Stockfish 1.5.1

[Uri Blass]

Or do you plan do make it commercial one time in the future?

I just realized I forgot to reply to this question. There are no plans of a commercial version of Stockfish.

Perhaps this is a bad idea for you and for computer Chess.

For you because i guess if you make it commercial the number of buyers would be more than zero

That's one of several reasons why it should remain free. Buyers mean support, responsibility, web site design, and having to deal with things like taxes. The only form of compensation I would get is some money, which is irrelevant, because I have a job. Selling a chess program would lower my quality of life without giving me anything in return.

Of course I am only speaking for myself above.

and for computer chess because if there is such a strong program hanging around then authors of commercial programs may feel intimidated about improving their program and even become disappointed, as also buyers of Chess programs will not prefer the commercial with the similar strength with the free one.

Because Stockfish is free, commercial programmers can study it, reimplement the ideas they like in their own programs, and stay ahead.

It is still possible that it will some day be impossible to make significant amounts of money from computer chess, of course. If and when this happens, it is only because chess programming has become sufficiently easy and well understood that hobbyists like us can compete on the same level as professionals. This is a very natural development, and is happening in many fields. Trying to slow down progress in order to prevent it from happening is just silly.

I think that it is clearly easier to give ideas how to improve stockfish then to understand all the ideas in stockfish and do something better.

If hobbyists can compete on the same level as professionals then the reason may be different than the reason that you describe.

The reason may be that the free code is so complex that no commercial programmer has time to understand all of it and I doubt how many commercial programmers really understood stockfish.

If the target is to help computer chess then I think that the best thing is to translate stockfish to english(in other words write some book with english instructions when humans can follow the instructions and do exactly what stockfish does more slowly).

I think that a book like that may be interesting also for chess players who are not programmers.

[Gian-Carlo Pascutto]

Because Stockfish is free, commercial programmers can study it, reimplement the ideas they like in their own programs, and stay ahead.

It is still possible that it will some day be impossible to make significant amounts of money from computer chess, of course. If and when this happens, it is only because chess programming has become sufficiently easy and well understood that hobbyists like us can compete on the same level as professionals. This is a very natural development, and is happening in many fields. Trying to slow down progress in order to prevent it from happening is just silly.

There is some confusion here between commercial engines and professional programmers. There are quite a bit of commercial engines but I don't count more than 4 professionals (Fritz, Shredder, Rybka and Hiarcs).

Competing with the former class is easy because they are hobbyists too. It's a personal choice whether to ask money for your work or not, or whether to open source it or not. You can sell as long as people think you're offering something worth paying for. (Which *is* to some extent determined by the free alternatives).

In the latter class only Rybka is really competing on engine strength.

I do not believe that chess programming is sufficiently easy and well understood that all people can compete at the level of Stockfish. The fact that it's by far the best free engine illustrates this.

[mcostalba]

Competing with the former class is easy because they are hobbyists too. It's a personal choice whether to ask money for your work or not, or whether to open source it or not. You can sell as long as people think you're offering something worth paying for. (Which *is* to some extent determined by the free alternatives).

I don't see open sourcing as a limit for making money out of it.

Personally I am not interested in commercial aspect for the same reasons of Tord, mainly because I have a job and I am happy with it and I like chess programming as long as it remains an hobby for me.

But if I have to think as a marketing manager then, without doubts, I would prefer to ask money for the iPhone version of Glaurung / Stockfish for the following reasons.

1) The numbers are much higher

2) The support software (GUI, book, etc..) is much easier to setup

3) The marketing effort is mostly on Apple shoulders through its network

4) Open sourcing the program does not make it less profitable becasue I don't think an iPhone user compiles the sources and downloads to his iPhone just to save a few bucks.

[Uri Blass]

Because Stockfish is free, commercial programmers can study it, reimplement the ideas they like in their own programs, and stay ahead.

It is still possible that it will some day be impossible to make significant amounts of money from computer chess, of course. If and when this happens, it is only because chess programming has become sufficiently easy and well understood that hobbyists like us can compete on the same level as professionals. This is a very natural development, and is happening in many fields. Trying to slow down progress in order to prevent it from happening is just silly.

There is some confusion here between commercial engines and professional programmers. There are quite a bit of commercial engines but I don't count more than 4 professionals (Fritz, Shredder, Rybka and Hiarcs).

Competing with the former class is easy because they are hobbyists too. It's a personal choice whether to ask money for your work or not, or whether to open source it or not. You can sell as long as people think you're offering something worth paying for. (Which *is* to some extent determined by the free alternatives).

In the latter class only Rybka is really competing on engine strength.

I do not believe that chess programming is sufficiently easy and well understood that all people can compete at the level of Stockfish. The fact that it's by far the best free engine illustrates this.

I think that you forgot Johan de-koning.
Chessmaster is based on his engine and my guess is that chessmaster is clearly more popular than hiarcs or shredder.

Uri

[Gian-Carlo Pascutto]

I did not forget Johan.

His engine is no longer used in the latest ChessMasters.

[El Gringo]

I did not forget Johan.

His engine is no longer used in the latest ChessMasters.

Hi,

Do you mean that the latest chessmaster engine (the king 3.50) is not from Johan De Koning anymore ??

BTW : Do you play with Deep Sjeng in Leiden this weekend ?

Best
Johan

[Gian-Carlo Pascutto]

[
Do you mean that the latest chessmaster engine (the king 3.50) is not from Johan De Koning anymore ??

I guess if the engine is called The King it's still Johan DE KONING's. But I am pretty sure he told me this wouldn't be true for the next version. (Or maybe they changed their minds).

BTW : Do you play with Deep Sjeng in Leiden this weekend ?

Yes, I'll be there. I can ask him what's up I guess as The King is also playing.

[George Tsavdaris]

Perhaps this is a bad idea for you and for computer Chess.

For you because i guess if you make it commercial the number of buyers would be more than zero

That's one of several reasons why it should remain free. Buyers mean support, responsibility, web site design,

Not necessarily i think. You can sell it and say it is offered "as is".

And "as is" in this case means that when Stockfish is sold the seller will not give any support, will not answer any email asking for help and will not have any responsibility of anything happening in buyers PC etc. The web design is also easy to settle as you can create a very simple web design to sell the engine in about an hour or less.
The buyer who buys the product will agree to the as is term and end of case, no responsibilities at all for you.

and having to deal with things like taxes.

Really? I thought there are no taxes for things that are sold via internet, with e.g Paypal or Credit Card methods. I mean who exactly forces you to pay taxes and where to give them? Is there any internet government?
Or the banks keep a certain small amount of money? And if this is true, why it should matter much for you?

It is still possible that it will some day be impossible to make significant amounts of money from computer chess, of course. If and when this happens, it is only because chess programming has become sufficiently easy and well understood that hobbyists like us can compete on the same level as professionals.

Isn't this happening now already(OK Rybka excluded.)?

I also believe that if what you say becomes true and the very top commercial engines are of the same strength with free ones, then it is still possible to make significant amount of money from computer Chess, because i think most buyers do not buy commercial programs because of the engine, but mostly because of the GUI, of the fancy stuff like 3D graphics, tutorials, opening stuff, etc(e.g Chessmaster, Fritz 12, etc).

[BBauer]

Why do you want to make money?
Are you hungry?
Chess is a hobby which can make some people happy.
The same holds for chess programming.

All these many messages over the years like
"Hey Bob, your engine is strong, why don't you go commercial?"
are silly.

To give something to the community is what makes you happy and what helps others.
Stockfish 1.5.1 comes with sources and even with a working Makefile.
It plays strong.
It solves many studies.
It is IMHO a much better analysis tool than free Rybka.
kind regards
Bernhard

[Gian-Carlo Pascutto]

and having to deal with things like taxes.

Really? I thought there are no taxes for things that are sold via internet, with e.g Paypal or Credit Card methods. I mean who exactly forces you to pay taxes and where to give them? Is there any internet government?
Or the banks keep a certain small amount of money? And if this is true, why it should matter much for you?

Are you serious??

For any country in the EU, and probably most countries out there, there exists this thing called taxes. Sellers are expected to collect VAT and pay taxes on their profits. Not doing so is a crime and punishable with jail sentences by whatever government of the country you live in.

In some cases a small amount of underhand sales might be waived depending on the exact country, but in general you can't just sell something over the internet without paying taxes (and collecting VAT).