FIDE Ethics Commission ruling on ICGA/Rybka complaint

[bob]

I don't think anyone cares about the contributor list.

Given how much of SF's elo by now is due to "non-primary" contributors, this is really a strong thing to say.

No, it is a FACTUAL thing to say. Contributors come and go. The primary authors are in for the long haul.

[Michel]

I don't think anyone cares about the contributor list.

Given how much of SF's elo by now is due to "non-primary" contributors, this is really a strong thing to say.

No, it is a FACTUAL thing to say. Contributors come and go. The primary authors are in for the long haul.

Can you give me a formal definition of a "primary author". Just so that we talk about the same thing.

[bob]

I don't think anyone cares about the contributor list.

Given how much of SF's elo by now is due to "non-primary" contributors, this is really a strong thing to say.

Maybe they should also be able to veto participation in an author-based competition. Or at least those that contributed "significantly".

The ICGA can of course make an exception for SF and accept it as a "non-author-based entry". That might upset some of the participants, but if it's for the good of the ICGA and/or its leadership, they might not care too much. (Sorry for that, but I just read the whole GUNDA story.)

The actual Gunda story was pretty fractured at times. Here is what actually happened.

The 1996 event was in Jakarta, being hosted by the university there. The CS chair (perhaps, I am not certain on this) asked David if they could enter a modified Crafty as a participant. David asked me and I replied "Sure. I was going to participate, but if they are interested, that works for me." And I left it at that. But each time the new participant list was published, no "Gunda-1" entry. I sent David/Tony an email and they replied "we have not received an entry from them, do you want to enter yourself?" And I replied yes. I filled out the application, GM Roman Dzhindi had a friend that volunteered to operate AND buy us a pentium-pro box to use. He also bought the airline ticket and set up his room reservation at his own cost. Then at the last minute along came Gunda-1. Now there was a quandary, in that our guy had already bought a non-refundable airline ticket, booked a room, had sent the pentium pro to me to install linux, + crafty, plus 3-4-5 piece endgame tables, and then I had FedEx'ed it on to Jakarta. David promptly contacted me for advice. He did not want to refuse them entry since they were hosting the event, he did not want to exclude the real Crafty after the expenses we had spent, so I suggested they discuss it at the player's meeting, which they did. No one raised an objection after hearing the explanation, and the only stipulation the players wanted was to request that Gunda-1 and Crafty NOT be paired against each other unless it was absolutely unavoidable, for obvious reasons.

It was a silly mistake, but not one anyone would have been very likely to predict, so we made the best of it. Funny thing was the two programs tied for places 4-5, which was not expected. Crafty could certainly have won that event with a little luck, but you would not normally expect both to finish at the same position.

This was also the event where the newly seen "Ruy Lopez - crafty variation" first showed up. I can tell more about that if anyone is interested.

[bob]

I don't think anyone cares about the contributor list.

Given how much of SF's elo by now is due to "non-primary" contributors, this is really a strong thing to say.

No, it is a FACTUAL thing to say. Contributors come and go. The primary authors are in for the long haul.

Can you give me a formal definition of a "primary author". Just so that we talk about the same thing.

Sure. The originators of the program. You can figure this out for most any program. Slate/Atkin for chess 3.x/4.x... Ken for the various flavors of Belle. Hsu/Campbell for Deep Thought. Hyatt/Gower/Nelson for Cray Blitz. Me for crafty. Fabien for Fruit. (and if anyone's name is misspelled, I simply get tired of matching wits with Apple and their auto-correction stuff.)

Would you question who the primary SF authors are? Three names (and only three names) come to my mind instantly.

[Eelco de Groot]

Why do you think this a 'surprising interpretation' of ICGA rules?

The interpretation that anyone who contributed something to SF could enter it without the permission of at the very least the 3 main authors. That would be quite ridiculous. Interpreting the GPL as giving the permission that Rule 2 requires is an insult to those authors.

Of course the authors cannot prevent the ICGA from letting SF enter. The GPL allows it. But Rule 2 requires permission (it has always been said).

Pretending to the outside world that Marco, Joona and Tord agreed to participation in an ICGA tournament would in fact appear to be an illegal form of misrepresentation to me and possibly criminal. So the ICGA would have to act very carefully, making clear that SF was being entered behind the backs of Marco, Joona and Tord. And they'd have something to explain to the actual competitors.

I think at least one of the 3, main, authors would have to be directly involved with an entry.

Maybe Tord would enter Glaurung but not Stockfish as he is not the sole author anymore. Or he could enter with his imaginary 'Dam' program against Fabien, or Marco would reprogram Stockfish to play draughts or operate Skipper, just for the fun of it. Or HIARCS would one day day return to Leiden. I would not have bet on the odds but anything is possible I suppose

[hgm]

Maybe they should also be able to veto participation in an author-based competition. Or at least those that contributed "significantly".

It is really funny how some people's main worry seems to be to prevent engines participating in a tournament, rather than creating an environment where this is encouraged.

I wouldn't expect this to be the ICGA's main objective, though.

[Michel]

Sure. The originators of the program. You can figure this out for most any program. Slate/Atkin for chess 3.x/4.x... Ken for the various flavors of Belle. Hsu/Campbell for Deep Thought. Hyatt/Gower/Nelson for Cray Blitz. Me for crafty. Fabien for Fruit. (and if anyone's name is misspelled, I simply get tired of matching wits with Apple and their auto-correction stuff.)

Well with this definition SF has one primary author and that is Tord....

Would you question who the primary SF authors are? Three names (and only three names) come to my mind instantly.

What "comes to mind instantly" is not a valid definition since it differs from person to person. I do not know what would come to mind instantly to the ICGA people having to deal with a potential SF entry

Joking aside, I for one would add Gary Linscott as a major author for his creation of fishtest which has allowed SF to gain hundreds of elo in a short period of time.

[syzygy]

I don't think anyone cares about the contributor list.

Given how much of SF's elo by now is due to "non-primary" contributors, this is really a strong thing to say.

No, it is a FACTUAL thing to say. Contributors come and go. The primary authors are in for the long haul.

In the case of SF, for all intents and purposes Tord seems to have left. And there are others who seem to be in for the long haul.

[syzygy]

The 1996 event was in Jakarta, being hosted by the university there. The CS chair (perhaps, I am not certain on this) asked David if they could enter a modified Crafty as a participant. David asked me and I replied "Sure. I was going to participate, but if they are interested, that works for me." (...)

Ah! That you were asked is something not clearly mentioned in the wiki:
https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Gunda-1

Still quite unfortunate how things went, but mostly a case of miscommunication it seems. The way it was handled (in particular asking the other participants) seems very reasonable.

So I retract any ICGA criticism hidden in my post

Thanks for clearing this up (probably not for the first time!).

[syzygy]

Maybe they should also be able to veto participation in an author-based competition. Or at least those that contributed "significantly".

It is really funny how some people's main worry seems to be to prevent engines participating in a tournament, rather than creating an environment where this is encouraged.

I wouldn't expect this to be the ICGA's main objective, though.

The principle of an "author-based" tournament is not so difficult to grasp, me thinks. There are many other tournaments that are not author-based. And obviously the ICGA could run one if it wanted.