Author: Jim Bodkins
Date: 22:14:58 11/27/03
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=1330 I have no position with respect to list .. except to say that in my experience it has been much more unstable than crafty and played much more 'volatile' chess. (Sometimes to great effect, others resulting in its doom). This surely involves older versions. I mention the following as simple points of curiosity and assume that the letter is accurate. The final paragraph is the reason this appears here. """ The tournament committee of the 2003 World Computer Chess Championship received a complaint on November 23rd from one of the participants concerning his suspicion that the program LIST, entered by Fritz Reul, is based on the program CRAFTY. The complaint is supported by circumstantial evidence given to the Tournament Committee by the complainant. This evidence relates to two older versions of LIST, namely 4.60 and 5.04 which are publicly available. The question to be asked therefore was whether LIST Graz contains substantial parts of CRAFTY. """ This strikes me as nonsense on several points; 1) The accuser is annonymous. Convenient. (Makes it too easy to make accusations in comfort). 2) The 'evidence' of 'plagarism' WAS NOT found in the competing program but in past publicly available versions apparently. To my knowledge, list has never been available in source. Therefore, whatever 'evidence' was presented should also be available based upon the version of list that actually competed. Was it? Doesnt look that way. It appears that speculation based on non-competing programs rather than competing programs triggered this. Odd, at least in my opinion. """ Plagiarism of another program’s code is a very serious offense. The Tournament Committee has an obligation to investigate any such complaint in a fair and unbiased manner. """ This almost makes sense. It would make complete sense IF they were to investigate the actual programs from which the evidence was taken. But then why would they. Those versions ARENT COMPETING. Bizarre. """ In order to investigate this matter in a proper manner and to provide the complainant with an answer ... """ Why report to a complainant that is a) unidentified and b) DIDNT derive evidence from the program that is ACTUALLY competing? I could understand the committee performing an examination of the executable at Graz in the same manner as the complaintant. Did that happen? Doesnt seem to have. """ “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.” """ Dr. Hyatt mentioned the ease with which the 'playing personalities' of engines could be changed. I suspect he can be considered an authority here. The phrase " by playing nearly all moves the same " is therfore ludicrous, IMO. Finally, is Mr. Reul being punished for plagarism (which clearly hasnt been proven) or failure to comply with an investigation. Ban him for failure to cooperate, but a ban for plagarism would be ignorant. Moderators, sorry. That's how I see it. They dont make it clear in the letter. This casts doubts on the entire process. By their rules, if Junior and Fritz play 'nearly' all moves the same they must be derivative. Given Mr. Hyatts comments and the ICGA's rules, it appears that this organization isnt qualified to define 'plagarism' in this case. Perhaps they should allow people like Mr. Hyatt to consult on new rules on plagarism. Jim
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