Forum's opinion about Norman Schmidt aka Kranium affair

[bob]

Source was not available. There was not a large cadre of open-source programs around to copy from. Nobody seemed to have enough interest to do the work. In the more recent cast, the strelka stuff supplied the source unknowingly.

Unknowingly. By an alleged Russian with unknown identity. Why had nobody interest in re-compiling (?) SHREDDER? How come that even experts tried to insinuate that something with the bank of Chile was called bank robbery when the coup brought the alleged robbers something in the value of Fort Knox which a wealth 10 or 100 times the bank of Chile? Wasnt this for all the influence of the Hand of God? Or how do you explain the miracle of the growth of money? And finally if I am so clever and allegedly robbed the bank of Chile to get the wealth of Fort Knox, can I or should I be called a robber or better a genius? How else do you explain the 200 jump of Rybka rel to Fruit or Crafty?

There have been several "jumps" over the years. Going full-width rather than grossly selective (chess 4.x started this bandwagon). Null-move search. parallel search. forward pruning. variable depth extensions and reductions. Each of which was a major advance. Rybka has just added another discovery, which will be exposed over time as they all are. The problem I have with this mess is that it is far easier to start with a strong program and then come up with a discovery that improves it significantly, as opposed to starting from scratch (as many of us have done) first. There is a _ton_ of work involved to getting to "pretty strong". If you can bypass expending that effort, and then focus only on finding an improvement, things would certainly go faster.

(As I learned all pograms are partially robbed from Craftyanyway but nobody called it robbery. How come? If robbery is the secret of the whole field? If a clear break of the law then why does nobody run to court?)

Conclusion: the whole anti-Rybka debate is the same as if politicians are being called corrupt, in the sense that one can make them do what 'others' want, by lobby, with money. But where's the problem if politics does function this way? Of course this way you can always stir emotions of uninformed or bigot people. But the true principle of representative democracy is the practical business with decision making of favorite politicians.

[slobo]

I have see that on the new chess engine site the work and engines of Norman Schmidt have been banned for good.Even the sites where his engines were located are now inaccessible for further downloads.
What is the opinion in chess community about this state of affair.

Hi Miodrag,

I agree with banning Norman from CTF for some time, not exaclty with six months punishment, but I strongly oppose to the banning of this guy´s work and engines "for good". If he really was banned from some place for good it is an arbitrary and cruel sentence.

We should help that guy, not to persecute him without mercy. And he deserves our help because:

1. he is very talented
2. he likes very much computer chess
3. he gave us many engines to play with (I have not tested neither of them only because I had no enough time)

Regards. Slobo

He has not been banned, he has closed his own site himself.

And, he is not talented at all. What could he come up with? Replacing strings, disabling moduls, changing values of coefficients. Believe me, I could do that myself if I refreshed my rather poor C knowledge.
He did not even know that Crimson could play FRC... hahaha

Well, it was a good one, but...

I would like to see your cloning engines, and then to see you imroving them version after version.

Even if you were without any talent I would apreciate your love for all that your effort to create a better thing.

I appreciate your interest in Norman.
I also think if he is that interested in computer chess he
will carry on and gain more info. in writing a chess program.
Others who have had a interest in chess have gone on
to writing a good program and opening a nice web site.

Best,

Gerold.

Look what Bob says:
"The problem I have with this mess is that it is far easier to start with a strong program and then come up with a discovery that improves it significantly, as opposed to starting from scratch (as many of us have done) first. There is a _ton_ of work involved to getting to "pretty strong". If you can bypass expending that effort, and then focus only on finding an improvement, things would certainly go faster. "

I have no problem with it, because if my source is open it is an invitation to other programers to share my effort. For me the only problem is not sharing of the copyrights.

Gerold, I think more than 70% of all chess engines are not written from scratch, so, why persecute Norman? Another reason is, if sources are open, why we blame cloning?

The only thing we should blame is not sharing of the original author´s copyrights.

Best,

Slobo

[AndrewGrant]

bumping this thread ? Its good to get some historical context (no offense to those who have been around for a decade plus!)

I find the stuff with Fruit / Rybka very intersting. The Ippoloit drama and its extension into Houdini and Fire even more so.

Am I impartial since I was not around during those times? But maybe only those with the most fervent personalities stuck around to have their stories be passed on to me.

[Graham Banks]

bumping this thread ? Its good to get some historical context (no offense to those who have been around for a decade plus!)

I find the stuff with Fruit / Rybka very intersting. The Ippoloit drama and its extension into Houdini and Fire even more so.

Am I impartial since I was not around during those times? But maybe only those with the most fervent personalities stuck around to have their stories be passed on to me.

I was a moderator during those times. It was hell on occasions, as you can imagine.

[Madeleine Birchfield]

I have see that on the new chess engine site the work and engines of Norman Schmidt have been banned for good.Even the sites where his engines were located are now inaccessible for further downloads.
What is the opinion in chess community about this state of affair.

If kranium is supposed to be banned for good then why do I still see him postibg on this forum?

[AdminX]

bumping this thread ? Its good to get some historical context (no offense to those who have been around for a decade plus!)

I find the stuff with Fruit / Rybka very intersting. The Ippoloit drama and its extension into Houdini and Fire even more so.

Am I impartial since I was not around during those times? But maybe only those with the most fervent personalities stuck around to have their stories be passed on to me.

I was a moderator during those times. It was hell on occasions, as you can imagine.

The only thing missing is this ...

[MikeB]

I have see that on the new chess engine site the work and engines of Norman Schmidt have been banned for good.Even the sites where his engines were located are now inaccessible for further downloads.
What is the opinion in chess community about this state of affair.

If kranium is supposed to be banned for good then why do I still see him postibg on this forum?

check the date/time stamps...