Author: Fernando Villegas
Date: 14:03:27 01/27/99
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On January 27, 1999 at 16:44:46, KarinsDad wrote: >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? Karinsdad: It seems that we have been discussing different issues from the beginning. I am not here to discuss the right of Bob to be angry or not; I am not discussing his states of mind; I am not blessing the participation of Bionic in a tournament. I am not making judgements about how fair was that participation. No, my issue is: those guys had a right to do what they did, something that has been done before with Crafty, etc, etc. Nothing so amazing or horrible. Yes, they did defeat people with a vey fast device, but that same device was available for the losers. I repeat: you can go to compete with a device made from scratch or you can make good use of public or half public -if you prefer- resources. Crafty is one of those public or half public resoruces and those guys used it; other did not and lost. You know Bob as I know him: if something really ilegal and untolerabvle had been commited, you can bet flames and thunder would be falling over the heads of those people. He is not happy, but he is not that much offset if you are concerned, again, with the mental health of Bob. Finally, I wonder from wehere did you pick that idea that "only" ideas can be extracted from crafty or whatever and that "every" line of code shpld be changed. My God, you are really a fundamentalist. May i introduce you to the Califa of Teheran? Salam ALeikum Fernando
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