Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 15:31:58 03/06/01
Go up one level in this thread
On March 06, 2001 at 13:27:06, Severi Salminen wrote: >>What you say is true, but Severi was not referring (I think) to reinvent the >>wheel but more to "cut and paste" code and then modify it. >>In science you repeat many times a recipe, but you do not use the same >>reagents that the original author. >>I partially agree with him. That is why all the code in my program has been >>written by me. However, I did not reinvent the wheel, I listened to this >>group (when I started was r.g.c.c.), I read the little things that are available >>on the net and then I implemented them with _my_ code. Was this the most >>efficient way? I have no idea... maybe not, but it fulfilled my goals. > >Yes, this is exactly the point. The reason why I pointed this out was that a few >months ago someone tried to get credit with a "modified" TSCP. He had only (as >far as I know) altered a few parameters, like piece values, changed the name and >started the hype. That is what I do not like at all, and without any sources >available this would not have happened. Not that it offended me somehow but I >feel bad when someone takes credit from others' work. But this is not about >ideas and techniques but about pure code which is copied or only slightly >modified. This has happened several times in the case of Crafty as well. IE Le Petite was one well-known copy that claimed to be a brand-new program. There is another one I discovered a month or so ago but the name escapes me right now, but someone here was beta testing it and noticed it looked a lot like crafty when they fired it up in a dos window. Of course, this nonsense also happens in science, and is the reason for existing patent law. And there are lots of patent infringement cases going on all the time... > >But to be more precise: I don't like the fact that there are _complete_ sources >available. It would be better to have partial examples (like the structure of >normal search()) available, or a Computer Chess FAQ. This way new programmers >would know where to start but they would still use their own brains to actually >make things work. This all is about copyright. I agree to a point. But for many people, they don't have the time to write a whole program. But they do have ideas to try, and in the case of crafty, a few good ideas from others have made it into the program. Ideas that might not have been possible had the person first had to write a complete program before he could test the idea... > > >>So, it is good to copy few things... > >I must admit that I also have peeked to Crafty sources when I programmed SEE. I >really had no idea where to start and got plenty of ideas there. > >>One little point that I disagree with Severi is that "cutting and paste" >>does not hurt creativity in this field, because most people that do that >>do not have the time to do it in any other way. So, they wouldn't be doing >>any chess programming at all. > >That is partially true, partially not. If there had not been any sources >available, some of the people who would have "cutted and pasted" would have >instead started from scratch and maybe inented something new. But on the other >hand now when we _have_ sources available we have more programmers trying things >and get maybe new ideas that way. > >Severi
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