Eman chooses to cease distribution to comply with GPLv3

[Sopel]

https://cumnor-chess-server.com/phpbb/v ... ?f=9&t=479

That is when Eman started attracting the attention of some of my friends who asked me for a copy of Eman. Those friends never cared if Eman code is included with the binary or not.

But I DO. I hold some copyright and I DO care whether you preserve my authorship or not, I DO care whether you comply with the license or not. This is something that any one of more than a hundred Stockfish developers could say. The license is to protect the copyright holder, not the end user. And it's not even hard to follow, just show a bit of decency.

It's despicable that people knowingly violate the license by removing all signs of authorship. The Eman case has been even more blatant than Fat Fritz 2 or Houdini, but since it was distributed for free and has a small reach many gave it a pass. Now Eman's author forced to comply with the license chooses to cease distribution (the alternative being to release the source). Though I must say I'm happy that it was resolved in some way, I would have preferred the other solution, for the overall benefit of the chess community (however I doubt if the license will be respected in the distribution to "friends").

From how it went it's easy to see that it's one of the "I'm not doing shit until you force me. And if you force me it's you who's the bad actor, now I HAVE TO stop distributing my hobby project" situations. Many people seem unaware of any wrongdoing, and I think that's part of the issue - people allow this to happen because they either don't care, or do care but still prefer to take advantage of it. Some even defend it - https://cumnor-chess-server.com/phpbb/v ... ?f=9&t=480.

Everyone who uses such engines is just as guilty as the people who distribute them. Either follow the license as required or don't use the software, it's as simple as that, and no amount of "hobby" or "good will" will offset that. If you don't respect the people who allowed you to produce your software no one should respect you.

I write this because it saddens me when people compare our pursuit for our rights to some kind of a holocaust of Stockfish clones.

[AndrewGrant]

https://cumnor-chess-server.com/phpbb/v ... ?f=9&t=479

That is when Eman started attracting the attention of some of my friends who asked me for a copy of Eman. Those friends never cared if Eman code is included with the binary or not.

But I DO. I hold some copyright and I DO care whether you preserve my authorship or not, I DO care whether you comply with the license or not. This is something that any one of more than a hundred Stockfish developers could say. The license is to protect the copyright holder, not the end user. And it's not even hard to follow, just show a bit of decency.

It's despicable that people knowingly violate the license by removing all signs of authorship. The Eman case has been even more blatant than Fat Fritz 2 or Houdini, but since it was distributed for free and has a small reach many gave it a pass. Now Eman's author forced to comply with the license chooses to cease distribution (the alternative being to release the source). Though I must say I'm happy that it was resolved in some way, I would have preferred the other solution, for the overall benefit of the chess community (however I doubt if the license will be respected in the distribution to "friends").

From how it went it's easy to see that it's one of the "I'm not doing shit until you force me. And if you force me it's you who's the bad actor, now I HAVE TO stop distributing my hobby project" situations. Many people seem unaware of any wrongdoing, and I think that's part of the issue - people allow this to happen because they either don't care, or do care but still prefer to take advantage of it. Some even defend it - https://cumnor-chess-server.com/phpbb/v ... ?f=9&t=480.

Everyone who uses such engines is just as guilty as the people who distribute them. Either follow the license as required or don't use the software, it's as simple as that, and no amount of "hobby" or "good will" will offset that. If you don't respect the people who allowed you to produce your software no one should respect you.

I write this because it saddens me when people compare our pursuit for our rights to some kind of a holocaust of Stockfish clones.

Agreed on all points. The existence of such well documented and heavily developed GPLv3 engines is a miracle. It really is a small ask that people carry on the rights of the project. I have no sympathy for the "Hobby" project. If not for the GPLv3, your hobby project would not exist.

In a more negative view -- I also think its the case that people don't share the source because they don't want people to know just how little impact they have on it. Most all the "popular" Stockfish forks are just a few added useful tools like saving the hash, openings books, and other minor changes that do not impact strength or style.

[RubiChess]

You have an account in this forum, maybe you should post a copy of this in the "Hell of a run my man" thread.

PS. Some fun about this topic in a german forum: https://forum.computerschach.de/cgi-bin ... ?tid=12409

[AndrewGrant]

You have an account in this forum, maybe you should post a copy of this in the "Hell of a run my man" thread.

Oof, that is a special place, to make Stockfish authors the bad guys, for asking that you follow the license.

[supersharp77]

You have an account in this forum, maybe you should post a copy of this in the "Hell of a run my man" thread.

Oof, that is a special place, to make Stockfish authors the bad guys, for asking that you follow the license.

http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=77819

http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=77762

http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=77807

Make The Stockfish "Authors" The Bad Guys? Umm...Methinks Stockfish which is a Clone Of Glaurung....Chasing down and Harassing Authors of Stockfish Clones..Clearly make them "THE BAD GUYS'......Meanwhile Notice in this forum its always the Other Guys who are the Villains in the Ridiculous Charade....And very few .almost no one is Interested in The MONOPOLY POWER of STOCKFISH....They use "Open Source" to cover themselves....That is all...

[amanjpro]

You have an account in this forum, maybe you should post a copy of this in the "Hell of a run my man" thread.

Oof, that is a special place, to make Stockfish authors the bad guys, for asking that you follow the license.

http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=77819

http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=77762

http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=77807

Make The Stockfish "Authors" The Bad Guys? Umm...Methinks Stockfish which is a Clone Of Glaurung....Chasing down and Harassing Authors of Stockfish Clones..Clearly make them "THE BAD GUYS'......Meanwhile Notice in this forum its always the Other Guys who are the Villains in the Ridiculous Charade....And very few .almost no one is Interested in The MONOPOLY POWER of STOCKFISH....They use "Open Source" to cover themselves....That is all...

Do you think it is ok to violate someone else's license? Regardless of who is the someone else?

[Sopel]

You have an account in this forum, maybe you should post a copy of this in the "Hell of a run my man" thread.

Oof, that is a special place, to make Stockfish authors the bad guys, for asking that you follow the license.

http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=77819

http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=77762

http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=77807

Make The Stockfish "Authors" The Bad Guys? Umm...Methinks Stockfish which is a Clone Of Glaurung....Chasing down and Harassing Authors of Stockfish Clones..Clearly make them "THE BAD GUYS'......Meanwhile Notice in this forum its always the Other Guys who are the Villains in the Ridiculous Charade....And very few .almost no one is Interested in The MONOPOLY POWER of STOCKFISH....They use "Open Source" to cover themselves....That is all...

It's hard to read through your insanity but you seem not to understand the purpose of having a license.

[CMCanavessi]

Make The Stockfish "Authors" The Bad Guys? Umm...Methinks Stockfish which is a Clone Of Glaurung....Chasing down and Harassing Authors of Stockfish Clones..Clearly make them "THE BAD GUYS'......Meanwhile Notice in this forum its always the Other Guys who are the Villains in the Ridiculous Charade....And very few .almost no one is Interested in The MONOPOLY POWER of STOCKFISH....They use "Open Source" to cover themselves....That is all...

Maybe you missed that part of history in which one of the original Stockfish devs, Tord Romstad, was also the Glaurung author...

Quoting the man himself:

It is not quite precise to say that Glaurung has been renamed to Stockfish. Stockfish is a different branch of the evolutionary tree, originally started by Marco Costalba during a period in which I was not doing computer chess, and had no time to add his suggested improvements to Glaurung. After I got back to programming again, Marco and I exchanged ideas and experiences for a while, and exchanged source code of development versions. Some code and ideas were transfered from one branch to the other, in both directions. Gradually, as the two branches diverged more and more from each other, this became more difficult, and felt more and more pointless. What's the point in maintaining two separate branches, instead of working together on a single one? We therefore decided to join our efforts (together with Joona Kiiski, who is also a very valuable member of the team) and work on a single engine. Because Stockfish was the more advanced engine at the time, it was the obvious branch to use as the starting point for the cooperation. The Glaurung branch is dead. There will never be a Glaurung 2.3, but there will be a Stockfish 1.5 in the near future.

[supersharp77]

You have an account in this forum, maybe you should post a copy of this in the "Hell of a run my man" thread.

Oof, that is a special place, to make Stockfish authors the bad guys, for asking that you follow the license.

http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=77819

http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=77762

http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=77807

Make The Stockfish "Authors" The Bad Guys? Umm...Methinks Stockfish which is a Clone Of Glaurung....Chasing down and Harassing Authors of Stockfish Clones..Clearly make them "THE BAD GUYS'......Meanwhile Notice in this forum its always the Other Guys who are the Villains in the Ridiculous Charade....And very few .almost no one is Interested in The MONOPOLY POWER of STOCKFISH....They use "Open Source" to cover themselves....That is all...

It's hard to read through your insanity but you seem not to understand the purpose of having a license.

Your The genius Right? What your definition of Open Source? " The Blind Man See's Only What He Wants To See"
Thats The Problem with these Self Appointed Authorities....

[Sopel]

You have an account in this forum, maybe you should post a copy of this in the "Hell of a run my man" thread.

Oof, that is a special place, to make Stockfish authors the bad guys, for asking that you follow the license.

http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=77819

http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=77762

http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=77807

Make The Stockfish "Authors" The Bad Guys? Umm...Methinks Stockfish which is a Clone Of Glaurung....Chasing down and Harassing Authors of Stockfish Clones..Clearly make them "THE BAD GUYS'......Meanwhile Notice in this forum its always the Other Guys who are the Villains in the Ridiculous Charade....And very few .almost no one is Interested in The MONOPOLY POWER of STOCKFISH....They use "Open Source" to cover themselves....That is all...

It's hard to read through your insanity but you seem not to understand the purpose of having a license.

Your The genius Right? What your definition of Open Source? " The Blind Man See's Only What He Wants To See"
Thats The Problem with these Self Appointed Authorities....

Now it has become too hard to read through your insanity.