Author: Roger D Davis
Date: 17:05:22 11/27/03
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On November 27, 2003 at 19:52:48, Martin Andersen wrote: >It's not a courtroom. >You agree to the rules of the Tournament when you >participate. And the committee seems to have followed >the rules, but the programmer has not. > >Martin. I am not a courtroom. Nevertheless, ideals of justice constructed in one setting can provide models of justice in other settings. Just because the rules of the tournament are constructed one way today doesn't mean they shouldn't be revised based on experience tomorrow. Otherwise, the rules would be set in concrete. Moreover, I'm not convinced the committee didn't violate it's own charter. The letter at Chessbase states that: ------------- In order to investigate this matter in a proper manner and to provide the complainant with an answer, the members of the Tournament Committee needed to convince themselves of the precise relation between the two programs, if any. The rules of the World Championship clearly stipulate exactly what should happen in such cases. We refer to article 2 of the rules as published in the ICGA Journal Vol. 26, No 1, p. 63: “Each program must be the original work of the entering developers. Programming teams whose code is derived from or including game-playing code written by others must name all other authors, or the source of such code, in their application details. Programs which are discovered to be close derivatives of others (e.g., by playing nearly all moves the same), may be declared invalid by the Tournament Director after seeking expert advice. For this purpose a listing of all game-related code running on the system must be available on demand to the Tournament Director.” -------------- If you read this carefully, you'll note that the rules state that "PROGRAMS WHICH ARE DISCOVERED TO BE CLOSE DERIVATIVES OF OTHERS...MAY BE DECLARED INVALID." Note that the wording is explicit...only those which are DISCOVERED should be declared invalid. It doesn't say that "PROGRAMS AGAINST WHICH CIRCUMSTANTIAL CLAIMS ARE LAUNCHED MAY BE DECLARED INVALID." The process of discovery was violated because the accuser was never asked to provide anything more than circumstantial evidence. The letter at chessbase makes it clear that the committee apparently felt some obligation to the accuser: "In order to...to provide the complainant with an answer..." So the committee felt it had an obligation to satisfy the complainant, when in fact, the obligation of the committee was to request solid evidence from the complainant, not circumstantial evidence. You can't DISCOVER A PROGRAM TO BE A CLOSE DERIVATIVE base on circumstantial evidence, and you can't disqualify such a program, based on the charter. The burden of proof was put on the author, who apparently thought it was BS, and he walked. My theory, therefore, that the accuser has some special relationship with the committee members. Who is the accuser to have such a special relationship? Roger
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