Author: KarinsDad
Date: 14:20:48 01/25/99
Go up one level in this thread
On January 25, 1999 at 16:38:05, Fernando Villegas wrote: >On January 25, 1999 at 16:06:57, Dann Corbit wrote: > >>The program is known to be a clone, in fact the web site acknowleges as much. >>As far as how much was changed, the only way to know is either: >>1. Trust the one who changed it to tell you >>2. Look at the changes yourself (if made public) >> >>Depending on how two different opening books were prepared, crafty will play >>very differently. I could easily change one or two things in the eval function >>by 1% and make crafty play different moves once in a while. Just running some >>games won't be much of a demonstration one way or the other. > > >That's precisely what I have said. The example of the queen value in CM6000, >etc. But at the end what we have here is a debate about what is the parameter >to define the change of a thing to another thing, in the first place. If >perfomance is the answer, then even the more insignificant code change that >affects dramatically the perfomance could be considered as enough to talk of >another program. Sound weird, but is logical. And if the change of the source >code is the parameter, then, as Ulrich said, emerges the fantastic problem of >how much is or not an autentic change. >My point of view is that, no matter how much ugly is to use work made by another >people, if that work is public and so is part of the general available resources >of the community, then it can be used and changed as you wish and it is not your >problem if other guys are not using it because they prefer to start from >scratch. This last people can say that is not fair to compete in that way, but >that is ridiculous. May I blame a guy that compete with a car that has the >conventional 4 times engine and 4 wheels if I try to win the race with a bike >with a washing machine engine? Every guy can use and change Crafty engine as >every guy can use and change the already known alfa-beta techniques or whatever. I disagree. What happened is like taking a Ferrari, giving it nitrous, and saying, "This is my new Zipcar. It's faster than a Ferrari. I do not sell it to anyone, but I race it in prestigious events. Oh, and I put different tires on it too!". Using published ideas, published code snippets, and published algorithms within a set of code which you yourself wrote is drastically different than taking someone else's source program (regardless of whether it is freeware, it is still copywrited) and modifying it somewhat (to what degree, we do not know) and then using it in a tournament. It's a moral (and possibly legal) issue and not a public domain issue. KarinsDad PS. I do not think of this position as being "ridiculous" (as per your statement above), just different than yours. >Creafty is part of the universal knowledge of chess programming thanks to the >generosity of Bob and the fact that Bob is not a photo in an encyclopedia or a >note in a biography of genuses, but a real being that chat with us, does not >change a bit the things. Yes, maybe we can blame the authors of Bionic for >supporting too much his creature in the arms of Bob, but, again, how much is too >much? >Fernando
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