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Subject: Re: Bionic vs Crafty, once again

Author: blass uri

Date: 02:14:24 01/24/99

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On January 24, 1999 at 03:31:48, Ed Schröder wrote:

>>Posted by Johan Havegheer on January 23, 1999 at 18:16:45:
>
>>>This is wrong.  The version of bionic that playedin the first 1/2 of the
>>>Dutch tournament matched crafty _exactly_.  Every move of every game except
>>>for 1 or 2.
>
>>>But that isn't nearly so important as one key thing they 'get'... that being
>>>a parallel search that no one else has.  Which gives them a 2x-3x speed boost
>>>over everyone else.  So to say 'it isn't crafty' is baloney.  A few eval changes
>>>don't make a new program.  I've also pointed out that anybody that takes the
>>>crafty source is _required_ to make that source public as part of the freeware
>>>project.   They've never done this.  IE I'd like to see a source version
>>>released that will _exactly_ match the Dutch tourney moves.  _then_ we could
>>>_know_ what is different.  They were going to do this, supposedly.  But nothing
>>>has been done.
>
>>There !!! never !!! has been a change in the program version during the dutch
>>championship. Hans gived me a copy of Bionic on the last day and i did some
>>tests to prove that Bionic IS CERTAINLY different from Crafty.
>>I took the first 15 positions off the CCC III tests. (downloaded from the
>>rebel site). Here are the results :
>
>>AMD-K6-2-300 64Mb SDRAM
>>3min/move
>>
>>        Bionic Impakt                   Crafty 15.20
>>Testnr  Move    Score   Depth   Move    Score   Depth
>>
>>1       Bd3     0,57    11      Re1     0,31    11
>>2       Nd4     0,21    11      Re3     -0,06   11
>>3       Qc2     -0,07   10      Qc2     -0,25   10
>>4       Bh6     0,07    11      Bh6     0,22    12
>>5       dxe6    -0,54   11      Kh1     -0,66   11
>>6       h5      -1,78   11      h5      -1,56   11
>>7       …Kh7    0,56    10      …Kh7    0,53    10
>>8       …b5     -0,54   11      …b5     -0,24   10
>>9       …Qe7    0,95    11      …Qe7    0,57    12
>>10      …Ne5    -0,32   10      …Re8    0,07    10
>>11      d5      0,64    10      Bg5     0,48    9
>>12      e6      0,56    12      e6      0,51    11
>>13      Ng3     -1,62   9       Ne7+    -1,51   10
>>14      Nxf5!   -0,58   11      Rxe8+   -1,81   10
>>15      Ne5     0,54    11      b3      0,28    11
>
>>Bionic plays another move than Crafty in 8 testes on 15 !!!!
>>Sorry for my rather weak English.
>>
>>Johan Havegheer (Bionic test team)
>
>
>Hans, Johan you have my sympathy whatever Bob says in defence.
>Fact is Crafty source code is freeware. Freeware is freeware. If Bob
>(or others) don't like the negative side effects of freeware then don't
>release it as freeware.
>
>If people pick Crafty's sources, make their own changes and give
>the program an own name then that's perfectly legal. Adding all
>kind of demands to the license agreement are not necessarily
>binding.
>
>As far as I understand Dutch law it is perfectly legal to pick
>Crafty's source-code, make changes, build an own GUI and
>sell it. This might differ from country to country I don't know.
>
>The only thing Bob has a right to demand is that it should be
>forbidden to release a 100% exact copy of the freeware
>sources and give it a new name and/or sell it.

Are you saying that if you change only one line in the source code of crafty
(for example if you change the value of pawn from 100 to 101) then it is not a
100% exact copy so it is legal to sell it with a new name?

If this is the case then there is no value to the law that it should be
forbidden to release a 100% exact copy and sell it.

I do not understand what is legal and what is not legal.

We agree that if you change everything in crafty then it is a different program
so it is legal.

It is not clear what is the minimal part of the source code you need to change
for doing it legal.

>
>I don't understand all the fuss about this topic. Many programs
>are based on the GNU freeware sources. Never saw discussions
>like this. Why is the GNU status different than Crafty status?
>
>As for tournaments, Crafty or GNU clones should be allowed
>from the juridical point of view as simple as that. I can imagine
>organizers might decide otherwise but they are taking a risk
>concerning the juridical point of view. Freeware is freeware. In
>the Crafty / GNU case all ideas behind the program are made
>public so everybody is allowed to use it. You can not publish
>your ideas in the newspaper and say, "I don't want you to
>use it".

The problem is that if there is a big change only in the evaluation function
then the moves are not going to be identical in big part of the cases so you
cannot know if someone is using something that is almost identical to crafty.

I cannot see a way to force people to obey the law if you forbid doing something
almost identical to crafty.

Uri





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