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Subject: Re: Please refrain from posting erroneous information

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 13:26:20 12/06/00

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On December 06, 2000 at 13:30:05, Harry Field wrote:

>On December 06, 2000 at 10:52:06, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On December 06, 2000 at 01:20:08, Christophe Theron wrote:
>>
>>>On December 06, 2000 at 00:50:33, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>
>>>>Isn't this the latest fad?  Can you say "deep junior", "deep fritz"?  Care
>>>>to guess where "deep" was first used?  :)  Ie what could be more confusing
>>>>than "deep junior" after there is already a very famous program that went
>>>>by "deep blue junior"???
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>I wouldn't have dared to say it myself. I happen to be in perfect agreement with
>>>you on this topic.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>I'm a big boy.  I don't mind stating the obvious.
>
>Except you happen to be wrong. Big boy.
>

Nice opinion, no proof?


>
>>
>>:)
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Seems to me that borrowing from a "famous name" is quite acceptable,
>>>>wouldn't you think?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>I did not say it is not acceptable or illegal.
>>>
>>>It's just a low commercial practice. And generally used by followers, that's why
>>>I have been disappointed to see Stefan doing it.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>    Christophe
>>
>>
>>I wouldn't begin to claim to know the motivation behind any of the look-alike
>>names.  I simply don't like the idea much.  IE "crafty" is "crafty" whether it
>>is a parallel searcher or a serial searcher.  I don't like any of the following,
>>personally:
>>
>>1.  the name is a proper subset of the name of another program.  IE there is
>>already a program named x y z, and the new name is either x y, x z or y z.
>>
>>2.  the name is an improper subset of the name of another program.  ie there
>>is a program named x y, and the new program is named x z or y z.
>>
>>1 certainly leads to mass confusion.  2 leads to some confusion.  Both seem to
>>be 'strange'...
>>
>>IE on ICC we have had a "deepblue", a "deeperblue".  A "diepblue".  Etc.
>>I don't like any of them.  Since none have Hsu/Campbell/Hoane/etc behind them.
>
>Hsu/Cambell ripped the name "Deep Thought" off from the Douglas Adams book
>"Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". Deep Thought was a computer which was
>supposed to be able to answer the question of life, the universe and everything,
>taking seven million years and producing the answer "42".
>
>Also around at that time, as "big boys" will remember, was the Linda Lovelace
>porn movie "Deep Throat", featuring a prolonged act of oral sex for the "first"
>time on mass release in video porn stores. The name "Deep Throat" was then used
>for the mole in the Nixon administration which was feeding inside informations
>to Woodward/Berstein team reference the Watergate scandal. Whether Deep Thought
>or Deep Throat came first (sic), I don't know. Both came before Hsu and co.
>
>Deep Thought was then renamed Deep Blue for IBM purposes. How your theory that a
>ripped off name could then be 'owned' and further users of it castigated is
>beyond me. Have you an agenda or case to prove?



I don't have anything to prove.  The _first_ chess program to use the name
"deep anything" was deep thought.  IBM then changed the name to deep blue.
That is what I said.  That is _all_ I said.  It is _famous_ as the name of
an Carnegie-mellon development (deep thought) and then an IBM development
project (deep blue).

All quite easy to verify.  I would see no problem with someone naming their
program "HAL" from 2001, because there has _never_ been a chess program
named HAL.  I don't believe that I (or Christophe) castigated anybody.  I
would take issue with someone using the name "crafty" in any form for a name,
although saying their program is a "crafty chess player" would be quite
legitimate.

Don't you find the names a bit "odd"?

We had Deep Blue and Deep Blue Junior, and now Deep Junior and/or deep fritz.

We had gambit tiger, and then "gambit shredder"?

I would think everyone could be more original than that, _if_ they wanted to
be.




>
>
>"Gambit" is a well known chess term and is and has been used left right and
>centre for quite a while. You can purchase chess programs at "Gambitsoft", you
>can purchase "Kasparov's Gambit", there is a "Gambit Tiger", programs now are
>released with "versions" containing Gambit in the name. We know some of you like
>to own everything, but facts right before foot goes in mouth in future, please.
>You are not original.


Based on your arcane argument, no program name is unique.  Yet I would claim
there has _never_ been a program named "blitz", "cray blitz", or "crafty",
except for the ones written by me.  I would also think it inappropriate for
anybody to use those names on a chess program.

My foot is not in my mouth.  And I (nor anybody else I know of) don't want
to "own everything".  But there is no sense in causing confusion, and perhaps
trying to gather a bit of promotional appeal by using a name that is well
known.





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