Author: Uri Blass
Date: 06:34:13 09/19/02
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On September 19, 2002 at 09:27:10, Russell Reagan wrote: >On September 19, 2002 at 08:58:52, Uri Blass wrote: > >>I prefer to see it as commercial program. >>If it becomes freeware then it is possible that part of the programmers are >>going to stop working on their program. >> >>I think that it increases the chances that we will never see a new Gandalf or a >>new Hiarcs because if they are not better than a free program they cannot earn >>enough money from it so they may give up programming. >> >>I think that doing programs that are too strong freeware is not productive for >>computer chess. > >I think the opposite is true. You are thinking about this from a lazy mindset >(I'm not saying you are lazy, though). The authors of Gandalf and Hiarcs should >not think, "Ruffian is better than our engine, so we give up." They should >think, "A free engine is better than our engine. We need to work harder and get >better!" > >Having a better free engine will force the top commercial authors to work >harder. I don't think Ruffian should be released commercially just because it's >better than some commercial engines. I think what most people like about >commercial products is that they are "nicer", and more user friendly. For >example, if I had a choice between Fritz run under Winboard, or Chessmaster with >it's nice GUI, I'd take Chessmaster any day. Plus Chessmaster has more extra >goodies besides just a good engine. In other words, there are a lot of extra >features that go into making a commercial chess program successful than just the >strength of it's engine. > >Maybe I'm wrong, but I think Chessmaster sells more than Fritz, even though >Fritz is stronger. There is a reason for that. > >Russell Deep Fritz also cost more money than chessmaster. The question is not the number of buyers but how much money the author gets from the engine. I think that the authors of good chess engines usually have no time to care also about the interface and if the interface is the main reason for the sales they get only small part of the money from selling the engine. Uri
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