Author: Hristo
Date: 02:47:32 12/01/03
Go up one level in this thread
On December 01, 2003 at 04:27:40, Russell Reagan wrote: >On December 01, 2003 at 04:11:22, Hristo wrote: > >>In chess I would suggest that the _idea_ is the focal point. The implementation >>is less important. Not sure how this can be litigated and even less certain of >>how this can be evaluated. The determinism of chess prohibits us from >>determining the differences between engines, purely based on their output when >>solving a chess problem. > >When I think of an idea, I think of something like null-move pruning. Let's say >I do one of two things: > >1. I look at the source code of Crafty and I learn about the null-move idea. I >go and implement it in my own program and I write every line of code myself. > >2. I look at the source code of Crafty and I learn about the null-move idea. I >copy Crafty's null-move code directly into my program. > Russell, I believe we are neck deep in this issue; and we are not getting out any time soon. ;-) Some of the programming concepts can be considered fundamental, like the null-move idea (you are correct), but the way this idea is woven into the final algorithm can be more important than the actual implementation. Consider the hashing idea. It can be used for: 1) File system storage. 2) "Address book" entries. 3) WEB server connections. 4) Memory allocation. 5) Compiler/linker ... 6) Chess positions/evaluations. In all cases the same "idea" is used to solve different problems. In chess, however, we are trying to define a set of ideas that can be used to solve the same _exact_ problem. In this particular case the individual "building blocks" are less important than the actual algorithm that is using them in order to solve the _problem_. At some point the fact that the building blocks (null-moves, hash tables, apha-beta, ...) are arranged in a particular way is more important than the actual implementation; this is only because the problem domain is _exactly_ the same, chess. In this sense I don't see how to, unambiguously, separate the idea from its expression when it comes down to chess. This leads me back to your "honesty is the issue" statement. If people are willing to lie in order to make a name for themselves then there is very little we can do. Cheers, Hristo >I think #1 is okay, but #2 is questionable at best. I think the expression of >the idea is what should be protected. Take for instance a person who writes a >book about some topic, say, politics. That person may write about ideas that >thousands of other authors have written about, but it is his expression of those >ideas that is protected by copyright, not those ideas. Someone else can come >along and write a book about the exact same topic, taking his same stance, as >long as his expression of those ideas is his own work.
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