Author: Roger D Davis
Date: 18:06:24 11/27/03
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On November 27, 2003 at 20:27:34, Richard Sutherland wrote: >The one thing I cant understand through all this, is why ban List now? Whether >or not List is derived from Crafty, has obviously not been conclusively >determined. With the programmer writing a maths exam, he probably doesn't have >time to fully address the issue right at this time, so let his program complete >the tournament and then make a determination of the facts. Yes, DQ'ing him after >the event is over, might change the end result, but the end result would at >least be fair to all involved. If it now transpires that List is completely >crafty free, the List programmer has been royally screwed over!!! In fact, the committee may have been obligated by their own charter to do exactly this. The letter at Chessbase states explicitly that: “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.” Note that the charter states that banning could take place only 1) after a process of discovery, and 2) after seeking expert advice Where is the process of discovery and where is the expert advice? AT THE LEAST, the expert advice should have consisted of asking the accuser to provide something more than circumstantial evidence, after which the strength of the evidence could have been evaluated objectively and a decision made whether to request the source, or not, AND THEN experts would have been consulted. Instead, it appears that the committee violated it's own charter and banned the author based on evidence that the committee itself admits is circumstantial, without consulting any experts other than the accuser. Roger
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