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Subject: Re: Are we still waiting better "amateur" than Crafty?

Author: martin fierz

Date: 20:17:33 05/20/02

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On May 20, 2002 at 04:40:47, Uri Blass wrote:

>On May 20, 2002 at 04:15:14, Jouni Uski wrote:
>
>>I wonder, if there will ever be significantly stronger amateur/free engine than
>>Crafty? With significant I mean 30-50 rating points . Of course ever is very
>>long time... If some engine reaches that performance may be it goes to
>>commercial
>>soon.
>>
>>Jouni
>
>I hope that we never see it.

huh? why not? do you also wish linux didn't exist? would you rather have bill
gates for dictator? :-)

>Crafty is good enough and if there is going to be something clearly better that
>is free then it is going to be a disaster for computer chess.
>I am afraid that in that case part of the programmers of the free programs are
>going to give up and stop develop their program.
why on earth? crafty is much better than 90% of all other free programs, and yet
these guys don't just stop. 400 of 500 elo less than crafty - what difference
could that possibly make?

>I think that everyone who develop something that is significantly better than
>Crafty should sell it or at least make it private and not free.
because of what?

in computer checkers, there are two strong free engines, mine and that of
another guy. for a long time my program was the only strong free engine, but
then ed came along and wrote a very strong engine. this "rivalry" (we are
friends) made both of us work harder on our engine, not less. our engines are
just as good as commercial engines now, and i don't see why we should sell them.
the commercial checkers programs have nicer GUIs (we have something like
winboard), databases with games, support etc. which a free program like mine
will never have. there are still plenty of reasons for buyers to go with the
commercial programs rather than with the ours. if anything, the development of
our free checkers engines has made the commercial guys work harder on their
programs and people get more value for the money they spend - what's wrong with
that?

aloha
  martin



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