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Subject: Re: Unauthorized use of Rebel books

Author: Georg v. Zimmermann

Date: 02:22:06 05/02/02

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Hi Russell,

IMHO Jeroen is very right to complain. You might not realize it, but what you
are saying sounds a bit arrogant towards someone who has been working on this
for 14 years.

I dont know what you do for a living. Lets imagine you are an engineer who
constructs say shifting gears for daimler-chrysler. And you have been doing that
for a long time. Now some chinese car manufacturers start dublicating your
design. You complain about it. And the response you get is "why if its that
important for you you shouldnt have been constructing shifting gears".

A lot of people seem to fail to understand the difference between holding
copyright over an opening and a book. You obviously cant copyright an opening.
So if you for example play 1000 of automated games in one opening against Rebel,
and create a book from that, thats ok. But a book is a lot more. It is a
collection of openings, the weight of different lines, the ? and !s.

Remember, you cant copyright a chess game either. But you can copyright the
annotations. This is the same thing.

I feel pity for everyone who needs to steal other people's work just to boost
his ego.

Regards,
Georg




On May 01, 2002 at 13:05:35, Russell Reagan wrote:

>On May 01, 2002 at 03:24:25, Jeroen Noomen wrote:
>
>>On April 30, 2002 at 23:39:45, Russell Reagan wrote:
>>
>>
>>From this posting I can see that you have no idea what work is involved into
>>making a really good openingbook. Do you really assume it is that easy? Just
>>take a couple of games, melt them together and eureka, we have a good book?
>>
>>Just attend to my home one time, and I will show you what work and knowledge
>>REALLY is necessary.
>
>I'm not trying to say that you didn't put hard work into making an opening book.
>My point was that if you didn't do it because you enjoyed doing it (IE that you
>didn't enjoy it SO MUCH that you are going to get all bent out of shape when
>someone that didn't give you money for it uses it) then maybe you shouldn't have
>been doing it in the first place.
>
>Crafty is a perfect example. Bob has done what he does, and he isn't selling it.
>When someone uses Crafty without paying him for it, he doesn't get all bent out
>of shape because he made his program for everyone to look at and learn from,
>among other uses such as his research.
>
>My point was that something like this isn't something you should be selling for
>financial gain. Aside from that, since you did choose to sell your opening book
>for financial gain, you should also realize that the distribution of it is well
>beyond your control, and letting yourself get upset about something that you
>have no control over isn't a very good way to live life.
>
>I'm sure the work you put into your opening book was quite strenuous, I never
>said it wasn't.
>
>I don't think it's right for people to steal your work, but at the same time you
>shouldn't be getting all upset about it. That's like the girl who goes to a
>party where there is alcohol and drugs and "questionable" people there and she
>ends up getting raped. It's not right that she was raped, but if she was really
>concerned with her well being then maybe she shouldn't have been at the party in
>the first place.
>
>Russell



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