Author: Danniel Corbit
Date: 09:07:05 10/04/98
Go up one level in this thread
On October 04, 1998 at 11:48:30, syed wrote:
>Why are some commercial quality programs like Crafty downloadable for free when
>the author could make some good money selling it for $40-$50? Chessmaster has
>crossed 4 million copies in sales, which at $50 a copy is $20mil. in sales!!
>Seems like there are some good financial opporunities for chess programmers.
SHHHH!! For crying out loud. Are you trying to dry up the best place in the
world for beginning chess programmers to learn!?
>Also, why is the source code for crafty downloadable for free too? Doesn't this
>give the opportunity to someone to modify the code a wee bit then market the
>software as his own?
Not in the slightest. That would be a crime to perform without his permission,
as he owns the copyright. Plaguarism and copyright infringement, for starters.
Especially, he would have to grant special permission for you to sell it, and
with the format of the copyright, I'm not even sure that would be feasible. I
am developing a Crafty add-on database system, and I plan to give that away for
free also. Here is a question for you: Who is going to pay you for it anyway,
since they can already get it free from UAB, and that version is maintained and
constantly improved {again, for free} by "the master"? There are a large
number of additional source code bases you can examine as well. TCB, Phalanx,
Arasan are all excellent programs and worthy of study. GNUChess is another. I
have collected 30-40 source code bases for generating a chess program.
Furthermore, the best algorithms are often discussed openly by the authors.
Look at the DarkThought homepage, for instance.
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.