Author: Dan Honeycutt
Date: 11:20:33 06/18/04
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On June 18, 2004 at 13:38:31, Tord Romstad wrote: >On June 18, 2004 at 11:49:19, Reinhard Scharnagl wrote: > >>Tord, I see this slightly different. The one starting position has to be >>avoided, not only at the starting position, but also (without practical >>effect) within the game at any time. Therefore 48000-1 positions will do. >>But (one has to ask a lawer), the Gothic Chess starting position seems to >>be patented as a starting position, not as a position which might occur >>within a Capablanca Random Chess based game. But for to avoid silly >>sophisticated troubles, let have it totally forbidden. > >Clever solution, but the following quote from an e-mail sent to me by >Ed earlier today indicates that the situation is more complicated than >I thought: > > (...) a referrendum has been handed down by the Appellate Court of > Pennsylvania stating that any re-arrangment of a different starting > position so as to "intersect the set of playable positions normally > arrived at via the Gothic Chess starting arrangement" is an > infringement on the patent without the procurement of a license. > >It seems to me that this leaves only two options for the engine developer: > >a) Pay the license fee. >b) Stay away from everything remotely resembling Capablanca's chess. > >Tord I like the amateur/freeware software world as both a programmer and a user so I wouldn't pay the license fee even if it's $1 for eternity. It would seem that Gothic Chess is a strictly commercial endeavor. There's nothing wrong with that, it's just of no interest to me. Dan H.
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