Rybka 1.0 vs. Strelka

[Graham Banks]

Sorry, Graham, it's a language barrier fault, it seems...

No worries Geno.
Let's hope this whole issue gets settled for good soon.

[GenoM]

Sorry, Graham, it's a language barrier fault, it seems...

must be difficult Geno, partcipating in a forum in a different language...
how many laguages do you speak, besides bulgarian and russian and english?

i for one, believe Graham is an expert in several areas and has keen insights to offer...

These 3 languages are enough for me, Norm. But my english is far from ideal.
I do not deny at all that Graham is a very experienced user. I personally have a great respect to him.
Regards,
Geno

[GenoM]

Let's hope this whole issue gets settled for good soon.

I hope so too.

[trojanfoe]

Rybka was there for free for anyone to examine it.

Some bozos copied Vas! When that happened and Vas complained it became public knowledge to all.

Now let's go back to page one.

http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=23118

The topic came up in another thread about the issue of comparing Strelka to Fruit vs. comparing Rybka 1.0 to Fruit. I am doing some disassembling of Rybka 1.0, so I will post the assembly that is equivalent to the last piece of code I had in Fruit. Just to let you know, this is by no means complete. I have filled in most of the function names and some of the variable names, but there is a lot left to do. This is just the result of a few day's work, more will come later.............

How legal is it to disassemble the exe of software that hasn't been released as open source?

It's legal in the States, and this also applies to Europe:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_en ... g#Legality

To counter your wishes Graham, I hope all the Rybka zealots, who seem to consider this program a religious artifact and it's author as the second coming, have their beliefs collapse around them. What is so wrong with asking these questions? It's like someone asking 'is there a god' and being told they are wrong to question it.

You are hoping these doubters get into real trouble for asking the questions? Why?

Cheers,
Andy

[Graham Banks]

i for one, believe Graham is an expert in several areas and has keen insights to offer...

You flatter me too much Norm.
I'm just a tester and keen enthusiast.
However, I do get told a lot of information by various people that many aren't privy to. That doesn't make me an expert though by any means.

Regards, Graham.

[Graham Banks]

You are hoping these doubters get into real trouble for asking the questions? Why?

Cheers,
Andy

Not at all Andy. I regard most, if not all of them highly.
I hope they don't get into trouble. I hope that the issue gets settled once and for all.
Although Rybka 3 is an exceptional engine and a pleasure to watch play, I wouldn't consider myself a Rybka zealot. I like all stable engines.

Regards, Graham.

[chrisw]

I'm not a programmer and so all this code being produced means little to me.
However, from what I've read, it seems that no matter what is said, there will still be disagreement amongst more knowledgeable people than myself over what constitutes absolute proof of anything untoward.
What I would be interested in is what those like yourself, Bob and Zach are therefore trying to achieve. What exactly is it that you want as the end outcome?

Regards, Graham.

Hyatt, Wegner, Schmidt, Donninger, Cozzie, Theron, Korshunov and other russian programmers are on the same side. Mehrmann and Benitez have had some suspicions too. Who's on the other side, Graham? From these 'more knowledgeable than yourself' people?
Are you expecting God come down and said the ultimate truth?

Well I'm an ex-programmer, but more to the point I ran a business based on games AI, and my view is that Vas has done nothing wrong.

1. The alleged connection with Strelka is completely irrelevent to Fruit

2. That version 1 beta was not commercial and I doubt it any different to the 500 or more, whatever the number, of "amateur" programs that have suddenly been created in the wake of published free source codes.

3. The Fruit programmer who owns the GPL licence says he has no problems with Rybka in any form, beta, 1, 2, 3

4. If there ever was any Fruit code in beta 1, then it is an absolute guarantee that future commercial versions created will have removed every last bit of it.

5. If Vas looked at Crafty, TSCP, Fruit or anything else he did no more and no less than any other current programmer. If he used bits and pieces of other programs to get his version up and running he will have done no different to any other programmer. Or is anybody seriously suggesting all those amateurs started absolutely from scratch? Hahaha.

.

1. The connection is neither alleged nor irrelevent.
2. irrelevent
3. irrelevent
4. irrelevent
5. I'm not sure if you are talking about the programmers in this forum where you choose the be a moderator, or about the programmers in your company.
But if it's the first, then I know you're wrong and I really dislike your accusation. I'm not saying it hasn't happened, but you're suggesting everybody does, which isn't true.

Tony

Any speculative development project (for example developing a chess engine) by a competent developer, will include detailed analysis of the competition. Since some of the competition publishes source, any developer is going to take a good look at that too. All design process starts with analysis. Programmer looks at everything and thinks, "hmmm, I can do better".

Since published source also provides a testbed environment, the idea that it is not general for programmers (inexperienced at start, and in a huge, complex project such as chess engine) won't use such a generally available testbed environment to get up and running beggars belief. It is not illegal in any way to do so, all that matters is that the end result If any) has thrown away all the original published material.

Of course not _everybody_ develops this way. Some may well start from scratch, it used to be (pre 1990's) that everybody had to start from scratch - hence fewer programs then and lots now.

I wrote a quite strong Shogi program once. It took two months. My GUI programmer modified the CSTal user interface which mostly involved dealing with the change in board size, the artist gave him some shogi piece graphics, I gutted the CSTal engine, rewrote the move and genmove stuff, reused search with lots of the fancy stuff removed and wrote an evaluation function based on the Tal evaluation. If thatI'ld been done that within equivalent GPL code? Well the next task would be to take the Shogi specific engine modules, which by definition all work, and wrap them into an entirely new interface. Voila - an entirely squeaky clean product, all one's own work.

Anyway, quite why do you feel the need to describe this development mechanism as an "accusation". It's a sensible and entirely legal way to progress. It saves time, there'll be fewer bugs and the chances that the whole thing doesn't just fall apart through complexity is reduced. If the result is for release or publication then that's fine, as long as there is nothing of the original in place. my 2c.

[kranium]

i for one, believe Graham is an expert in several areas and has keen insights to offer...

You flatter me too much Norm.
I'm just a tester and keen enthusiast.
However, I do get told a lot of information by various people that many aren't privy to. That doesn't make me an expert though by any means.

Regards, Graham.

it might be said that keen enthusiasts are the best kind of 'experts'
i.e. with an unbiased passion for the subject

[Graham Banks]

How legal is it to disassemble the exe of software that hasn't been released as open source?

It's legal in the States, and this also applies to Europe:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_en ... g#Legality

In the United States and many other countries, even if an artifact or process is protected by trade secrets, reverse-engineering the artifact or process is often lawful as long as it is obtained legitimately. Patents, on the other hand, need a public disclosure of an invention, and therefore patented items do not necessarily have to be reverse engineered to be studied. One common motivation of reverse engineers is to determine whether a competitor's product contains patent infringements or copyright infringements.

Reverse engineering software or hardware systems which is done for the purposes of interoperability (for example, to support undocumented file formats or undocumented hardware peripherals), is mostly believed to be legal, though patent owners often contest this and attempt to stifle any reverse engineering of their products for any reason.

"...[W]here disassembly is the only way to gain access to the ideas and functional elements embodied in a copyrighted computer program and where there is a legitimate reason for seeking such access, disassembly is a fair use of the copyrighted work, as a matter of law."

[chrisw]

I'm not a programmer and so all this code being produced means little to me.
However, from what I've read, it seems that no matter what is said, there will still be disagreement amongst more knowledgeable people than myself over what constitutes absolute proof of anything untoward.
What I would be interested in is what those like yourself, Bob and Zach are therefore trying to achieve. What exactly is it that you want as the end outcome?

Regards, Graham.

Hyatt, Wegner, Schmidt, Donninger, Cozzie, Theron, Korshunov and other russian programmers are on the same side. Mehrmann and Benitez have had some suspicions too. Who's on the other side, Graham? From these 'more knowledgeable than yourself' people?
Are you expecting God come down and said the ultimate truth?

Well I'm an ex-programmer, but more to the point I ran a business based on games AI, and my view is that Vas has done nothing wrong.

1. The alleged connection with Strelka is completely irrelevent to Fruit

2. That version 1 beta was not commercial and I doubt it any different to the 500 or more, whatever the number, of "amateur" programs that have suddenly been created in the wake of published free source codes.

3. The Fruit programmer who owns the GPL licence says he has no problems with Rybka in any form, beta, 1, 2, 3

4. If there ever was any Fruit code in beta 1, then it is an absolute guarantee that future commercial versions created will have removed every last bit of it.

5. If Vas looked at Crafty, TSCP, Fruit or anything else he did no more and no less than any other current programmer. If he used bits and pieces of other programs to get his version up and running he will have done no different to any other programmer. Or is anybody seriously suggesting all those amateurs started absolutely from scratch? Hahaha.

All that counts now from his commercial business point of view and that of his publisher is that the R3 version is squeaky clean. Which it is, obviously.

For those people who complain that their source is used by commercials, or that other source is used by commercials (and by used, I mean read, rewritten, learnt from, whatever) the answer is easy. Don't publish your sources over the internet.

I am very shocked to read such general accusations from a moderator of this forum. Is the charter gone ?

Olivier

Chris-
Specifically, in response to your points # 2 and # 5 from above.
2 wrongs doesn't make it right...
500 wrongs doesn't make it right
if there are 500 programs in violation of the GPL, then they should come under scruntiny

Via the described development method there is no reason at all why anyone should be in violation of GPL. The GPL code would be used as test bed to get up and running and then thrown out and replaced.

Why is it "wrong" to develop in such a way? It is perfectly legal, senseful and a fine way to handle the complexity.