Stockfish 1.4, the final weapon

[zamar]

Look at it this way. You could pick a different line to change....or two.....

Thanks, I will!

[mclane]

After all, we are arguing about a name. Surely the name of a chess engine cannot be worth fighting about?

IMO the name of a chess engine is a business of the authors of the engine.

people other than the programmers can discuss about it. but thats all.
i doubt the moderators of CCC will allow another flame war about this topic.

[Graham Banks]

After all, we are arguing about a name. Surely the name of a chess engine cannot be worth fighting about?

IMO the name of a chess engine is a business of the authors of the engine.

I agree with you on this.

[yanquis1972]

i think it is time for a true voice of reason to weigh in on this debate: give it an entirely NEW name, a cool one, & be done with 'glaurung' & 'stockfish', which could not be more ugly. the engine is simply too good to deserve these indignities.

i suggest something inditimidating & awesome, like RAZOR, or YELLOWJACKET, or perhaps SWINEFLU.

[Christopher Conkie]

i think it is time for a true voice of reason to weigh in on this debate: give it an entirely NEW name, a cool one, & be done with 'glaurung' & 'stockfish', which could not be more ugly. the engine is simply too good to deserve these indignities.

i suggest something inditimidating & awesome, like RAZOR, or YELLOWJACKET, or perhaps SWINEFLU.

I like Razor.....because they had a very very close shave.

What about Glaurung G2?

The best a man can get.......



Christopher

[F. Bluemers]

i think it is time for a true voice of reason to weigh in on this debate: give it an entirely NEW name, a cool one, & be done with 'glaurung' & 'stockfish', which could not be more ugly. the engine is simply too good to deserve these indignities.

i suggest something inditimidating & awesome, like RAZOR, or YELLOWJACKET, or perhaps SWINEFLU.

I like Razor.....because they had a very very close shave.

What about Glaurung G2.

The best a man can get.......



Christopher

maybe its indeed apropiate.

OT:
Nowadays razors have 5,10 or 50 blades or whatever.
Can't they make anything decent nowadays?

[ilari]

After all, we are arguing about a name. Surely the name of a chess engine cannot be worth fighting about?

IMO the name of a chess engine is a business of the authors of the engine.

Actually the name of a derivative can be also be the business of the original engine's author IF the same name is used. For example, if Tord had trademarked his Glaurung chess engine and I would release a modified version of it also under the name Glaurung, Tord could sue me for trademark violation. But if I decided to choose a completely new name instead, I'd have nothing to worry about. So mr. Conkie has it backwards: choosing a new name even for slightly modified versions is the safe choice, not the other way around.

Of course excessive forking is usually frowned upon in the open source community. So if I have small patches for a project I should try to submit them upstream before starting my own fork. But often even good patches get rejected or ignored because the original author may not have the time or willingness to review and test them. In that case a new fork is pretty much the only option.

I recommend everyone who's passionate about the naming conventions of open source chess engines to learn more about the open source community and the development processes and practices of open source projects.

[Suji]

Tord did not name Stockfish. It is Glaurung 2.7 here.

Really?

And how about Stockrung 2.4 or Glaufish 1.7 Would you agree with those?

No. I only agree with calling the current Stockfish........Glaurung. Why? Because that is what it is. You can see although that Tord says if there was a rewrite he would like to call it Stockfish.

Look at it this way. You could pick a different line to change....or two.....



Christopher

Why should the general public like us, decide on what the name of an engine should be? They could have called something entirely different.

Spock wrote:
Yes, I view Stockfish as a positive step in the development and evolution of Glaurung. On his own, I think Tord pretty much stated that there would be no new versions of Glaurung itself and he had stopped work on it. Now there is a team of people working on it to move it forward and improve it, and that is a good thing and has actually kept Tord on board as well.


Yes, this is a pretty accurate description.

There seems to be some confusion and misunderstandings about Glaurung/Stockfish floating around, so perhaps it's a good idea to make some clarifications.

Marco's first version of Stockfish was released some time between Glaurung 2.1 and 2.2, and was based on Glaurung 2.1. For quite a while later, we both kept working on our separate branches, but we stayed in touch occasionally and exchanged development versions of our programs, and copied code and ideas between them. Even though Stockfish describes itself as "derived from Glaurung 2.1", you will find code from Glaurung 2.2 and the even newer iPhone Glaurung in Stockfish as well. Similarly, you will find traces of Stockfish in the public iPhone Glaurung.

In the long run, this seemed like a stupid and inefficient way to work. Why not work together directly on the same source code rather than manually trying to merge parts of the two gradually diverging programs every few months? Moreover, adapting code from one branch to the other became more complicated over time, because contrary to what some people seem to believe, Marco's changes in Stockfish amount to far more than changing a few numbers.

That's why we're now working together. Some people have questioned the name. The argument that we should rename the program back to Glaurung carries some weight, but I would personally prefer to keep the name Stockfish, partly because it's an awesome name, and partly because our joint effort is based on Marco's branch rather than my own branch (an obvious choice, because Stockfish was by far the more advanced branch at the time), and because Marco is currently the most active developer. This being said, I have no very strong feelings about the name. If Joona and Marco want it, I have no problems accepting the majority decision and release the next version as Glaurung 2.3 rather than Stockfish 1.5.

At any rate, Stockfish currently shouldn't be regarded as a "Glaurung derivative" (even though it started as such), but as Glaurung's successor or the current version of Glaurung. It is, after all, the only branch that the original author is actively working on. Those of you who prefer to keep using Glaurung 2.2 on your rating lists are of course free to do so, but in my opinion that makes about as much sense as staying with Glaurung 2.1. It remains possible that I will some day have to write a new program from the ground up, but if that happens, I consider it most likely that it will be co-authored with Joona and Marco, and be released as Stockfish 2 rather than as Glaurung 3.

Someone mentioned that Stockfish should be available for download from my web site: Of course I agree entirely, and I have been thinking that for months. I'm awfully slow and lazy with regard to updating my web site, which is now extremely outdated in several ways.

Finally, for questions about how many % of the code each of us has written: It's difficult to quantify, and who cares? None of us have been making claims like "I did X% of the work".

And that's the way it should be, as I see it Tord, Joona, and Marco are a team. Tord did do the "majority", but Joona and Marco have been invaluable to Tord. Without Joona and Marco, we wouldn't have the privilege of having an increasingly strong Glaurung/Stockfish, and not to mention that Tord is still interested in computer chess.

I don't know about all of you guys, but having Tord not burn out on computer chess should be a priority. I'm sick of all the burnouts, of Naum's author, and Fruit's author. They could have seriously contended with Rybka. As a result, I want the Stockfish team to keep improving their engine, regardless of what they decide to name it. Someone has to keep Rybka scared and why not these talented people?

Marco and Joona deserve praise for what they've done. Who cares if they can write their own engine (I suspect that they could)? If they wrote their own engines, Joona and Marco might have chosen to keep their sources private, thus, possibly their engines wouldn't be as strong as Glaurung. But they decided to improve Glaurung instead of writing their own. Tord now has teammates that are quite skilled, and as a result does not have to do everything alone. The three of them together are better than each individually.

If Tord is going along with the name Stockfish, I believe that that's what the name should be since he is the "original" author and no one else other than Joona or Marco has a say in it. It doesn't matter if it's "mostly" Glaurung or not. If the authors of Stockfish (Tord, Joona, and Marco) want to change the name, only they have the right to choose what it will be.

As for me, I will be happy either way.

[Christopher Conkie]

Tord did not name Stockfish. It is Glaurung 2.7 here.

Really?

And how about Stockrung 2.4 or Glaufish 1.7 Would you agree with those?

No. I only agree with calling the current Stockfish........Glaurung. Why? Because that is what it is. You can see although that Tord says if there was a rewrite he would like to call it Stockfish.

Look at it this way. You could pick a different line to change....or two.....



Christopher

Why should the general public like us, decide on what the name of an engine should be? They could have called something entirely different.

Spock wrote:
Yes, I view Stockfish as a positive step in the development and evolution of Glaurung. On his own, I think Tord pretty much stated that there would be no new versions of Glaurung itself and he had stopped work on it. Now there is a team of people working on it to move it forward and improve it, and that is a good thing and has actually kept Tord on board as well.


Yes, this is a pretty accurate description.

There seems to be some confusion and misunderstandings about Glaurung/Stockfish floating around, so perhaps it's a good idea to make some clarifications.

Marco's first version of Stockfish was released some time between Glaurung 2.1 and 2.2, and was based on Glaurung 2.1. For quite a while later, we both kept working on our separate branches, but we stayed in touch occasionally and exchanged development versions of our programs, and copied code and ideas between them. Even though Stockfish describes itself as "derived from Glaurung 2.1", you will find code from Glaurung 2.2 and the even newer iPhone Glaurung in Stockfish as well. Similarly, you will find traces of Stockfish in the public iPhone Glaurung.

In the long run, this seemed like a stupid and inefficient way to work. Why not work together directly on the same source code rather than manually trying to merge parts of the two gradually diverging programs every few months? Moreover, adapting code from one branch to the other became more complicated over time, because contrary to what some people seem to believe, Marco's changes in Stockfish amount to far more than changing a few numbers.

That's why we're now working together. Some people have questioned the name. The argument that we should rename the program back to Glaurung carries some weight, but I would personally prefer to keep the name Stockfish, partly because it's an awesome name, and partly because our joint effort is based on Marco's branch rather than my own branch (an obvious choice, because Stockfish was by far the more advanced branch at the time), and because Marco is currently the most active developer. This being said, I have no very strong feelings about the name. If Joona and Marco want it, I have no problems accepting the majority decision and release the next version as Glaurung 2.3 rather than Stockfish 1.5.

At any rate, Stockfish currently shouldn't be regarded as a "Glaurung derivative" (even though it started as such), but as Glaurung's successor or the current version of Glaurung. It is, after all, the only branch that the original author is actively working on. Those of you who prefer to keep using Glaurung 2.2 on your rating lists are of course free to do so, but in my opinion that makes about as much sense as staying with Glaurung 2.1. It remains possible that I will some day have to write a new program from the ground up, but if that happens, I consider it most likely that it will be co-authored with Joona and Marco, and be released as Stockfish 2 rather than as Glaurung 3.

Someone mentioned that Stockfish should be available for download from my web site: Of course I agree entirely, and I have been thinking that for months. I'm awfully slow and lazy with regard to updating my web site, which is now extremely outdated in several ways.

Finally, for questions about how many % of the code each of us has written: It's difficult to quantify, and who cares? None of us have been making claims like "I did X% of the work".

And that's the way it should be, as I see it Tord, Joona, and Marco are a team. Tord did do the "majority", but Joona and Marco have been invaluable to Tord. Without Joona and Marco, we wouldn't have the privilege of having an increasingly strong Glaurung/Stockfish, and not to mention that Tord is still interested in computer chess.

I don't know about all of you guys, but having Tord not burn out on computer chess should be a priority. I'm sick of all the burnouts, of Naum's author, and Fruit's author. They could have seriously contended with Rybka. As a result, I want the Stockfish team to keep improving their engine, regardless of what they decide to name it. Someone has to keep Rybka scared and why not these talented people?

Marco and Joona deserve praise for what they've done. Who cares if they can write their own engine (I suspect that they could)? If they wrote their own engines, Joona and Marco might have chosen to keep their sources private, thus, possibly their engines wouldn't be as strong as Glaurung. But they decided to improve Glaurung instead of writing their own. Tord now has teammates that are quite skilled, and as a result does not have to do everything alone. The three of them together are better than each individually.

If Tord is going along with the name Stockfish, I believe that that's what the name should be since he is the "original" author and no one else other than Joona or Marco has a say in it. It doesn't matter if it's "mostly" Glaurung or not. If the authors of Stockfish (Tord, Joona, and Marco) want to change the name, only they have the right to choose what it will be.

As for me, I will be happy either way.

Your post deserves a better answer than the one I can give right now.

It was thought about although it is the the opposite of what I think and I know I have already experienced.

Please forgive me....I will try to do it justice as soon as I can as it is a valid opinion if somewhat misled.

You see I'm quite busy right now. I'm waiting for a communique from that most special group the ACCA.

I'm waiting to see if they will let the next clone of Glaurung in to their competition.

I am hopeful they will despite the logging of Steven Edwards. I think that if a victory is to be had it should at least be piric.

After all logging of an engine is easily got round. Change a bit of timing etc.

I especially love the charm of Charles who thinks Toga. Yes Charles you are right but that was long ago.

I suppose everyone steals ideas........

I will give you a proper analysis so we can discuss point by point but not right now.

I am also very happy with who I know and trust. If it was not for them, we would all be living in a very different and a much worse prison.

I want to see what feather they will use to stop the flood you see.......

I'll catch you later....and I do mean that. You thought wrong, so it's only fair I show you how and why. That would be a discussion.

OK?

Christopher

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

There may yet be hope of a compromise.

A compromise for who ?

There is no need of any compromise among our three because we are already aligned and well focused on what to do and how to do it.

If you mean a compromise with your wishes then I´m sorry for you but your wishes count less then zero to me.

I really don´t understund what is your goal. To divide our 3 ? To try to slow down SF development ? to make our group to split ?

I really don´t understund, but any is your target, is a bad one and, FWIW, is deemed to fail at 100%.

It is better you redirect your envy in someting more positive and useful for everybody... if you are able to do that, but I have big doubts about it.

Music to my ears....thanks Marco
Dr.D