Author: Uri Blass
Date: 00:59:33 08/23/05
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On August 23, 2005 at 03:27:31, David Mitchell wrote: >On August 23, 2005 at 00:44:33, Cesar Contreras wrote: > >>"Clone" it's just a moral word. It seams to be intended to distinct "original" >>from "not original" chess engines. Useless today in my opinion. Maybe a diferent >>word can serve that good purpose for some more time. >> >>The fact it's that this diference don't exist anymore, most programs are pretty >>unoriginal altought some have more original touches than others. >> >>So originality came in the form of some "touches of originality". >> >>I see some similarities with "moralily" or "good behavior": >> >>* Nobody really know what does "clone" means >>* Every chess programmer is afraid being named a "cloner" >>* If you defend a cloner be ready to be named a "cloner" >>* If you discover a cloner, be ready to be named "X the just" >>* Every programmer it's tempted to "clone" >>* Everybody it's ready to punish the "clonner" >>* Every new strong engine on town must "hide something" >>* "Clone" meaned one thing 2 years ago, now means something diferent, it's like >>a fashion thing. >>* Things that some years ago meaned "to clone", now are bean threated with more >>open mind. >>* Everybody agree clonning it's bad (except some freaks out there). >> >> >>My conclusion. >> * Typical nonsense human behavior. >> * Legality must be well defined, it's just wrong to punish someone for >>something that undefinied. >> >>PD. I hope this is not copyrigthed. > >A "clone" is obviously just a coined word to mean "a copy or non-original" work. >To actually research all about computer chess, you obviously would want to >thoroughly inspect every strong (and some weak, as well), source code listing. > >But taking Fruit and "translating" it (and apparently Uri doesn't know that >programs have been written that already do that, to varying degrees of success, >so it's no big deal), into another language, and making an "alternate" >evaluation, is much MORE than "fair use", by any legal term. > >Presenting such a program as your own work, is just plagerism, and copyright >infringement. If Uri says it's "Movei based on Fruit", or "Movei, an enhanced >Fruit chess program", then he might be OK, imo. But he wouldn't be eligible to >compete in "no clones allowed" tournaments. > >Common sense tells us that just because lots of cars have 4 wheels and V-8 >engines, that doesn't mean they're all "clones". (OK, some are pretty close, but >that's beside the point, here)! But clearly, taking a Tom Clancy novel and >adding your own "alternate ending", doesn't let you pass your "new book", off as >your own book. No way. > >Uri seems to have an unlimited number of ways to rationalize his desire to >produce a Fruit clone, but his arguments in favor of it, are just laundry out >blowing in the breeze. There's not a whiff of sense to any of them. > >No matter WHAT he adds or subtracts from Fruit, his new program, will include >code largely derived from, and based on, Fruit. As long as he knows that, and >presents it as such (like Toga's author does), I have no problem with it - in >fact I think it's a good thing. We might all learn what happens to Fruit with a >little tinkering Movei-style. Fine! > >But please, don't call it an original program, because clearly it's not - it's a >"clone". I can say the following about the latest version of movei. 1)I learned Fruit king attack and king shelter and I think that I understood it. 2)I added a function to calculate almost the same evaluation as fruit with small differences(no copy and paste because I have a different data structure). 3)I tested the version with fruit's evaluation and I found it to be probably weaker than original Movei because it tends to play some unsound sacrifices(Fruit does not play it probably because of other terms that I still did not learn). 4)I decided to divide fruit's evaluation by 2 and again it seems that the new version is weaker. 5)I decided to add movei original king safety evaluation to half of something that is close to fruit's king safety evaluation and it seems that the result is that the thing plays better(not sure because I do not have enough games). I am not sure if I need to delete all of what I did and to accept the fact that my evaluation will always not have some knowledge that fruit has in order to be allowed to play in tournaments. I discussed about the extreme case of copying all Fruit's evaluation because I am afraid that if I continue to do it with other parts of fruit I may be considered to be a cloner of fruit and not allowed to participate with movei in tournaments. Uri
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