An Old Engine

[Graham Banks]

Once a member gains access to the message board, he may read all messages and post new or response messages with the proviso that these new or response messages:

1. Are, within reason, on the topic of computer chess
2. Are not abusive in nature
3. Do not contain personal and/or libelous attacks on others
4. Are not flagrant commercial exhortations
5. Are not of questionable legal status.

[MikeB]

Once a member gains access to the message board, he may read all messages and post new or response messages with the proviso that these new or response messages:

1. Are, within reason, on the topic of computer chess
2. Are not abusive in nature
3. Do not contain personal and/or libelous attacks on others
4. Are not flagrant commercial exhortations
5. Are not of questionable legal status.

Graham,

Please take that up with moderators - that is not for me to decide. I obviously disagree and we can agree to disagree on this issue. I would respect any decision that they would make without protest. It is my strong opinion that history will show that you are on the wrong side of the fence on this issue. Take care.

Thank you.

[Graham Banks]

Once a member gains access to the message board, he may read all messages and post new or response messages with the proviso that these new or response messages:

1. Are, within reason, on the topic of computer chess
2. Are not abusive in nature
3. Do not contain personal and/or libelous attacks on others
4. Are not flagrant commercial exhortations
5. Are not of questionable legal status.

Graham,

Please take that up with moderators - that is not for me to decide. I obviously disagree and we can agree to disagree on this issue. I would respect any decision that they would make without protest. It is my strong opinion that history will show that you are on the wrong side of the fence on this issue. Take care.

Thank you.

Hi Mike,

I have not taken any side of the fence over Houdini (learned my lesson with Rybka). I just don't agree with what you have done.

I have reported your original post, not because I have anything personal against you, but because I believe that it is of questionable legal status.
What the moderators decide will show whether the charter actually means anything.

Please take care in these difficult times.
Graham.

[MikeB]

Once a member gains access to the message board, he may read all messages and post new or response messages with the proviso that these new or response messages:

1. Are, within reason, on the topic of computer chess
2. Are not abusive in nature
3. Do not contain personal and/or libelous attacks on others
4. Are not flagrant commercial exhortations
5. Are not of questionable legal status.

Graham,

Please take that up with moderators - that is not for me to decide. I obviously disagree and we can agree to disagree on this issue. I would respect any decision that they would make without protest. It is my strong opinion that history will show that you are on the wrong side of the fence on this issue. Take care.

Thank you.

Hi Mike,

I have not taken any side of the fence over Houdini (learned my lesson with Rybka). I just don't agree with what you have done.

I have reported your original post, not because I have anything personal against you, but because I believe that it is of questionable legal status.
What the moderators decide will show whether the charter actually means anything.

Please take care in these difficult times.
Graham.

That's fine Graham and I know and respect the fact that you and ModernTimes are close buds. But ModernTimes would have been better off approaching the moderators like you have done. There was no need to attack me for what I did just because he ( and you) believed I had done something wrong. We do have a process - take it to the moderators and if they decide you are right , they will handle it.

Yes, take care and be well,
Michael

[Graham Banks]

Once a member gains access to the message board, he may read all messages and post new or response messages with the proviso that these new or response messages:

1. Are, within reason, on the topic of computer chess
2. Are not abusive in nature
3. Do not contain personal and/or libelous attacks on others
4. Are not flagrant commercial exhortations
5. Are not of questionable legal status.

Graham,

Please take that up with moderators - that is not for me to decide. I obviously disagree and we can agree to disagree on this issue. I would respect any decision that they would make without protest. It is my strong opinion that history will show that you are on the wrong side of the fence on this issue. Take care.

Thank you.

Hi Mike,

I have not taken any side of the fence over Houdini (learned my lesson with Rybka). I just don't agree with what you have done.

I have reported your original post, not because I have anything personal against you, but because I believe that it is of questionable legal status.
What the moderators decide will show whether the charter actually means anything.

Please take care in these difficult times.
Graham.

That's fine Graham and I know and respect the fact that you and ModernTimes are close buds. But ModernTimes would have been better off approaching the moderators like you have done. There was no need to attack me for what I did just because he ( and you) believed I had done something wrong. We do have a process - take it to the moderators and if they decide you are right , they will handle it.

Yes, take care and be well,
Michael

To be honest, although I feel that the moderators have done a superb job in the main, the fact that HG has taken a very anti-Houdini stance, coupled with the fact that posters who don't have the guts to use their real names are being allowed to post, doesn't give me a lot of faith in this outcome.

[hgm]

Note that we have three moderators, and at least one other has been posting here very recently, so we know that they are not all down with covid-19. Any of those could decide to delete a reported posting. I can only act according to my own judgement, and in my judgement, there is not anything questionable: this is a very clear-cut case.

It is a bit vague what "questionable legal status" actually means. I definitely do not take it to mean that one or two members questioning the legal staus should be enough reason for deleting a posting; if that was the case we might as well make the 'delete' button on all postings operational for everyone, and would not need moderators. As far as my knowledge of the law goes, MikeB's reasoning is spot on. The material he published comes with a GPL license that allows him to do so. How the material was obtained cannot alter that.

So far this has not been contested by any party that has a stake in the matter. No court case about it is pending or announced.

In addition there is the matter when reference to an obviously illegal act will start to make a posting itself of questionable legal status. Confessing to a crime is not illegal, even when the crime certainly is. If someone posts illegal material directly on our server, that is one thing. If he posts a link to such material on his own website, it is already another. If someone just mentions it is out there, and anyone can find it within 10 seconds using Google, it is still another matter. Just because many people, including myself, now stongly suspect (euphemism!) that Houdini is illegally copied software, should I remove all postings about tournaments in which it played from TalkChess? And all mention of companies like ChessBase, who offer this pirated software on its website?

A moderator is not a general law enforcer. IMO the purpose of rule #5 is to protect our host from litigation, and make all members aware that it will not be allowed to post things here that could expose our host to lawsuits. And the postings in this thread in my judgement offer zero chance that we could be held liable for anything.

[Graham Banks]

Strange then that the Chess2U and Outskirts computer chess forums have taken the opposite view and disallowed posting of this.

Talkchess is supposed to be the leader in English speaking computer chess forums and leading by example.
This is completely shameful. The whole thing is obviously highly questionable legally.

Put your own thoughts on Houdini aside and enforce the charter.

[Graham Banks]

IMO the prurpose of rule #5 is to protect our host from litigation, and make all members aware that it will not be allowed to post things here that could expose our host to lawsuits. And the postings in this thread in my judgement offer zero chance that we could be held liable for anything.

Our host sells Houdini Aquarium.

[MikeB]

IMO the prurpose of rule #5 is to protect our host from litigation, and make all members aware that it will not be allowed to post things here that could expose our host to lawsuits. And the postings in this thread in my judgement offer zero chance that we could be held liable for anything.

Our host sells Houdini Aquarium.

Graham,

Robert put in special security code for Chessbase, Aquarium and the ChessKing GUIs. I can confirm that the Houditit executable I created does not work in Chessbase. Can you check to see if it works in Aquarium? I suspect it does not. If true , this a win for Chessbase and Aquarium as they will still be able to sell their versions of Houdini that is the only one that works with their GUI, and now, if any customer requests the code the now legally licensed, they can simply refer to one of the software repository, just as Chessbase does today with respect to Fat Fritz. I can also add that there one file is missing from all the sources, it is 'licentie.cpp'. I believe that this is not by accident. Has the thought ever entered your mind that this was a "deliberate' leak by Robert. Perhaps he realized the error of his ways ,and yet at the same time, he wished to keep his revenue stream intact with both Chessbase and Aquarium. That would be very smart of him.

So perhaps you should not be so quick to rush to judgement when none of us understand how this so called "software leak' really happened. If you look at the high tech security software that Robert intertwined with his Houdini program , I find it highly unlikely that his server would have been so easily cracked based on a guess of a simple logon and password. ( Just look at how security conscious he is - it's all there in the source!) Being trained as an auditor, I can tell you that there as aspects of this incident which simply do not add up. I believe we do not know the whole truth behind this - and if we do not the whole truth, then no one can make the statements you are making. But what is clear to me, in my opinion, is that he copy and pasted some Stockfish code into his program and translated the words into Dutch- there is no question about that I believe . You need to look of the series of events with a more critical eye before passing judgment on others. Sometimes what may be appear as obvious, is not so obvious at all.

Be safe and take care,
Michael

Legal Disclaimer - all of the above is my opinion based on my review and others. I have no firsthand knowledge of the events that occured which allowed the Houdini source to become public and some of my comments above are conjecture and/or speculation - as are most everyone else's comments here on Talkchess.com.

[jhellis3]

Better contact Microsoft/Github while you are at it....

The "security" reminds me of Helios & artificial aiming. Each copy of the cheat software is registered to an individuals computer. The guy selling the aimbot didn't wan't to get *cheated* out of his money...