The "well meaning" witch hunters have caused much

[Marek Soszynski]

... I would even allow them in official tournaments if they would come up with a real name. (E.g. if Norman or Mr. Houdart would like to take part they would need the permission of the Ippolit authors according to ICGA rules)

These rules http://ticc.uvt.nl/icga/RULES%20FOR%20T ... 20WCCC.pdf state: "Programming teams whose code is derived from or including game-playing code written by others must name all other authors, or the source of such code, in the details of their submission form."

1) The particular rule itself makes a distinction between naming the authors and naming the source. Apparently the rule does not require personal/proper names in all cases.

2) Of course if an engine is neither derivative in its code nor including game-playing code written by others, the rule as quoted won't apply to it. The rule is not against an engine that is derivative only in its ideas.

[Matthias Gemuh]

Hi Matthias,

Normally, those who blindly classified Ippolit as a reverse-engineered Rybka would now be expected to simply apologize for the mess they have caused. However, if you know them well enough, expect no apologies. BB's unbelievably detailed report is proof only to those who have been genuinely seeking to know the truth.

well, first of all, like with all documents, one have to be careful, I mean there is nearly no code comparison or whatever so like with all other statements about the topic we have to trust in the author.

But of course, how likely is it that someone would create such a 33 page report just for fun ? Not very likely. To compare this all with just objdump, chapeau !
Therefor I tend to agree that it's well possible that they re-engineered parts of Rybka, but it looks like most of the code is original, using ideas of Rybka, ideas of other engines and ideas of it's own. This would make Ippolit and all it's follow-ups absolutely legal and even morally safe. For a final conclusion I would like to wait whether Vas can come up with something different, but for now I want to say sorry to the unknown authors. You might say this is just a apologize light - and you are right, but understand me that I want to wait for a statement of Vas, after that I might make a clearer statement. But I wont wait forever, let's say about a month, after that I would even allow them in official tournaments if they would come up with a real name. (E.g. if Norman or Mr. Houdart would like to take part they would need the permission of the Ippolit authors according to ICGA rules)

Greets, Thomas

Hi Thomas,

you definitely understand the BB report much more than many people, who are discussing this issue, and I respect your judgement about it.

I hope the Houdinis and Fires should enter rating lists, but stay out of events like ICGA, WCCC, etc. Computer chess has quite a bit to lose if super strong engines that are 95% freeware source code and 5% own sweat pop up at such events.

My interest in the whole Ippolit discussion is just to know the true legal status of Ippolit. For me, Ippolit derivatives will never be valued as highly as completely original work. However, I greatly appreciate the efforts of those working on such derivatives, if they end up with stronger, legal, stable, free, and freely available engines.

BTW, Vas will reply in 2 years time, maybe to a Fruit/Rybka report also that BB says he (BB) is working on.

Matthias.

[Gian-Carlo Pascutto]

The authors conclusion:

Depends on what you mean by "reverse-engineered"... I would find it wholly plausible that IPPOLIT is a "reverse-engineered Rybka with many changes", and indeed I would assert that the IPPOLIT maker(s) certainly knew much of the internal workings of Rybka. It is not, however, merely a "code-based" copy therein (and my recollection is that the claim, at least at one point, was that code of Rybka appeared in IPPOLIT). I see no way to differentiate as to whether IPPOLIT "started from scratch" and implemented Rybka-like-parts one-by-one, or "started as a functional equivalent to Rybka" and then was modified (rather substantially).

I discussed my findings with BB a while ago in private and I fully subscribe to the conclusion above (including the remark that in the current version there appears to be very little or no literal code copied).

My conclusion remains that the Ippolit authors reverse engineered Rybka. Note the part I emphasized above. Reverse engineering by itself is not illegal in some countries. Copying code when doing so could be.

It is for me still an open question whether the authors remain anonymous because they are afraid they might still have slipped on the latter (and hence are distributing illegal software), or because of some other weird reason (you can insert some crazy conspiracy theories here).

[Gian-Carlo Pascutto]

According to an investigation and subsequent report by someone that is known as BB it is concluded that Ippolit is not a reversed engineered Rybka. There are similarities between the two as there are in all chess programs that use variations of alpha-beta. However, the similarities mostly can be traced back to Crafty, Fruit and Strelka. The Rybka specific stuff appears to be mostly non-existent in Ippolit. And also, the differences between the two programs in every part of the code is massive. The witch hunters have been proven to have been hoodwinked into the believing of a lie.

I think you read a different report as I did.

[Matthias Gemuh]

The authors conclusion:

Depends on what you mean by "reverse-engineered"... I would find it wholly plausible that IPPOLIT is a "reverse-engineered Rybka with many changes", and indeed I would assert that the IPPOLIT maker(s) certainly knew much of the internal workings of Rybka. It is not, however, merely a "code-based" copy therein (and my recollection is that the claim, at least at one point, was that code of Rybka appeared in IPPOLIT). I see no way to differentiate as to whether IPPOLIT "started from scratch" and implemented Rybka-like-parts one-by-one, or "started as a functional equivalent to Rybka" and then was modified (rather substantially).

I discussed my findings with BB a while ago in private and I fully subscribe to the conclusion above (including the remark that in the current version there appears to be very little or no literal code copied).

Thanks for saying that much.

Matthias.

[Milos]

well, first of all, like with all documents, one have to be careful, I mean there is nearly no code comparison or whatever so like with all other statements about the topic we have to trust in the author.

But of course, how likely is it that someone would create such a 33 page report just for fun ? Not very likely. To compare this all with just objdump, chapeau !
Therefor I tend to agree that it's well possible that they re-engineered parts of Rybka, but it looks like most of the code is original, using ideas of Rybka, ideas of other engines and ideas of it's own. This would make Ippolit and all it's follow-ups absolutely legal and even morally safe. For a final conclusion I would like to wait whether Vas can come up with something different, but for now I want to say sorry to the unknown authors. You might say this is just a apologize light - and you are right, but understand me that I want to wait for a statement of Vas, after that I might make a clearer statement. But I wont wait forever, let's say about a month, after that I would even allow them in official tournaments if they would come up with a real name.

Hi Thomas,
This is a very fair comment. Thx for sincereness.

Milos

[Gian-Carlo Pascutto]

My interest in the whole Ippolit discussion is just to know the true legal status of Ippolit.

I think this is still very tricky despite the report. I would not want to go to court on either side. And it seems, neither will Vasik (inaction) nor the Ippolit authors (anonymous).

[Milos]

I think this is still very tricky despite the report. I would not want to go to court on either side. And it seems, neither will Vasik (inaction) nor the Ippolit authors (anonymous).

Even though reverse-engineering is illegal in some countries, the number of countries where it's totally legal is much higher. Proving it in this specific case is extremely hard, next to impossible.
The question is not if Ippolit is reverse-engineered Rybka, but whether using ideas (to emphasize this, not source-code) obtained by reverse-engineering is
a) legal
b) moral

Regarding a) and CCC, since CCC is hosted in USA, and reverse-engineering is not illegal there, with respect to this site, Ippo and derivatives IMO should not be assumed as having questionable legal status.
Regarding b), this is really an individual question.

[Gian-Carlo Pascutto]

There's no question using the ideas is legal.

Reconstructing the program, or parts of it, when looking at the original can be legally problematic though. You can look up "clean room reverse engineering". And then you understand what the story about the "b code" is for

[K I Hyams]

Hi Matthias,

Normally, those who blindly classified Ippolit as a reverse-engineered Rybka would now be expected to simply apologize for the mess they have caused. However, if you know them well enough, expect no apologies. BB's unbelievably detailed report is proof only to those who have been genuinely seeking to know the truth.

well, first of all, like with all documents, one have to be careful, I mean there is nearly no code comparison or whatever so like with all other statements about the topic we have to trust in the author.

But of course, how likely is it that someone would create such a 33 page report just for fun ? Not very likely. To compare this all with just objdump, chapeau !
Therefor I tend to agree that it's well possible that they re-engineered parts of Rybka, but it looks like most of the code is original, using ideas of Rybka, ideas of other engines and ideas of it's own. This would make Ippolit and all it's follow-ups absolutely legal and even morally safe. For a final conclusion I would like to wait whether Vas can come up with something different, but for now I want to say sorry to the unknown authors. You might say this is just a apologize light - and you are right, but understand me that I want to wait for a statement of Vas, after that I might make a clearer statement. But I wont wait forever, let's say about a month, after that I would even allow them in official tournaments if they would come up with a real name. (E.g. if Norman or Mr. Houdart would like to take part they would need the permission of the Ippolit authors according to ICGA rules)

Greets, Thomas

This post is based on the assumption that the BB document is accurate.

I don’t think that you have much to apologise for Thomas; you said what you thought was right. Decent people say and do what they think is right. Whether or not they are right is of relatively little importance. I believe that Graham Banks also said and did what he thought was right. The fact that, in the opinion of many of us, he became obsessive, out of control and therefore damaging may be another issue.

It is not clear what motivated the Ippolit authors to attract suspicion to themselves however, whatever it was, they do not deserve a full-blown apology and I doubt whether they are looking for one.

Vas Rajlich appears to me to now have even more explaining to do. Not only does he need to talk about possible Fruit code in Rybka, in the light of the work of Bob and Zach, he needs to talk about his behaviour regarding the Ippolit series, in the light of the work of BB. Neither job should be too demanding because, unlike Bob, Zach and BB, he has access to all of the source code that he needs.