ACCA stance on Ippo, Robbo and such

[Harvey Williamson]

So if I who knows almost nothing about programming take the GPL code of the latest, strongest, Toga make 1 change that makes it the strongest Toga I will have my own 3000+ elo program that I can enter in an event possibly win a prize and claim I am one of the best Chess Engine authors. I will be back later today with my 3000+ engine

No, you can not. You can only claim to be co-author. But that should not stop you from entering the program in a tournament on behalf of you and the original author, with who you now teamed up.

Team efforts are always a bit fuzzy. What would you do if two authors who had until now cooperated on an engine start to disagree about the direction the development should take, and each start their own fork? Would you accept both of them in a tourney? One of them? Or neither one, unless the other co-signs the registration?

Interesting question. Doch and Rybka 3 both have Larry K as co-author.

[mcostalba]

Or do you think that Vasik, the author of R wanted you and the World to know his code? So far about damages...

I don't know what he thinks and I cannot care less as he, probably, cannot care less what I, you, and all the people here think.

[Rolf]

Or do you think that Vasik, the author of R wanted you and the World to know his code? So far about damages...

I don't know what he thinks and I cannot care less as he, probably, cannot care less what I, you, and all the people here think.

Nice trap you have built for yourself.

- you state you didnt want to harm business interests

- are business interests in accordance with others
stealing code and making it public? No.

- you state you didnt care about a business guy Vas

Moral: if taken stuff from R are in Stockfish (!) then Stockfish authors do in fact harm Vasik's Rybka business!

[Harvey Williamson]

Moral: if taken stuff from R are in Stockfish (!) then Stockfish authors do in fact harm Vasik's Rybka business!

Rolf,

The Robbo code and the Stockfish code are both available - please point to any copied code in stockfish.

[mcostalba]

Moral: if taken stuff from R are in Stockfish (!) then Stockfish authors do in fact harm Vasik's Rybka business!

Are you his employed ? In what role you state what and what not hurts Rybka's buisness ?

[Rolf]

Moral: if taken stuff from R are in Stockfish (!) then Stockfish authors do in fact harm Vasik's Rybka business!

Are you his employed ? In what role you state what and what not hurts Rybka's buisness ?

Scientifical observer (with logic applied!)

[tano-urayoan]

Don't twist his post.
He said "I don't know what he thinks and I cannot care less"

You state he said this: "you state you didnt care about a business guy Vas" which he did not write anything similar to that. Bending post in your favor?

But you said this: "Moral: if taken stuff from R are in Stockfish (!) then Stockfish authors do in fact harm Vasik's Rybka business!"

You as an expert could prove that and ask for the proper retribution. Can you?

[Damir]

Yes Rolf, before you start pointing fingers at other people, why don't you come up with a proof supporting your claims... that something was taken from Rybka and are in SF and RL.
How much of the Rybka code did they copy, and put in their programs. Can you also tell us what lines of the code they used to make their programs stronger ?

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

Moral: if taken stuff from R are in Stockfish (!) then Stockfish authors do in fact harm Vasik's Rybka business!

Are you his employed ? In what role you state what and what not hurts Rybka's buisness ?

Scientifical observer (with logic applied!)

More likely a diagnosed nutcase....

[Eelco de Groot]

Moral: if taken stuff from R are in Stockfish (!) then Stockfish authors do in fact harm Vasik's Rybka business!

Rolf,

The Robbo code and the Stockfish code are both available - please point to any copied code in stockfish.

That some ideas are incorporated since release of version 1.6 is no secret. It is not supposed to be a secret, in my opinion, not anymore.
Maybe even Rolf would have read about it Maybe you have to read between the lines elsewhere to find that this is not denied.

Regards, Eelco

These are the times I really like that SF is open source so that I don't need to stay silently at home while outside is storming but I can answer: "You have the robbo sources and the sf sources, please check yourself (or someone that knows how to do) how well robbo fits in sf"

I won't do the analysis for you also because I am not a third party and someone (like you) could come up saying I am cheating, so please, help yourself

Changes I see:

- midgame and endgame scores packed into single integers (comes directly from Robbo)
- singular extensions using move exclusion (idea directly from Robbo)
- dynamic futility pruning margin depending on movecount (not directly from Robbo I think, but lending some general ideas, even the BSR trick)

- null move reductions (not from Robbo as far as I know)
- rework of how incheck info is passed between functions (nothing to do with Robbo)
- evaluation tuning (nothing to do with Robbo)

Always glad to help

Changes I see:

- midgame and endgame scores packed into single integers (comes directly from Robbo)

...and they don't give even 1 ELO point more, I have reported on this forum already two months ago about this and found there is no increase, we kept the change only because code is cleaner written in this way.

- singular extensions using move exclusion (idea directly from Robbo)

Also this was already reported on the forum, actually by Bob that has "heard of" this idea from someone who privately sent him a message.

But I would ask you to look better because the implementation in Robbo is, in our opinion, inferior to how the idea has been worked out in SF, to be more precise in Robbo there is a setup search to find if position fails low without tt move. In SF we completely skip that costly part and use TT table instead. So my guess is that if/when you and the other closed sources authors will copy this idea you will use the SF implementation has reference and not the robbo one

- dynamic futility pruning margin depending on movecount (not directly from Robbo I think, but lending some general ideas, even the BSR trick)

Actually this is very different from robbo and much more similar to SF 1.5.1 where the move count rule was already in. The BSR trick is really a small thing, not a functional change idea and even nothing that was not already available in literature.

Always glad to help

Thanks, I hope SF sources will help you either

And what I stated as my view on that back at the end of October in somewhat heated words:

I don't know if the question is taboo or even appropriate but I ask anyways out of sheer inquisitive curiosity. With the sources of Ippolit/RobboLito, so called "clones" of Rybka 3, are we any closer to answering such questions and if we are is it acceptable to discuss such questions in public or are these discussions to remain in dark corners or behind closed doors?

Yes please,

Can we have a real open source version of Rybka 3 that has been fully commented, and debugged by the whole army of programmers that have inspected Hippo and its clones. Please spend as much time on this as on inspecting the sources. I know that probably is illegal but the way things have gone that would seem the only good thing that could come out of this. It could never enter any official competition of course, except by Vas. Only owners of an official version of Rybka 3 can use it on Playchess, if that is Vas' choice. He will call it Rybka 3+. Intially he wanted to make Rybka 3+ himself but since everybody seems so willing to lend a helping hand and he got a bit sidetracked himself, I can fully understand it if he would actually consider this. Up to him of course.

And please stop with all the bull about Rybka being a clone of Fruit, I think it is really beyond words that you use this as a justification for treating this different from how you would treat any other market leader to which this had been done. Any issues with a breach of the GPL of Fruit should be taken up with the Free Software Foundation and only they could do something about that. Fabien has given them that right.

Regards, Eelco