Komodo - Rybka in Danger?

[Albert Silver]

3. Is the evaluation funcion really Rybka's property or it was borrowed by Fruit?

Slobo

You know, I looked up the old threads with the claims Rybka Beta was taken from Fruit. And even the 'evidence'. I participated in these discussions at the time, and was wondering now why my memory was that the accusations were pure bunk. Having re-read the threads, I now remember. The 'evidence' was not anything related to Fruit's search or evaluation, rather it was on the UCI code.

Those who were desperate to shoot Vas down, no doubt envious of his achievements, claimed that any code taken was forbidden and unethical. I, and some others, argued that to claim Rybka was a clone of any kind based on UCI code was utterly stupid, since when one speaks of clone, one presumes playing strength, knowledge and ability, not how it sends its moves. One could perfectly well argue that taking the UCI code, if true, was wrong, but not that this constituted proof of any kind that it was a clone.

The accusers then claimed they would present a large sample of proof, but this proof never materialized. We are told there is clear proof, but it is a secret. Secret proof.

As far as I know Vas still has code that is closed source, so he has not way to prove anything publicly without giving away his source code.

Of course nobody seems to think he has that right to keep his own code secret.

Of course he could show you sections of that code, in which case you will say that he faked it.

So you guys are being jerks by demanding that he reveal his proof to you and casting him as a false accuser and unethical. The victim is the unethical one because he will not make his code public to you.

You guys?

I'm from the U.S. Midwest and that is a term in common usage. Is this what your argument comes down to, making fun of someones grammer?

No, my argument comes down to being know as one of Vas's stoutest defenders, as is evident in the post you quoted, and your calling me a jerk.

[Rolf]

You guys?

I think that Don misread your post and your intentions. He therefore edited his reply.

Albert should better learn to read properly! Don made a relative statement which was meant to those _who_ tried to offend Vas with their demands and these people Don called jerks. Not Albert who basically agrees with Don and Vas. The term jerks is of course not nice but liar isnt nice either.

[Rolf]

3. Is the evaluation funcion really Rybka's property or it was borrowed by Fruit?

Slobo

You know, I looked up the old threads with the claims Rybka Beta was taken from Fruit. And even the 'evidence'. I participated in these discussions at the time, and was wondering now why my memory was that the accusations were pure bunk. Having re-read the threads, I now remember. The 'evidence' was not anything related to Fruit's search or evaluation, rather it was on the UCI code.

Those who were desperate to shoot Vas down, no doubt envious of his achievements, claimed that any code taken was forbidden and unethical. I, and some others, argued that to claim Rybka was a clone of any kind based on UCI code was utterly stupid, since when one speaks of clone, one presumes playing strength, knowledge and ability, not how it sends its moves. One could perfectly well argue that taking the UCI code, if true, was wrong, but not that this constituted proof of any kind that it was a clone.

The accusers then claimed they would present a large sample of proof, but this proof never materialized. We are told there is clear proof, but it is a secret. Secret proof.

As far as I know Vas still has code that is closed source, so he has not way to prove anything publicly without giving away his source code.

Of course nobody seems to think he has that right to keep his own code secret.

Of course he could show you sections of that code, in which case you will say that he faked it.

So you guys are being jerks by demanding that he reveal his proof to you and casting him as a false accuser and unethical. The victim is the unethical one because he will not make his code public to you.

You guys?

I'm from the U.S. Midwest and that is a term in common usage. Is this what your argument comes down to, making fun of someones grammer?

No, my argument comes down to being know as one of Vas's stoutest defenders, as is evident in the post you quoted, and your calling me a jerk.

Al, I thought you were a native speaker. Don didnt mean you at all. Try to understand.

[George Tsavdaris]

I wouldn't be accepting posts with personal attacks like this, so you I guess you'd better hope I don't get elected.

Well, indeed I hope so ...

Shut your big mouth!
Hehe i'm just kidding, sorry....

I'm of course with Graham on this one and i would have hoped everybody is. I mean how can it be justified if someone attacks with personal insults against anyone? Where does it help in the discussion? What kind of contribution is to the discussion?
It's completely pointless to make personal attacks of this kind.

You may say that Vas is a liar because this and that. You may say that Vas didn't keep his promise. You may say that you think Vas deceived us because of that fact. You may say that Vas stole Fruit's code based on this and that clue.
But what is the point of saying he is a big moron for example?
No point at all!

Don't you agree?

[Don]

I'm from the U.S. Midwest and that is a term in common usage. Is this what your argument comes down to, making fun of someones grammer?

Albert is actually supporting your stance Don. He believes that Vas has been stiffed also.

Cheers,
Graham.

Apologies to Albert.

I appreciate your point Albert, I had read the "secret proof" as the proof that Vas has but cannot reveal and thought he was being criticized by the group who are attacking the victim.

[Albert Silver]

I'm from the U.S. Midwest and that is a term in common usage. Is this what your argument comes down to, making fun of someones grammer?

Albert is actually supporting your stance Don. He believes that Vas has been stiffed also.

Cheers,
Graham.

Apologies to Albert.

I appreciate your point Albert, I had read the "secret proof" as the proof that Vas has but cannot reveal and thought he was being criticized by the group who are attacking the victim.

I was being sarcastic. It's cool.

[Don]

I agree with you George and my apologies for getting too personal.

I wouldn't be accepting posts with personal attacks like this, so you I guess you'd better hope I don't get elected.

Well, indeed I hope so ...

Shut your big mouth!
Hehe i'm just kidding, sorry....

I'm of course with Graham on this one and i would have hoped everybody is. I mean how can it be justified if someone attacks with personal insults against anyone? Where does it help in the discussion? What kind of contribution is to the discussion?
It's completely pointless to make personal attacks of this kind.

You may say that Vas is a liar because this and that. You may say that Vas didn't keep his promise. You may say that you think Vas deceived us because of that fact. You may say that Vas stole Fruit's code based on this and that clue.
But what is the point of saying he is a big moron for example?
No point at all!

Don't you agree?

[Graham Banks]

To me this has been a terrible injustice to Vas, it's like getting robbed, and then having a different gang of thugs come after you with baseball bats.

Quite well stated actually.

[bob]

Bob,

We can get into technicalities if you want. But I don't want this. What I see is that Vas has been victimized and you and others are demonstrating an outpouring of compassion for the Bully instead of the victim. In the post to me you are calling Vas the unethical one and I think this is shameful.

OK, I hereby claim that your new program is nothing more than a copy of Robo*. I do not believe anyone should test it, use it, refer to it, nor should it be allowed to play in any ACCA/ICGA/CCT tournament event.

BTW, I don't have the time nor the interest to show any proof.

<is that ethical>???

If so, our values are on different ends of the spectrum. If it isn't ethical to make such a claim, then exactly how is the above different from the Rybka3/Robo*/IP* case?

See the problem here?

If not, I can't make it any clearer.

What is wrong is to make false accusations, it is not wrong to identify your attacker. If your wife or daughter were to be physically attacked and she recognized her attacker, I am SURE you would want her to identify that person even if she could not prove it. If she was not sure, then she would be wrong to make accusations. But if she knows, she SHOULD make accusations in a very strong way.

You are missing the point. If she identifies the attacker, it would be on the basis of "I saw him and recognize him to be this person." That is offering eye-witness testimony. Quite a bit different from saying "He attacked me. I didn't see his face or any identifying marks, or anything else, but it was him." Not quite as convincing.

But Vas is sure and has done nothing wrong and it's truly shameful that the victim is being attacked as the unethical one. What else is truly shameful is not respecting his reasons for not wanting to pursue this. What boggles my mind is that everyone expects Vas to stop everything he is doing to come and defend himself and he should do that because you think he should.

Again, if you are unwilling to take step 2 and show some evidence to support the claim, then you should not take step 1 and make the claim in the first place. _that_ is lousy behaviour, any way you cut it. Wouldn't surprise me at all to find that Robo* is a de-compiled Rybka 3. But that doesn't make it a fact, until some sort of evidence is presented. Normally the onus for evidence is on the accuser, not the accused.

Also, you are wrong to claim no evidence was presented. The evidence was very clearly presented but it's been mostly ignored. I'm really disgusted over the whole matter.

I remember seeing YOUR program ripped off and represented as someone else's in past events and you were pretty quick to take those accusations seriously. I remember that those accusations were made and I thought they were made way too quickly (even though they turned out to be true) but I don't remember you having any problem with that.

Show me _any_ example of where I claimed XXX was copied from Crafty without offering rhyme and verse showing exactly where/what was copied. One can find several posts in the Le Petite, Voyager, etc era. But when _I_ made such a claim, it was made with evidence provided to support it, not just a lame statement "this is a copy..."

Well, this stuff was made public by the clones, and anyway Vas had asked me to keep such general eval knowledge confidential for a year, and it's now been a year and a half. Still I won't reveal exact values of terms in R3 even if they are more or less public due to the clones (or "derivatives" if you prefer). I doubt that they would be of much use to a non-clone program anyway, as different programs require different values for terms.

I would like to know something:
1. If only you and Vas had the Rybka 3 code, how did the "cloners" managed to get it ?
2. If Rybka's code is alredy "stealed", why you and Vas don't present evidences that the "cloners" code and the Rybka 3 one is the same?

For what reason should they do this? Every reasonable person already knows that these "clones" are based on Rybka, and whoever is left is not going to be convinced no matter what additional evidence is presented.

I know from my own dealings with people that if someone really want to believe something, no amount of evidence or logic is going to change them.

"Every reasonable person already knows that these "clones" are based on Rybka, "

You mean:
1. I am not a reasonable person because I don't know that these "clones" are based on Rybka;

I apologize for my choice of wording. I don't mean to say that you are an unreasonable person, only that the conclusion you are drawing is unreasonable.

Please understand that I'm not saying you are stupid. I have seen very smart people come to the wrong conclusions based on emotion or some kind of bias. It's part of being human and we are all subject to it.

I don't want to get too psychological here, but humans tend to make judgments based on what they want to believe, not what it actually the case. I personally believe the facts in this case are really obvious and that if you don't see them, you don't want to see them.

The way this works is that if something is presented that you don't like, it's "innuendo" and "opinion" and if you like it, it's "fact" and "evidence."

2. and also that Robert Hyatt is not a reasonable person, because he doesn't know that these "clones" are based on Rybka;

Name dropping to make a point is hardly evidence one way or the other. And even if you take Bob as the ultimate judge or authority on this he said he doesn't know and that is not particularly unreasonable (unless he really looked at the facts and still thinks it is in doubt.)

3. and also that all those who don't know that these "clones" are based on Rybka - they don't know it because Vasic did not provide any evidence in this sense -, are not reasonable persons.

Vas is under no compulsion to provide evidence on this just because you think he should. Is this another example of how you reason on things? To do so would be counter-productive for him. Please tell me WHY he needs to do this, and how it would benefit him. Do you think people will buy Rybka if he reveals that another program is based on Rybka? If he sues do you think it will help his case to reveal his arguments to give his opponents time to prepare? Do you think he should actually reveal his code to the world to make some kind of point that he cannot benefit from? And Vas must surely know that even if he reveals sections of identical or similar code it will not stop unreasonable people from explaining it away. Go the web sites and look at the people who still believe the earth is flat and that the moon landing were faked and you will see exactly what Vas would be dealing with - and then tell me why he should deal with this when there would be no benefit whatsoever in doing so - and in fact would be a huge distraction for him.

Here we are in 100% _disagreement. Vas made the claim that Robo* is a clone. It _is_ his reponsibility to back that up with more than "just because I say so". He could have said nothing, in which case no evidence would be needed, or since he did make the claim, he should have (and still should) provide something to support it.

I find it impossible to believe that you _really_ think it is ok to accuse a program of being a clone, and dropping it there, without any evidence. It boggles the mind.

It's presumptuous and arrogant to believe that Vas must answer to us just because we want a show. In my opinion he is showing wisdom and restraint by just moving on - which is what you and I need to do.

It is "presumptuous and arrogant" to believe that someone should behave ethically? There's a twisted concept...

You know what?

This statement of yours reminded me a short tale called: "The Emperor's New Clothes", by Hans Christian Andersen, about two weavers-crooks who promise an Emperor a new suit of clothes invisible to those who are incompetent or not enough inteligent.

I really hope you are not a programmer-crook, and that what you said was a simple accident, a LAPSUS LINGUAE, because stupidity it was not, for sure.

I think in this case you are being unreasonable again.

[bob]

You guys?

I think that Don misread your post and your intentions. He therefore edited his reply.

Albert should better learn to read properly! Don made a relative statement which was meant to those _who_ tried to offend Vas with their demands and these people Don called jerks. Not Albert who basically agrees with Don and Vas. The term jerks is of course not nice but liar isnt nice either.

However, when the shoe fits...