Author: Miguel A. Ballicora
Date: 12:20:05 04/30/02
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On April 30, 2002 at 14:42:50, Jeroen Noomen wrote: >During the last 6 - 12 months I have noticed a trend that there are very clear >indications that non-commercial programmers of chess programs make use of (parts >of) commercially available books. As I was in Maastricht during the WMCCC in >2001, lots of speculations and complaints were heard about this topic. From >several sources I know that also the Rebel books have been ‘hacked’ by people (I >will not mention their names, I am sure they know themselves whom I am talking >about). As the Rebel books are my lifework I want to put a very clear statement >in this forum. > >The Rebel books have been developped by me during a period of almost 14 years. >Not only is it handmade, it also contains lots of stuff you will not find in >other books. In the past it has happenend a few times that chess programs were >caught as not being made by the programmer himself. Examples are Quick Step back >in 1989, Greif, the several Crafty clones. As we can see from todays rules by >the ICCA, such programs are not tolerated anymore. And in my view this is fully >correct. > >What about the openingbook of a chess program? Of course programs using a very >good book have an advantage over programs using a less good book. Here is a >point where especially the commercially available programs have an advantage. I >need only to name Alex Kure, Sandro Necchi and myself who have produced high >quality books. One thing is sure: These books are wanted, because when using >them, other programs will get the strength of these books as well. > >Of course the copying of books is morally not to be tolerated. You can even call >it piracy. By simply copying (parts of) one of the best books available other >programs suddenly get the same elo boost, without a single second of work to be >done. Also this is very suspect in tournaments: Such programs suddenly have a >big advantage against others, who make their own book and do NOT use this >illegal copying. A trend that is very worrying in my view and also break the >rules of sportmanships. I think that the ICCA should make strict rules for >openingbooks as well. There is a clear rule that it is not allowed to use f.e. a >crafty source code. In this respect IMO it should also be forbidden to use >(parts of) books of authors that have not given permission to use them. > >As far as the Rebel books are concerned: It is very easy for me to verify >whether somebody has stolen parts of my book. If programmers think they can use >my book and hide this from me: Sorry, that will not work. In the past I have >seen this happen and I have taken proper steps. > >I want to make it clear that if I find out (at a tournament or elsewhere) that >somebody is using my book, that I will undertake steps. As far as I am >concerned, such programs are banned from all the important events, or something >like that. I will also suggest such a rule to the ICCA. > >Jeroen Noomen >Bookauthor for Rebel and Chess Tiger I believe that the "bookmaker" is part of the "programmer's team" and it should be recognized as such. So, I fully agree with you but I would take an extra step. Since I believe that the book author is part of the team, and no programmer can be included in more than one team in a given competition, I do not think that it should appropiate to have books from the same author in more than one engine. For instance, the name of a team in a competition should be "Rebel X.X, author: Schroeder book: Noomen". This automatically avoids any other engine to use a Noomen's book in that tournament. Bruce Moreland thinks that this should be also extrapolated to egtb's. Controversial, but he has a very valid point. The more I think about it, the more I agree with him. So, one team could be "Crafty X.X author: Hyatt, book: Hyatt, egtb: Nalimov" Note that this would mean that Tiger won't be able to use a Noomen book if Rebel is present, and Rebel or Tiger won't be able to use the Nalimov's tablebases if Crafty is present (assuming that Nalimov participates as part of the Crafty team as I used in the example). Regards, Miguel
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