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Subject: Re: Bionic Vs Crafty Debate: some data required

Author: KarinsDad

Date: 13:44:46 01/27/99

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On January 27, 1999 at 15:12:58, Fernando Villegas wrote:

[snip]

>>As for thinking that it was cosmetic refurbishing, I do not. I think Albrecht
>>and his team put a lot of work into their code. They changed the evaluation
>>functions to correspond to Bionic's evaluator and they put in a pre-evaluator
>>(which I also have planned for my program). From what I have read, they have
>>done a tremendous amount of work, however, (also from what I have read), they
>>did not drastically modify the search engine or the SMP code. Since they did not
>>get Robert's permission, this implies (and is obviously not proof of anything)
>>that a copywrite infringement was made.
>
>
>Wait:
>a) If they put a lot of effort and changed evaluation functions,. I would say
>that's enough to talk of another program

I have never said that it is not a different program. I have never even said
that the clones are not different programs, since some of them have changes
incorporated and hence, are minimally different versions of the same program. I
said that using the Crafty source as a baseline for a program in a tournament
was unauthorized.

>b) Yes, they kept the search function, but -am not sure- that fraction could be
>considered as a kind of general tool as alfa-beta, prunning, etc are. Specially
>would be so if the author, as he has did, made it available.

The SMP portion of the search algorithm cannot in any sense of the word be
considered a general tool. Very few programs outside of Crafty have SMP support
and SMP support is a MAJOR mechanism for strength increase.

Even without considering the SMP code, your a) and b) are irrelevant. The degree
of changes does not matter unless every line of code is changed and only the
ideas are used. Since this was not done, I still maintain my position on this.

KarinsDad

PS. The following questions are also irrelevant to the discussion, but I am
still curious. Fernando, have you ever written a chess program? If so, can you
not comprehend Robert's dismay that a portion of his copywrited code (and a
major piece of work it is) was used to defeat opponents in a tournament without
his permission?



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