Rybka 1.0 vs. Strelka

[kranium]

Rumour has it that Fabien transferred the GPL to the FSF, if that's the case, it doesn't matter any more what Fabien says (in a legal sense).

This is true. I was waiting to say something, but it was confirmed by Ryan:

"FSF has full copyright to every line of code in Fruit 2.1"

Does this really matter?
Is the FSF less interested in enforcing copyrights than FL?

The FSF is more capable of enforcing copyrights. This is one of the reasons they now have the copyright.

Great. Thanks Ryan.
I didn't think so...

[bnemias]

Someone, GB I think, asked what we want to see happen. (Forgive me for not tracking down the actual post in this huge thread.) Also, it's been pointed out that the GPL only gives the right to sue to the original licensing party. I didn't know that, but it seems quite true. Ignoring for the moment, the possibility that we are dealing with violations on toga instead of fruit (which would open up that right to sue to several people), here's what I'd like to see happen:

If Fabian isn't going to deal with GPL violations (whatever his reason), then perhaps he can transfer the license to something more in line with commercial interests. In other words, allow others to use the code as a base for commercial products without infringing on a license. This simply levels the playing field.

Alternatively, transfer the license to someone who will deal with GPL violations, such as the FSF.

-and-

Rumour has it that Fabien transferred the GPL to the FSF, if that's the case, it doesn't matter any more what Fabien says (in a legal sense).

This is true. I was waiting to say something, but it was confirmed by Ryan:

"FSF has full copyright to every line of code in Fruit 2.1"

I'm sorry, I really didn't know the license had already been transferred to the FSF when I made my post. I naturally assumed the first option (changing the license to something less restrictive than the GPL) would be chosen in view of all the posts indicating Fabian's neutral-positive attitude about Rybka 1.0. I offered the 2nd option just for completeness, but was mainly trying to find a solution that would make the problem go away.

[Graham Banks]

Here is my main concern with respect to copying/cloning/etc. I have been doing this for almost exactly 40 years now. I started competing in the ACM events in 1976. It was pretty brutal at the top, with chess 4.x, chaos, duchess, Belle, etc being mature programs. But at the bottom and middle, it was still a fight. Nobody had any advantage over anyone else, and so we all felt as if we could compete and improve. Had someone been able to copy (say) chess 4.x and use it back then, most of us would probably have dropped out as the playing field would have been tipped to the "copy crowd" rather than being equalized, and many would have been discouraged and quit.

Today, new ideas come from amateurs all the time. If they are driven away because it is impossible to compete with a "fresh program" then we all lose something in the bargain.

I think it important that newcomers can write a program, and compete, without having to compete against the same program multiple times in a single tournament. I though Jakarta in 1996 (or 1997) was wrong because it had two copies of Crafty in, mine, and one the University (sponsoring entity) entered. Those two programs finished in either 3rd and 4th or 4th and 5th places. And it didn't seem fair.

I can't speak for others, but for me, that is the issue that causes concern. Simple fairness. Not envy. Not anger. Not anything but wanting to compete fairly with anyone that cares to join in. I have won WCCC and CCT events. I'm still the only two-time (consecutive) WCCC winner in fact. I've won several CCTs. And so have others. And that competition is a lot of fun. It is less fun when you start competing against multiple copies of the same program, or the same professionally-prepared opening book, etc...

Hi Bob,

this is a post that I respect. Well stated.

Cheers, Graham.

[bob]

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.

Fair play. So that cheating does not become the forced entry point of chess programming at the top level.



// Christophe

Okay. You guys basically believe that Vas has "cheated".

Nobody is allowed to take open source GPL'ed code, make this code "his own", and use it in a commercial closed source program.

I'm not allowed to do it. You are not.

If someone does it, I say it's a violation of the licence intended by the original author, I say it's unfair to those who have respected this licence, and don't expect me to keep quiet about it.

Either the game is fair and the rules are respected, or the field is turned into a mess.

Think about it: what's the point in a rating list if the rules are not respected? Find out who is the biggest shark? If there are no rules I can think about a couple of ways to become number one that you are probably not going to like.



// Christophe

It is clear that there are rules but based on my understanding the rules are that only if Fabien complains against Vas you can do something against Vas and it did not happen(I do not know what happens if the programmer of the original program is dead and if another person can complain).

I think that if you take Fruit2.1 and make significant improvements and convince Fabien to let you sell the program(when Fabien get part of the money) then it is clearly fair.

Uri

It is not quite so simple. The FSF can always take an action if they believe it necessary or appropriate. But more importantly, it is an issue among competitors as well, as the WCCC and CCT type events have explicit restrictions that say "no clones allowed"... So the ramifications of this extend far beyond just the basic license/copyright issues...

[bob]

It is clear that there are rules but based on my understanding the rules are that only if Fabien complains against Vas you can do something against Vas and it did not happen(I do not know what happens if the programmer of the original program is dead and if another person can complain).

The code would become part of the estate, and it would be up to the heirs to enforce the copyright.

I think that if you take Fruit2.1 and make significant improvements and convince Fabien to let you sell the program(when Fabien get part of the money) then it is clearly fair.

I think that would be fair, but perhaps some wouldn't. If it was done right it would at least be legal.

And if it were done exactly one time (in the case of fruit) that would be OK. But Fruit is already GPL, and then we have Toga which is now also GPL, More than one is simply a non-starter of an idea... If one of the entities is commercial and closed source.

[bob]

Hi Chris,

[snip]

Fabien says he has no problem.

Where did Fabien say it? This is of key importance in the whole issue.

Enrique

It's a bit convoluted, but the argument of the "Rybka 1.0 beta might be a clone camp" goes like this ...

Strelka is a reproduction of Rybka 1.0 beta.
Strelka resembles Fruit at a programming level
Therefore Rybka 1.0 resembles Fruit.

The "Rybka 1.0 beta protection society" argues:
Fabian has no worries with Strelka.
If other side wants to argue Strelka = Fruit
then Fabian by extension also has no problems with Rybka.


Bob wrote:
Didn't Vas clearly post "Strelka is a reproduction of Rybka 1.0 and I am claiming it as my own code now"??? I saw that specific comment (probably not those exact words, but semantically _identical_ posted by him when the Strelka / clone issue first broke.

Dan Corbit wrote:
This is what Fabian said about Strelka:
"No worries as far as I am concerned.
Ideas are not a legal property.
The code was rewritten so it's OK with me.
Tournament organisers might think differently.
I cannot say a definite yes or no ..."

Some programmers found code similarities between Strelka and Fruit; Vasik said that Strelka was R1 beta; Fabien told Corbit that he didn’t mind about Strelka. When was all that?

I’m asking because I would like to know why these accusations take place now and not in the old times of Rybka 1 beta. And whether they are related to other accusations here last week about Rybka giving R2 for free and not showing the true node count. I’m not saying it’s a campaign, but it might very well look like it, with these three simultaneous accusations against Rybka just before China 2008 and immediately after the huge lead of Rybka 3.

By the way, when Vasik said that Strelka was R1 beta, was he referring to the whole program or to parts of it? If to parts of it, the whole accusing syllogism (part of Str = Fr, part of Ry = Str, therefore Ry = Fr) is false, because Strelka could have copied parts of Rybka code different than Fruit. Possible? I'm asking you as programmer. I'm lay.

As for your "Tournament organizers might think differently", Rybka 3.x will play in China, not R1 beta, so I don’t see on which grounds the organizers could object.

Enrique

OK, last point first. If you find the first crafty version available, which would now be over 10 years old since it was released in 1995 somewhere, and if you take today's source and diff them. You would find far more than 50% of the code is duplicated. yes the eval has changes. Yes _parts_ of the search has changed. And yes, parts of the move generator have changed. But, if I had "borrowed" that original version of Crafty from someone else, and it had been GPL'ed when I borrowed it, today's version of Crafty would be an illegal copy. The GPL is specific, once you start with GPL code, your code is GPL until _every last line_ has been rewritten so that not one single line of GPL code remains. It is not much of a stretch to believe that R2 has much of the same source as R1. And that R3 has much of the same source as R2. So _if_ R1 is a partial or complete copy of fruit, R1 is automatically GPL code. And unless R2 was 100% rewritten, R2 would also be GPL. Ditto for R3.

Next, (and by the way, I didn't point out the claim by Vas, CT quoted it and suddenly a "warning light" started blinking as I had just not given this much thought) we do not have the source of R1. But we have a direct statement by Vas that Strelka was a copy of R1, that the source for Strelka was written by reverse-engineering the assembly language in the Rybka 1 executable. And he then claimed that "strelka is my code, and I will now distribute it as such." So we have a direct tie from strelka to Rybka.

Finally, a few have started to compare strelka to fruit, and have found marked similarities, and lots of identical code that is shared between both. So this establishes a link from strelka to fruit.

So we end up with a direct connection from fruit -> strelka -> rybka 1, with the probable connection of Rybka 1 -> Rybka 2 -> Rybka 3.

And all of that is, to me, troubling. Programs are supposed to be original works Not modified copies. Otherwise things I (and others) have complained about in the past suddenly become moot. I can think of Gunda 1 Jakarta, then Le Petite, Voyager, bionic impact and others that I have forgotten about, but all of which were direct copies of Crafty, and all of which created a lot of discussion and all of which were ultimately declared clones, not allowed into tournaments, etc. With that past history, plus others trying to clone programs dating as far back as Chess Genius, it looks to be problematic. And now we have yet another potential derivative work rather than original work.

I have not been involved in discovering this, I have followed the discussions, and have stated several times that based on the evidence that has been presented, things appear to be a bit off-color. Since the Rybka group are offering no arguments or evidence to the contrary, it would be hard to draw any other conclusion.

That is where things stand, and how they have reached the current point. For the people that have been absolutely caught red-handed, I consider them to be the lowest form of morally-challenged con artists. The current case has not yet reached that point. But it is moving in that direction until something convincing shows up to counter the current mountain of evidence. It would be nice to have a "counter-point" here and there that is factual. 90% of the comments are nonsensical and useless for helping to resolve this.

[bob]

Hi Chris,

[snip]

Fabien says he has no problem.

Where did Fabien say it? This is of key importance in the whole issue.

Enrique

Actually it doesn't matter from the GPL point of view. Fabien would be the natural person to complain if his code was copied, but if someone else could prove they were "damaged" by this, again assuming it turns out to be what it appears, then they could also have legal recourse, particularly if they are/were commercial and could show that this hurt their sales. So it isn't quite cut and dried...

Hehe! That would be really pushing the envelope of what one could get away with in court. Only yesterday you were posting how dangerous and unlikely it was for legal action on the basis of cost of losing. An action as case as above would be about as speculative as one could get.

What I said was that there are risks and potential rewards. To prove that CT is trying to damage Rybka's sales would be tough given the evidence that has been shown, because the conclusions are supported by hard facts. On the other hand, a commercial entity might want to challenge Rybka on the basis of lost sales that are a direct result of a violation of GPL. That would be risky, but the reward is potentially large enough that someone might be willing to make the investment and take a chance.

It is all about risk vs reward.

[kranium]

Next, (and by the way, I didn't point out the claim by Vas, CT quoted it and suddenly a "warning light" started blinking as I had just not given this much thought) we do not have the source of R1. But we have a direct statement by Vas that Strelka was a copy of R1, that the source for Strelka was written by reverse-engineering the assembly language in the Rybka 1 executable. And he then claimed that "strelka is my code, and I will now distribute it as such." So we have a direct tie from strelka to Rybka.

Finally, a few have started to compare strelka to fruit, and have found marked similarities, and lots of identical code that is shared between both. So this establishes a link from strelka to fruit.

So we end up with a direct connection from fruit -> strelka -> rybka 1, with the probable connection of Rybka 1 -> Rybka 2 -> Rybka 3.

yes...

and a while back an extremely thorough line by line binary comparison of the Stelka 2.0 and Rybka 1.0 executables was conducted by (a group of software engineers) - led by Rick Fadden, who concluded the two binaries were 100% 'identical'.

http://64.68.157.89/forum/viewtopic.php ... bka+stelka

it seems clear to me that this document, when used in conjunction with fruit 2.1 -> strelka 2.0 source code comparison bolsters the argument considerably.

[chrisw]

Hi Chris,

[snip]

Fabien says he has no problem.

Where did Fabien say it? This is of key importance in the whole issue.

Enrique

It's a bit convoluted, but the argument of the "Rybka 1.0 beta might be a clone camp" goes like this ...

Strelka is a reproduction of Rybka 1.0 beta.
Strelka resembles Fruit at a programming level
Therefore Rybka 1.0 resembles Fruit.

The "Rybka 1.0 beta protection society" argues:
Fabian has no worries with Strelka.
If other side wants to argue Strelka = Fruit
then Fabian by extension also has no problems with Rybka.


Bob wrote:
Didn't Vas clearly post "Strelka is a reproduction of Rybka 1.0 and I am claiming it as my own code now"??? I saw that specific comment (probably not those exact words, but semantically _identical_ posted by him when the Strelka / clone issue first broke.

Dan Corbit wrote:
This is what Fabian said about Strelka:
"No worries as far as I am concerned.
Ideas are not a legal property.
The code was rewritten so it's OK with me.
Tournament organisers might think differently.
I cannot say a definite yes or no ..."

Some programmers found code similarities between Strelka and Fruit; Vasik said that Strelka was R1 beta; Fabien told Corbit that he didn’t mind about Strelka. When was all that?

I’m asking because I would like to know why these accusations take place now and not in the old times of Rybka 1 beta. And whether they are related to other accusations here last week about Rybka giving R2 for free and not showing the true node count. I’m not saying it’s a campaign, but it might very well look like it, with these three simultaneous accusations against Rybka just before China 2008 and immediately after the huge lead of Rybka 3.

By the way, when Vasik said that Strelka was R1 beta, was he referring to the whole program or to parts of it? If to parts of it, the whole accusing syllogism (part of Str = Fr, part of Ry = Str, therefore Ry = Fr) is false, because Strelka could have copied parts of Rybka code different than Fruit. Possible? I'm asking you as programmer. I'm lay.

As for your "Tournament organizers might think differently", Rybka 3.x will play in China, not R1 beta, so I don’t see on which grounds the organizers could object.

Enrique

It is not much of a stretch to believe that R2 has much of the same source as R1. And that R3 has much of the same source as R2. So _if_ R1 is a partial or complete copy of fruit, R1 is automatically GPL code. And unless R2 was 100% rewritten, R2 would also be GPL. Ditto for R3.

So we end up with a direct connection from fruit -> strelka -> rybka 1, with the probable connection of Rybka 1 -> Rybka 2 -> Rybka 3.

I have not been involved in discovering this, I have followed the discussions, and have stated several times that based on the evidence that has been presented, things appear to be a bit off-color. Since the Rybka group are offering no arguments or evidence to the contrary, it would be hard to draw any other conclusion.

You say "_if_" above, and then go on to "probable connection".

Methinks you should be extremely cautious before alleging a connection between R1->R2->R3 and then asserting a problem with R1.

Do you have evidence that R3 has R1 beta code contained within? If not, the comments above are exceptionally dangerous.

[bnemias]

Methinks you should be extremely cautious before alleging a connection between R1->R2->R3 and then asserting a problem with R1.

Do you have evidence that R3 has R1 beta code contained within? If not, the comments above are exceptionally dangerous.

I don't. It's natural to assume later versions are derived from earlier versions. Windows Vista has code in it from 95 to even DOS... Quicken, Photoshop, Nero, Linux, AutoCAD, 7-zip. The list is endless. Maybe it was announced somewhere that 2.x or 3.0 are complete rewrites. But lacking such a statement, it's hardly dangerous to make the natural assumption.