Author: Gabor Szots
Date: 03:40:16 11/28/03
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On November 28, 2003 at 06:12:43, Odd Gunnar Malin wrote: >On November 28, 2003 at 05:00:49, martin fierz wrote: > >>just a short question: >> >>if i rip assembler stuff like popcount and firstone from the crafty source, but >>the rest of my program is entirely different, am i doing something wrong? >> >>if i use the kogge-stone floodfill algorithms posted here by steffan westcott, >>am i doing something wrong? >> > >As soon as you start copying code from another source I think it is cheating if >you want to participate in a competition with your program. > >>how much foreign code is allowed? > >None. > >> >>cheers >> martin >> >>PS: i use a table-based popcount, not crafty's assembly code. i use a modified >>version of crafty's lastone. i don't use steffan's floodfill code, but i plan to >>give it a try. > >This is not cheating because here you have learned an idea you want to test it >yourself. > >There is a difference in what you want to do with your program. >- If it is a private app. you can do what you want (no one can check). >- If you want your app. to be public you have to get permision from the author. >- If you want to participate in a public tournament you have to write it all >yourself or add the orgin to your team (with permission). > >Some borderlines: >- Fritz's (or others) booklearning code. In a tournament this isn't of any help >but as soon as the competition is match play then the author of the code is also >part of the team and the tournament rule decide if more than one engine can use >it. ( I have to add that CB probably learned some of the learningcode from Hyatt >(I think it was mention here a year back), but this is an article in a paper >(ICCA) and not copying of codes.) >- Nalimov's egtb code. Here too is he part of the team so if the tourney only >allow an author to participate with one entry, only one entry should use his >code. >- Opening book, same as for the egtb code. > >The extreme case that someone seems to not think of as a clone is to start with >tscp or gerbil and modify it. >I think even when you have modified all the code you should still not be allowed >in a tournament without the orgin's permission and added to the team. >Basicly here you add a startrating of 1600-2000 for your engine in contrast with >one who start from scratch where the engine would be below 1000 the first tries. > >BUT it is allowed to look into other code when you are learning, or hunting for >ideas. This is probably the cause that the code is open. >If you draw similarities with normal chess, you study theory books (papers) >before a tournament and in some variants you want to look into other sourcecode >(games) to see how this works in a real game. What you aren't allowed to is to >bring with you these books and games when you write your own code (play your >game). > >I would have wanted that authors that release the sourcecode had spend a litle >time to write some pseudo code instead to show the unique idea and publish this >instead of the code. This would have forced people to learn the code and test it >througout before they can use it. > >Bruce Morland's site is an excellent sample of this. If you still don't >understand his ideas after reading it several times you can take a peep at a >sourcecode where the ideas are implemented. > >Another sample could be the three-four line Hyatt added after the booklearning >stuff in ICCA 1, 1999 about positional learning. These few lines of words are >all you need to implement positional learning into your engine. > >Odd Gunnar It is impossible to write a chess program without using some knowledge already invented. Even starting from scratch. All structural elements should be the same, since basic principles (PV search, iterative deepening, etc.) are well published. Should everyone ask permission of Chrilly Donninger if null-move pruning is implemented in his program? Shall Albert Einstein give creadit to his predecessors who invented the mathematical weapons upon which he based his general relativity theory? There is simply only one answer to the cloning question: don't publish those parts of your source which you don't want others to use. After that, if the source is still indentical, it was invented independently. Gábor
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