But still it is not the only thing. A lot of people only consider the strength and forget about the rest.
Thus, my respect goes to everybody who wrote their own engine, whatever Elo it may have.

[Graham Banks]

The effort to write a programm can not be measured by Elo alone. Both, an original engine of 2800 Elo or one of 2400 Elo take a lot of tedious work to write. As an example, let's look at Fruit 2.1. It contains 15320 lines of code, with 50 lines per page this equal a book of 300+ pages. Now writting a book of this size is a lot of work, but to write code that also compiles and functions is even harder.
Of course, a lot of this 15320 lines of code have absolutely nothing to do with playing strength. On the other side, one can change 50 lines of code and maybe make the engine 150 Elo stronger. This is also very difficult to do, and needs a lot of time testing. But still it is not the only thing. A lot of people only consider the strength and forget about the rest.
Thus, my respect goes to everybody who wrote their own engine, whatever Elo it may have.

I agree completely. The engine authors of legitimate engines have my utmost respect and appreciation, no matter the strength.

Regards, Graham.

[Graham Banks]

But what with Thomas, where did he get his call from to call it Toga what Ryan should have been authorised to develop? Dont you realise that alone this donation from Fabien is looking odd to the 300 other active programmers? Not odd for Ryan of course. - We must continue to create ethical basics in computerchess IMO.

My understanding of it is this (and I'm sure somebody will correct me if I'm wrong).
Thomas has further built upon the open sourced Fruit 2.1 engine whereas Ryan has further built upon the later Fruit 2.2.1 engine which is not open source.
The difference I guess is that Thomas can release his project under the name Toga as allowed by the GPL as long as he gives the due credits to Fabien.
Subsequent versions of Fruit 2.2.1 must remain under the Fruit name even though Ryan is producing them.

Regards, Graham.