Don wrote:
There is a reason why each program should be unique. If you want to have a side tournament of Ivahoe clones, that might be fun for you but it wouldn't be very meaningful.
It really seems you want to have a tourney where Komodo is clearly the strongest (and it is not generally). You start your argumentation about 20 clones of IvanHoe participating, then you end by having 0 strong engines besides Komodo participating. Then I propose to ban Komodo too.
Kai
Edit: and all the clones you must call Fruit clones, as of the Rybka-Robbo family, only Fruit is legit forever in your words. Then banning Komodo is as easy as banning Houdini, Komodo is clearly a Fruit (Rybka-Robbo-StockFish) clone (ideas whatever).
Rebel wrote:
2. In the hypothetical case Critter enters then what do you do?
Stockfish would be welcome to such events I am sure. I don't see why you think there would be an issue.
I cannot say what would happen with Critter. Based on what I know about it I would like to see it allowed. Maybe my reasoning is a little twisted but there is no program representing that general family of programs and Richards would be the natural choice. I don't like having that gap. It's not like there is anyone that could come forward to claim it was stolen since everyone except Richard is in hiding. He is not representing it as something it is not. And it would be one of the toughest competitors we would have.
Capital punishment would be more effective as a preventive measure if it were administered prior to the crime.
Don wrote:
There is a reason why each program should be unique. If you want to have a side tournament of Ivahoe clones, that might be fun for you but it wouldn't be very meaningful.
It really seems you want to have a tourney where Komodo is clearly the strongest (and it is not generally). You start your argumentation about 20 clones of IvanHoe participating, then you end by having 0 strong engines besides Komodo participating. Then I propose to ban Komodo too.
Kai
Edit: and all the clones you must call Fruit clones, as of the Rybka-Robbo family, only Fruit is legit forever in your words. Then banning Komodo is as easy as banning Houdini, Komodo is clearly a Fruit (Rybka-Robbo-StockFish) clone (ideas whatever).
I'm not opposed to having ONE program represent the Ippo family, but which one program should that be? The original authors are anonymous, there are numerous forks, so how to work through this?
I have a proposed solution which I just posted.
Capital punishment would be more effective as a preventive measure if it were administered prior to the crime.
Rebel wrote:
2. In the hypothetical case Critter enters then what do you do?
Stockfish would be welcome to such events I am sure. I don't see why you think there would be an issue.
I cannot say what would happen with Critter. Based on what I know about it I would like to see it allowed. Maybe my reasoning is a little twisted but there is no program representing that general family of programs and Richards would be the natural choice. I don't like having that gap. It's not like there is anyone that could come forward to claim it was stolen since everyone except Richard is in hiding. He is not representing it as something it is not. And it would be one of the toughest competitors we would have.
I think that it is better to use houdini as representing the IPPO family for the simple reason that houdini is stronger than Critter.
Rebel wrote:As you know last year the Dutch became world champion baseball. For Americans that's a joke, and right they are.
But that is an amateur World Championship, right? And everyone knows that. The best Dutch players were also not participating in the Dutch team, because they play as professionals in the U.S. (Btw, the U.S. professional baseball championship is called the 'World Series', which is a real joke, as only North American teams participate...)
Note that in the WCCC there is no such limitation; professionals (commercial engines) and amateurs can both participate. The commercials just pay a somewhat larger entry fee. But that is actually to their advantage, because it means that amateurs with no chance of winning still pay for part of the costs of the event.
A world championship is only a world champion if the best players (teams) participate. Occasionally it may happen some players (teams) are absent but when it becomes chronic the title loses its value. A world champion soccer tournament without Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Italy and Spain is no world championship.
The ICGA made a fundamental choice, whether you agree with that choice or not the yearly WCCC is now a second division tournament not worthy to be called a world championship. And they knew that when they made that fundamental choice.
The ICGA DID indeed make a fundamental choice, one that earned my respect and many others as a result. Look at what their 2 fundamental choices were:
1. Deny Fabien Letouzey fair recourse out of fear and cowardice of losing their top draw in these events.
2. Maintain high standards of integrity by not showing favoritism even though it may have unpleasant consequences.
Maybe point 2 is "old fashioned" to you, but not to me. I believe in being yielding and making compromises when it doesn't matter and it helps people come together, but I don't believe in making compromises like this which involve trading off integrity out of fear and cowardice. I also believe that in the long run they have not given up anything.
Yes, I know that Vas was a superstar but it's sad that anyone feels that should give him a pass or special treatment and that the needs of Fabien Letouzey should be sacrificed for their personal benefit.
Don, it's not about Vas, nor Fabien. I support all previous ICGA cases of cloning. It's the way the ICGA has interpreted rule #2 and pushed it to its limits to get the desired result 16 programmers demanded and then leaving ALL of us in the dark by not specifying what is allowed and what's not.
I refer to a crucial quote of Mark Lefler: Ed, I think that is the best summary of this whole thing. Vasik took too much in the eyes of the panel.
So apparently the true meaning of rule #2 is that there is an (undefined) limit on the number of ideas you are allowed to take from open-sources. It's not about copying any longer (it always was) but the volume you take of common (non-copyrightable) chess knowledge idea's found in every decent chess program is suddenly a major issue.
And so open sources are hijacked by the ICGA to serve as a model and be careful you don't take too much. Problem is, there NEVER was (and still is) no definition of "too much".
This is a scaring scenario for newcomers, especially when you are good. I can perfectly imagine why the Vida's and Stockfishes of our time won't show up although they might have other reasons.
You keep saying this is about "taking too many ideas" but it is not. It is about taking too much of Fruit. Ideas and what was discovered in investigating Fruit/Rybka are two different topics. This is not now, and never was about just "taking ideas". It was about taking much more than just ideas.
This is not correct.
Ideas can be translated to code and even without copy and paste if you take all the ideas that are in another program it is going to be translated into an equivalent code that is not allowed.
The exact values that you give to positional factors or to material or the exact definition of positional facrors like mobility and passed pawns are clearly ideas in chess and it is clear that the claim against Vas is that he took too many ideas from fruit(inspite of the fact that Vas did not took all the ideas of fruit or something close to it).
From someone doing programming for 44+ years now, that is simply false. The art of programming is all about taking an idea and expressing it in the programming language of your choice. That is very rarely a 1-to-1 mapping. In the case of a chess program, it clearly is not. I doubt that if you look at a dozen open-source engines that are original works, you will find even null-move or hashing implemented in code that looks identical or nearly-identical. It just doesn't happen.
Exact values are NOT "ideas". An idea might be something like "I am going to evaluate backward pawns. If the pawn is not protected by a pawn, and can't easily be protected by a pawn, I am going to call that backward."
That is a LONG way from code to express that idea, because when you write the code, that simple idea "can't easily be protected" turns into one of MANY different possible expressions depending on how many CPU cycles you are willing to spend vs how much inaccuracy you are willing to tolerate.
I think that the exact definition of backward pawn is also an idea
and there are different ideas how to define "can't be easily be protected by a pawn".
The total result is simply that you are allowed to take ideas if you do not take too many ideas.
Rebel wrote:
2. In the hypothetical case Critter enters then what do you do?
Stockfish would be welcome to such events I am sure. I don't see why you think there would be an issue.
I cannot say what would happen with Critter. Based on what I know about it I would like to see it allowed. Maybe my reasoning is a little twisted but there is no program representing that general family of programs and Richards would be the natural choice. I don't like having that gap. It's not like there is anyone that could come forward to claim it was stolen since everyone except Richard is in hiding. He is not representing it as something it is not. And it would be one of the toughest competitors we would have.
I think that it is better to use houdini as representing the IPPO family for the simple reason that houdini is stronger than Critter.
I do not see that Robert houdart is hiding.
He is hiding behind a deception. The ippo guys are hiding who they are. Everyone is hiding.
Houdart could never be chosen to represent the IPPO family as he does not admit it. I have suggested in the past that Houdart just come clean and be the one to take over the Ippo sources as he is clearly more talented than those guys, at least as a pure engineer. He would not have to get anyone's approval since they don't exist and they don't mind letting people take advantage of them anyway, they could appoint him as their leader by their silence.
Richards code is very much based on these programs, but it's clearly not the same at the source code level - not the same code for sure and not a direct translation either. That of course is just my opinion. It would still be "Critter" and yet would serve to fill the gap - having another strong program in style of those program and yet not those programs.
I think Critter is going to surpass Houdini anyway and even if it doesn't, it's going to be very close - not enough to be a big issue. But why does it have to be the strongest clone to be the one? If someone forks off Komodo and makes it stronger without my permission, they don't get to represent Komodo, I do.
Capital punishment would be more effective as a preventive measure if it were administered prior to the crime.
Don wrote:
There is a reason why each program should be unique. If you want to have a side tournament of Ivahoe clones, that might be fun for you but it wouldn't be very meaningful.
It really seems you want to have a tourney where Komodo is clearly the strongest (and it is not generally). You start your argumentation about 20 clones of IvanHoe participating, then you end by having 0 strong engines besides Komodo participating. Then I propose to ban Komodo too.
Kai
Edit: and all the clones you must call Fruit clones, as of the Rybka-Robbo family, only Fruit is legit forever in your words. Then banning Komodo is as easy as banning Houdini, Komodo is clearly a Fruit (Rybka-Robbo-StockFish) clone (ideas whatever).
I'm not opposed to having ONE program represent the Ippo family, but which one program should that be? The original authors are anonymous, there are numerous forks, so how to work through this?
I have a proposed solution which I just posted.
Rybka 5 would be allowed, besides StockFish, Ippo?
Don wrote:
There is a reason why each program should be unique. If you want to have a side tournament of Ivahoe clones, that might be fun for you but it wouldn't be very meaningful.
It really seems you want to have a tourney where Komodo is clearly the strongest (and it is not generally). You start your argumentation about 20 clones of IvanHoe participating, then you end by having 0 strong engines besides Komodo participating. Then I propose to ban Komodo too.
Kai
Edit: and all the clones you must call Fruit clones, as of the Rybka-Robbo family, only Fruit is legit forever in your words. Then banning Komodo is as easy as banning Houdini, Komodo is clearly a Fruit (Rybka-Robbo-StockFish) clone (ideas whatever).
I'm not opposed to having ONE program represent the Ippo family, but which one program should that be? The original authors are anonymous, there are numerous forks, so how to work through this?
I have a proposed solution which I just posted.
Rybka 5 would be allowed, besides StockFish, Ippo?
Kai
Are you saying Stockfish is not allowed? Are you making up more stuff or do you have a source?
Capital punishment would be more effective as a preventive measure if it were administered prior to the crime.
