Author: Mike Hood
Date: 16:12:27 03/13/03
Go up one level in this thread
On March 13, 2003 at 14:26:29, Andrew Dados wrote: >On March 13, 2003 at 12:24:33, Ulrich Tuerke wrote: > >>On March 13, 2003 at 12:08:52, Mike Hood wrote: >> >>>On March 13, 2003 at 05:30:45, Ulrich Tuerke wrote: >>> >>>>On March 13, 2003 at 04:34:39, Igor V. Korshunov wrote: >>>> >>>>>Hi there! >>>>> >>>>>I know some engines that exist as Fritz native also. This is Comet, Crafty, >>>>>List, EXchess and Faile. >>>>> >>>>>How I can convert my own engine to Fritz native? >>>> >>>>You have to make an agreement with ChessBase in order to do this. >>>> >>>>> >>>>>Can somebody give me useful hints? >>>> >>>>If I were you, I'd rather consider supporting UCI. As a "free bonus" your engine >>>>will then also run perfectly under Fritz-7 (or later). >>>> >>>>I don't see real advantages of supporting a native CB interface. >>>> >>>>Uli >>> >>>I've heard rumours that the Chessbase protocol is secret, only disclosed >>>grudgingly to engine programmers that Chessbase approves of, but I don't >>>understand that. Wouldn't it be in Chessbase's own commercial interests to make >>>their protocol public and encourage as many programmers as possible to write >>>Chessbase native engines? After all, that would be a gentle encouragement for >>>people to buy one of the Chessbase programs in order to get the GUI. If >>>Chessbase is worried about there being a flood of inferior engines (by >>>"inferior" I don't mean weaker engines, I mean engines that don't correctly >>>support the protocol) there could be a final testing done by Chessbase before >>>they give the final seal of approval: posting it for download on their web site. >> >>Well, I don't really know because I'm not a CB employe. >>However, the CB protocol is very different from the other protocols in one >>respect: whereas UCI and wb are protocols defining the communication between >>different processes, the CB kind of protocol defines how a dynamic link library >>has to behave. The CB natives are running in the process context of the GUI, >>i.e. any engine crash will also crash the GUI. Imagine the flood of complaints >>and bug reports regarding the Fritz-GUI which could be raised in case of buggy >>native engines. >>I don't know the windows world to well, but may there is even the possibilty >>that engine code may erroneously write into the virtual address space of the GUI >>modules leading to peculiar errors (kind of undetected access violations). >> >>I could imagine that these properties make CB very careful in selecting native >>engines. But this is just a guess. > > >There is more obvious reason to keep their protocol secret. >Someone would make CB adapter for winboard and people would run CB engines under >winboard or Arena... Or maybe someone would make better gui then fritz one. They >don't like taking chances. To be honest, I doubt that anyone could create a better GUI for Chessbase native engines. Of all the GUIs I've seen, only the Chessmaster GUI rivals it for its beauty and functionality. Arena is very pleasant, and it might catch up with Chessbase eventually, but a company with lots of money can create aesthetically pleasing products in a much shorter time than amateurs. And even if someone did write a Chessbase adapter for Arena... what would be the point? Because of the copy protection, users would still have to pay for the engines. >Note that in some european countries hacking private protocols for compatibility >purposes is legal. What about the USA's legal situation? Using Microsoft as a precedent, I'm sure that if someone in America took Chessbase to court they would be forced to hand over their protocol to anyone who wanted to write a rival GUI.
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