Author: Christophe Theron
Date: 08:54:45 11/04/98
Go up one level in this thread
On November 03, 1998 at 23:31:25, Herbert Groot Jebbink wrote:
>On November 03, 1998 at 22:02:16, Christophe Theron wrote:
>
>>>When you see the incredible package Millenium is going to offer,
>
>>Nothing new, you'll have to pay to buy the other engines.
>
>Indeed, but the great thing is that the interface will be open.
>
>So I think there will be soon free engines like Crafty, Commet for it.
>
>Other great thing about the open interface is that it can also
>be used the build a compatabel free GUI.
>Or also a interesting option, hack the Winboard source to be
>Millennium-engine compatabel.
>
>Greetings, Herbert
>
>---
>The Trans-Siberian Railroad Page: http://www.xs4all.nl/~hgj/
Yes. If the GUI is open and documented, I hope that somebody works to do exactly
the opposite of what Weiner expects: write or adapt existing an GUI to use the
engines inside a free GUI, like Winboard.
This way it could be possible
* to have an independent autoplayer, so we can test the engines against each
other (on one or 2 computers) or even against DOS programs (on 2 computers,
using the Auto232 standard protocol).
* to create a new market: the market of GUI for chess programs. You choose your
engines, then you make them run in the GUI of your choice.
But I expect Millenium to do weird things to prevent people from doing this.
Either the GUI/engine dialog protocol will be kept secret, or the published
version will not be complete, so that without agreement with Millenium your
engine will not be fully functional inside their GUI.
Maybe this is bad spirit from me. I hope I am wrong. After all, if they provide
the best GUI, they have nothing to fear, so they can leave the protocol in the
public domain to attract as much engines as possible.
But by doing this, they offer opportunities to their competitors. Most companies
would not take the risk. For example, ChessBase could write a driver that would
allow a Millenium engine to run inside Fritz interface!
That's why I would not dream too much about an open interface. Weiner is trying
to kill the competition with this announcement, but he will have to retract
soon, believe me. The engine communication protocol cannot be, for economical
reasons, open and public domain.
Christophe
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