how far is too far: houdini for sell?

[bob]

Rybka 1.6.1 [..] was a full copy of Crafty

I read that Rybka 1.6.1 was at 2100 ELO level. Can you tell us where the 'full copy' job went wrong, since Crafty was much stronger at that time.

I have not tried to look. It would require a complete RE of at least the full eval and search, and that isn't worth the significant effort it would require.

[S.Taylor]

You're hopeless. You don't give a damn what the ICGA has ruled.
You won't stop defending this idiot until a court decides. You've told me this countless times. You hate Houdini or so you say but continue to test it along with Rybka and you say you're not taking sides, give me a break.

Which programs the ICGA decides to exclude from their tournaments is none of my business. I am not a programmer, so I'm not in a position to question their findings.

Yes, I'd like to see an FSF ruling on Rybka because they are seen as being independent of the computer chess scene. I am hopeful that such a ruling would bring some finality to the issue for those who are still uneasy or unhappy what's happened. After all, look at the mess that our hobby is currently in.

Yes, both Rybka and Houdini (along with a few other "controversial" engines marked as such) are in the CCRL rating lists, so I include them in my testing. I can see how you might perceive this to be my defending Vas, but the group's stance is made clear in the notes at the start of each update report that gets posted.

You may have to accept the ICGA as the FSF may or may not pursue this with diligence and even if they do it might take years.

I can see this dragging well into this decade. I hope not.

I do not have to accept the ICGA

FSF is the only organization that may take legal steps against Vas and I assume innocent unless proven quilty by court and the ICGA is not court.

It is possible that I am going to buy Rybka5(dependent on the playing strength of Rybka5) and
I do not think that I risk something if I buy a new version of rybka.

Even if Rybka is illegal then there is no rule that I am supposed to know it
and even if I know that it is illegal then the question is who is the victim
of my actions.

Fabien does not sell Fruit for years so he does not lose money in case that I buy Rybka.
Bob Hyatt also does not lose money so who is going to lose money from it?

It is not the same as buying a stolen car when if I have it the owner of the car does not have it.

Count me as one who agrees with every sentence you wrote. And I will be buying Rybka 5 for sure- probably 2 copies.


Best,

gts

Why are you such an obnoxious jerk? Who cares who you agree with or if you buy every R5 program???

Grow Up!

If you wish to say this idea, why don't you say it politely?
You are calling him names and making personal attack and blatantly trying to strip him of all dignity.

[S.Taylor]

You're hopeless. You don't give a damn what the ICGA has ruled.
You won't stop defending this idiot until a court decides. You've told me this countless times. You hate Houdini or so you say but continue to test it along with Rybka and you say you're not taking sides, give me a break.

Which programs the ICGA decides to exclude from their tournaments is none of my business. I am not a programmer, so I'm not in a position to question their findings.

Yes, I'd like to see an FSF ruling on Rybka because they are seen as being independent of the computer chess scene. I am hopeful that such a ruling would bring some finality to the issue for those who are still uneasy or unhappy what's happened. After all, look at the mess that our hobby is currently in.

Yes, both Rybka and Houdini (along with a few other "controversial" engines marked as such) are in the CCRL rating lists, so I include them in my testing. I can see how you might perceive this to be my defending Vas, but the group's stance is made clear in the notes at the start of each update report that gets posted.

You may have to accept the ICGA as the FSF may or may not pursue this with diligence and even if they do it might take years.

I can see this dragging well into this decade. I hope not.

I do not have to accept the ICGA

FSF is the only organization that may take legal steps against Vas and I assume innocent unless proven quilty by court and the ICGA is not court.

It is possible that I am going to buy Rybka5(dependent on the playing strength of Rybka5) and
I do not think that I risk something if I buy a new version of rybka.

Even if Rybka is illegal then there is no rule that I am supposed to know it
and even if I know that it is illegal then the question is who is the victim
of my actions.

Fabien does not sell Fruit for years so he does not lose money in case that I buy Rybka.
Bob Hyatt also does not lose money so who is going to lose money from it?

It is not the same as buying a stolen car when if I have it the owner of the car does not have it.

Count me as one who agrees with every sentence you wrote. And I will be buying Rybka 5 for sure- probably 2 copies.


Best,

gts

Why are you such an obnoxious jerk? Who cares who you agree with or if you buy every R5 program???

Grow Up!

If you wish to say this idea, why don't you say it politely?
You are calling him names and making personal attack and blatantly trying to strip him of all dignity.

You have no idea what this cretin has said to me right in this forum! He's an asshole and sometimes you need to forget tact with certain people!

Read everything before you judge!

True, that i didn't see everything.

[marcelk]

If we apply the same criteria to Ferret, Comet, and...
They were not the only ones that started as a different program and everybody considered them clean.

Dear Miguel,

I don't know Comet, but I do remember Ferret quite well. Can you elaborate on your claim that Ferret started as a different program?
You might remember one of Bruce's first rgc postings about chess programming (I certainly do remember this being posted):
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.game ... c86d?hl=en

Aug 14 1993

I ran some of the "Peasant" pawn endings from "How Computers
Play Chess" through my program, and came across a bug. The
search would fail high when the program discovered it could
win a pawn, so it would modify its aspiration window and try
again. This time it would fail low. It didn't expect this
case, and responded by treating this as a normal fail-low
condition, so it would set the aspiration window up for that
and try yet again, resulting in another fail-high, and so on.
[...]
What am I doing wrong?

You might recognize this as a rather basic problem that only a beginning original author would ever encounter (and many have, maybe you also). Anyone who takes another program as a starting point will most likely never see this bug.

Also Bruce at occasions has been very specific about his program with relation to gnu
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.game ... 5f59?hl=en

May 6 1996

I started writing a chess program because I was disgusted by the way that
gnu did this "sort".

I have always interpreted these postings as signals that he was writing his own programs from scratch. Now many years later you come here saying Bruce has been modifying gnu to make Ferret? I'm really surprised by this and I'm interested to know where it comes from.

[Rolf]

Ferret? I'm really surprised by this and I'm interested to know where it comes from.

I wanna thank you for your openess for a deeper debate, also if it's just about Ferret, which was never commercial. But perhaps this debates opens more such possible debates about Fritz, Jonny and Hiarcs or Komodo, so that the main fallacy of the panel will be clarified. Because I came to the conclusion from the outside that not the investigation by Zach or Mark is wrong but the whole voting process by peers when it was basically about the scapegoating of an alleged singular offender in a scene where the other peers have special protection so that their offenses could never be reveiled, already out of money & time reasons. But then the voting itself was rigged, dont you agree with me? And Vas had spoken it out in time, so, they intentionally treated him unfairly.

Couldnt this be corrected now after the wrong in the procedure has been shown? Please let's keep this debate open.

[marcelk]

Ferret? I'm really surprised by this and I'm interested to know where it comes from.

I wanna thank you for your openess for a deeper debate, also if it's just about Ferret, which was never commercial. But perhaps this debates opens more such possible debates about Fritz, Jonny and Hiarcs or Komodo, so that the main fallacy of the panel will be clarified. Because I came to the conclusion from the outside that not the investigation by Zach or Mark is wrong but the whole voting process by peers when it was basically about the scapegoating of an alleged singular offender in a scene where the other peers have special protection so that their offenses could never be reveiled, already out of money & time reasons. But then the voting itself was rigged, dont you agree with me? And Vas had spoken it out in time, so, they intentionally treated him unfairly.

Couldnt this be corrected now after the wrong in the procedure has been shown? Please let's keep this debate open.

Hello Rolf,

I don't see the process as essentially flawed. Experts got a say. Defender got a say. Board then decided on what they saw is enough or not, made their 5-0 vote and decided on a sanction. These are not stupid people. Also I don't believe the reports were fabricated in order to support one particular outcome, intentionally or unintentionally.

Regarding to pointing to a process, mind that a process is something made by people. The people in the panel are just as responsible for their role in the process as they are responsible for the technical contents. That also holds for those who subscribed but only watched and didn't express their opinion, and those that didn't subscribe but ventilated their opinion afterwards. There could have been some things done different. One is that I personally would have preferred to have seen Chris into the panel, wishing there was more of an effort to clear the identification hurdle, even taking his WW2 references in his email as such positive identification if that was needed. I can also understand and accept that another decision was made.

Regarding your second part of your question, if Vas can come to some kind of reconciliation with Fabien I can see a lot of possibilities. Personally I would love to have a chance to be beaten by him on the board in a fair game.

[michiguel]

If we apply the same criteria to Ferret, Comet, and...
They were not the only ones that started as a different program and everybody considered them clean.

Dear Miguel,

I don't know Comet, but I do remember Ferret quite well. Can you elaborate on your claim that Ferret started as a different program?
You might remember one of Bruce's first rgc postings about chess programming (I certainly do remember this being posted):
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.game ... c86d?hl=en

Aug 14 1993

I ran some of the "Peasant" pawn endings from "How Computers
Play Chess" through my program, and came across a bug. The
search would fail high when the program discovered it could
win a pawn, so it would modify its aspiration window and try
again. This time it would fail low. It didn't expect this
case, and responded by treating this as a normal fail-low
condition, so it would set the aspiration window up for that
and try yet again, resulting in another fail-high, and so on.
[...]
What am I doing wrong?

You might recognize this as a rather basic problem that only a beginning original author would ever encounter (and many have, maybe you also). Anyone who takes another program as a starting point will most likely never see this bug.

Also Bruce at occasions has been very specific about his program with relation to gnu
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.game ... 5f59?hl=en

May 6 1996

I started writing a chess program because I was disgusted by the way that
gnu did this "sort".

I have always interpreted these postings as signals that he was writing his own programs from scratch. Now many years later you come here saying Bruce has been modifying gnu to make Ferret? I'm really surprised by this and I'm interested to know where it comes from.

He started with GNUchess, and rewrote it completely. Nothing wrong with that. I remember clearly that he was really interested in the GNUchess move generator and how he improved it. I do not think my memory is playing me tricks:


Go to page 29 and you will see "Ferret was a derivative of Moreland's open source engine GNU Chess." (that sentence mixed up the name of the author)

Regarding Comet, you can see it in the ICGA website
http://www.grappa.univ-lille3.fr/icga/program.php?id=14

Miguel

[geots]

But this has nothing to do with Robert Houdart. Robert never signed anything that said his program is original. Robert Houdart never played in tournament and took money saying is programs is 100% his own. I understand your problem with Vas.

But your problem Don Quixote even if all you say is true, Robert Houdart did not commit a crime. His product is legal.

If I am wrong, I will ask you give us the name(s) of the person who Robert Houdart stole code from.

And why those person(s) have not made a charge against Robert Houdart.


Bob "Don Quixote" Hyatt tell the CCC community why you are not taking Robert Hourdart to court. Since you have all the goods on him as you claim. You know he has money from Houdini.......so tell us why.

Robert Houdart has REPEATEDLY stated that houdini is 100% original code. Just like Vas. Yet that is false. I DO have a problem with liars. And he is clearly a liar, because he has made provably false statements, REPEATEDLY.

The most likely names are Fabien and Vas. Give everyone time to process the evidence, perhaps you will get what you don't want here...

Then Bob if Fabien or Vas make a claim against Robert Houdart. Then you can start talking about crimes, until that time stop suggesting Robert Houdart is guilty of a crime.

Copying code that is copyrighted IS a crime. You can't use the argument that Robo* is public domain, if IT contains copied code. It would also be an illegal copy that violates copyright.

If you violate copyright law (of which the GPL is a part) then that is a criminal act with potential criminal punishment if it is pursued.

Bob no one has come forward to say there was a copyright violation. You have no standing to make such a claim, and can not. It is not your copyright.

Bob you do have a hard on for Robert Houdart and Houdini, and you need to get over it.

You can not be judge and jury here Bob, Robert Houdart is not subject to ICGA rules.

Let me point out, Rybka versions prior to version 4 used Code from Crafty (rotated bitboard stuff). Are you CERTAIN no versions of robo* nor Houdini copied THAT code when Rybka was RE'ed???

Let me get this straight. Rybka 3, which you have told me 4 times you never looked at, contains code from Crafty. Or did you change your mind for the purposes of this thread? At least we know that would not have helped Vas- nothing in Crafty would be of any use to someone heading for the top. If he needed help from Crafty, he was screwed from the start.

[BubbaTough]

nothing in Crafty would be of any use to someone heading for the top. If he needed help from Crafty, he was screwed from the start.

I have no idea what you guys are arguing about, but this is just not true. I have not looked at the Crafty code for years, but I remember things in both eval and search from back when I did I suspect are superior to the strongest programs even today. I would not be surprised if the same was true of many original programs.

-Sam

[geots]

nothing in Crafty would be of any use to someone heading for the top. If he needed help from Crafty, he was screwed from the start.

I have no idea what you guys are arguing about, but this is just not true. I have not looked at the Crafty code for years, but I remember things in both eval and search from back when I did I suspect are superior to the strongest programs even today. I would not be surprised if the same was true of many original programs.

-Sam

Then by what you say, one would think if you removed Critter, Stockfish, Komodo, Strelka, Belka, Robbo, Spike, Spark, Thinker, Toga, etc. etc. etc., then Crafty 32 bit 1CPU might slip into the top 30 or so of freeware engines, albeit near the bottom.

But with the logo you got there, I will agree with what you tell me to.

You don't happen to have any other extras lying around that aren't in any lists, do you?


Best,

George