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Hi Vas,
First of all I would like to excuse for my public pronouncements, that
Rybka was developed on the basis of Fruit. There were only subjective
guesses and I didn't have right to share unchecked thoughts publicly.
Unfortunatelly sometimes I am able to perform unadequite actions, that
can be approved only by my current heavy psychologic state.
Beleive me I am sincere fan of your talants. For future I promise not
to do any steps that can be bring any damage to you.
Now the answers on your questions:
1) I started Rybka code research at January, 2007. I did this time to
time till April. I can't calculate exactly how much time I spent.
I consider myself as amateur in dissassembly, so my experience can't be
considered as representative. I guess that Dark Avenger from Brasil -
most serious professional in this domain. I think he will not have
problems FULLY to reverse Rybka code and to understand the algorithms.
But this is only about Rybka 1.0.beta. I am sure that similar work
concerning latest Rybka versions is practically impossible. They
contains much more code, so to understand the algorithms it will take
a few years of heavy work. I am amazed how you was able to write so
much in a short period. ?!!!
2) I always worked alone. There was no team. Even there were no people
to discuss my ideas with somebody.
3) I researched the code of another chess programs. But it was long
time ago (7 years or so). These were old by today measuring versions
of Hiarcs and Fritz. Fritz is most sophisticated. I saw that it was
written on assembly language, and some tricks were used that were
hardly to transform to high-level language (sometimes impossibly).
4) I am not going to clone Rybka or any other chess program in future.
It is not interesting to me. I have a lot of my own ideas that I would
like to implement. The trial to write the program on Rybka basis was
only an experiment and may be a bad joke. I think it was a silly action.
5) I am going to develop my own original ideas in future. But I
am not going to release any commercial product. I am not going to
compete with you or other chess programmers. It is just interesting to
me to solve difficult tasks and to have pleasure from this exploration
process.
6) I didn't give to anybody source code of latest Strelka version. But
this code doesn't differ much from the first version. Changes in
algorithm are minimal. So I can say that source code of first Strelka
have Sergey Markov, Dan Corbit and Bryan Hoffmann. I would like to ask
your advice can I have moral right (first of all before you) to present
Strelka source code to a few more programmers? If you say that it is
wrong, I will follow your advice. No need to describe reasons for this.
Just agree or no.
Best regards, Jury
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Hi Yury,
thanks very much for your interesting comments.
In my view, it would be good if you continued working and released an
engine with all components in your own hand. Studying Rybka and using what
you have learned is perfectly normal. Selling your engine is also normal -
you can find a distributor to handle all details and most users will use
it for free anyway
If you prefer to work only on selected aspects, I can consider to give you
public permission to use selected Rybka 1.0 components such as some of my
eval tables. Please ask me and I will think about it.
I would discourage any of the following:
1) Working in secret with no public releases.
2) Releasing partly-cloned engine without original author permission.
3) Releasing current source code.
Of course, these issues are all your business. I can only give my personal
opinion.
Anyway, good luck. If there are any things in Rybka which you found
interesting, please don't hesitate to ask me about them.
Best regards,
Vas
