Quite true a from a user perspective, and I’m with you on that point. But for the developers , and I’m not talking about me , but the hard core Stockfish developers and especially the maintainers and the key contributors , I can feel what they are feeling. For you and I, we just move on and we have the source that we can modify. And we’re better actually off. I have purchased all of the engines numerous times , not only from Robert , but Stefan , Larry and Mark , Richard Lang, Mark Uniacke and the list goes on and on and I never had buyers remorse for any engine. And I have no remorse for buying Houdini either.Dann Corbit wrote: ↑Sun Apr 12, 2020 11:24 pm I bought every version of Houdini ever sold. I am feeling no sting from it.
The exchange of information wrought by an engine being open source is intended, and indeed almost every strong engine borrows concepts from other strong engines.
Of course, we should do this without breaking the law (goes without saying).
I never have buyer's remorse.
For instance, I spend a lot of money on hardware for chess and other things.
If I sat and waited, I could have spend exponentially less money and got the same power.
Or I could have spent the same money and got exponentially more power.
But in the meantime, I had a wonderful machine that did everything I asked of it and it made me happy, not sad.
Similarly with Houdini. I bought Houdini because it is extraordinarily good a solving tough chess problems that other computer chess programs may have difficulty with. During the time that I had it, I used it to analyze literally millions of chess positions.
Now I see that Mr. Houdart may have made illegitimate use of code that did not belong to him.
But that changes nothing about the benefit to me from using his program in the past.
Better still, because the code is based on Stockfish, I will be able to splice in some of my code to write the analysis directly to disk in a format that is easy to load into my database systems. Hey, double bonus.
Getting your bun in a knot never accomplishes anything. Sure, we all do it from time to time, but what good came of it?
An Old Engine
Moderators: hgm, Rebel, chrisw
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Re: An Old Engine
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Re: An Old Engine
I agree completely that the SF team is the injured party.
Taking ideas is not a vice, it is a virtue. We have another word for this. It is called learning.
But sharing ideas is an even greater virtue. We have another word for this. It is called teaching.
But sharing ideas is an even greater virtue. We have another word for this. It is called teaching.
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Re: An Old Engine
And probably also Mbed, commercial manufacturer of Polar SSL which is also included under GPL.Dann Corbit wrote: ↑Sun Apr 12, 2020 11:53 pmI agree completely that the SF team is the injured party.
Rasmus Althoff
https://www.ct800.net
https://www.ct800.net
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Re: An Old Engine
Well, that’s not me - it sounds more like you actually. I’m just exercising my intellectual property rights that I believe I now have. Furthermore the issue is not between you and me at all. So I’m not really sure how you got your panties in a twist over this.Modern Times wrote: ↑Sun Apr 12, 2020 10:51 pm "Judge, jury and executioner" is simply an expression - basically meaning someone who judges and punishes unilaterally. It seems to fit in your case.
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Re: An Old Engine
Seems a very un-Christian thing to do at Easter, but then not all of us adhere to Christian beliefs.MikeB wrote: ↑Mon Apr 13, 2020 1:28 amWell, that’s not me - it sounds more like you actually. I’m just exercising my intellectual property rights that I believe I now have. Furthermore the issue is not between you and me at all. So I’m not really sure how you got your panties in a twist over this.Modern Times wrote: ↑Sun Apr 12, 2020 10:51 pm "Judge, jury and executioner" is simply an expression - basically meaning someone who judges and punishes unilaterally. It seems to fit in your case.
gbanksnz at gmail.com
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Re: An Old Engine
John 8:7 - great verse!Graham Banks wrote: ↑Mon Apr 13, 2020 1:34 amSeems a very un-Christian thing to do at Easter, but then not all of us adhere to Christian beliefs.MikeB wrote: ↑Mon Apr 13, 2020 1:28 amWell, that’s not me - it sounds more like you actually. I’m just exercising my intellectual property rights that I believe I now have. Furthermore the issue is not between you and me at all. So I’m not really sure how you got your panties in a twist over this.Modern Times wrote: ↑Sun Apr 12, 2020 10:51 pm "Judge, jury and executioner" is simply an expression - basically meaning someone who judges and punishes unilaterally. It seems to fit in your case.
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Re: An Old Engine
Nice excuse.MikeB wrote: ↑Mon Apr 13, 2020 1:52 amJohn 8:7 - great verse!Graham Banks wrote: ↑Mon Apr 13, 2020 1:34 amSeems a very un-Christian thing to do at Easter, but then not all of us adhere to Christian beliefs.MikeB wrote: ↑Mon Apr 13, 2020 1:28 amWell, that’s not me - it sounds more like you actually. I’m just exercising my intellectual property rights that I believe I now have. Furthermore the issue is not between you and me at all. So I’m not really sure how you got your panties in a twist over this.Modern Times wrote: ↑Sun Apr 12, 2020 10:51 pm "Judge, jury and executioner" is simply an expression - basically meaning someone who judges and punishes unilaterally. It seems to fit in your case.
gbanksnz at gmail.com
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Re: An Old Engine
I don't really want to get into this discussion, but I have a feeling if you would ask someone like Marco Costalba, that he would expect it to happen with Stockfish code because for instance the GPL does not give much protection. Fruit being a case in point. And I think he does not care super much, even if he was still very active, nor would the other developers, well most of them I think. But that is just a guess of mine. Stockfish gets its advantage from the continuing development and testing and lone developers have to build in all sorts of copy protection, have to deal with buying customers, have limited testing hardware, very limited development time as single developers, doing everything on their own etc. Is it not much more Mark Lefler and Larry Kaufman, and maybe a few others who are still making commercial chessprograms, with their own ideas, who are the injured party here? That was my first reaction. What others do wth the Stockfish code, well it will be hard to do better than Stockfish even if they copy it a 100% I would not care about infringement of the GPL, of course it is wrong but it is very hard to hide and using the ideas, rewriting algorithms is not protected anyway. This is more a sportsmanship question for what I care.Dann Corbit wrote: ↑Sun Apr 12, 2020 11:53 pm I agree completely that the SF team is the injured party.
Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first
place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you
are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.
-- Brian W. Kernighan
place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you
are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.
-- Brian W. Kernighan
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Re: An Old Engine
Careful, it is a long fall from up there....Nice excuse.