Author: Ed Schröder
Date: 11:04:26 01/24/99
Go up one level in this thread
>>If people pick Crafty's sources, make their own changes and give >>the program an own name then that's perfectly legal. Adding all >>kind of demands to the license agreement are not necessarily >>binding. >baloney on two points. Freeware licenses have stood up in court already. >The GPL from project GNU is quite well-known. for the second point, try to >enter a 'slightly modified copy of a freeware program' into an ACM or WCCC >event. That won't happen. The rules have forbid this since the very early >days. Just took a look at your sources I once have downloaded. I noticed there is no license agreement or copyright statement at all? How can people know about the legal status? >>As far as I understand Dutch law it is perfectly legal to pick >>Crafty's source-code, make changes, build an own GUI and >>sell it. This might differ from country to country I don't know. >>The only thing Bob has a right to demand is that it should be >>forbidden to release a 100% exact copy of the freeware >>sources and give it a new name and/or sell it. >>I don't understand all the fuss about this topic. Many programs >>are based on the GNU freeware sources. Never saw discussions >>like this. Why is the GNU status different than Crafty status? >Maybe if you would enter Rebel in one of these tournaments, you might >'change your tune'. Ie would you _really_ want to play today's crafty >at a 3:1 time handicap? I don't think so. But you would have to if the >tournament allows multiple cpus like the Dutch event. And you'd be sitting >there playing a program with a very good chance of beating you, with that >program using something the authors probably don't even understand how it >works (the parallel search). You did not answer the question. The topic is Bionic and the supposed fraud. Sofar I wasn't able to find anything in your sources that covers your claims. >Seem reasonable, now? I never intended to release something that >would be used to bash other programs in this way.. Fine. Then make it very clear in a license agreement or copyright notice. Sofar I haven't seen anything. >>As for tournaments, Crafty or GNU clones should be allowed >>from the juridical point of view as simple as that. I can imagine >>organizers might decide otherwise but they are taking a risk >>concerning the juridical point of view. Freeware is freeware. In >>the Crafty / GNU case all ideas behind the program are made >>public so everybody is allowed to use it. You can not publish >>your ideas in the newspaper and say, "I don't want you to >>use it". >Sure you can. You can publish "anything" and still prevent it from being >taken 'word for word'. I believe that would be called plagarism? Taking >the 'ideas' from crafty was the point of releasing it. _not_ taking 99% of >the code, adding a few eval changes, and then using that in a computer chess >event. IE the WCCC in Paderborn is not going to allow such an entry... The >rules have _always_ not allowed such, and they have tightened them this year >to be sure this doesn't get out of control... Say it too in the license agreement. >I don't mind anybody doing anything to crafty, and using it however they want, >but it does _not_ seem fair to take something no one else has, with _zero_ >effort (the parallel search) and then use that to roll over programs that have >a lot of time invested by the programmers working on them. That's what started >this discussion _during_ the tournament.. and that has been my point ever since. >I don't think anyone minds playing "crafty" in a tournament. But they should >object to having 5 in the same event. Because the odds are that 'crafty' is >going to win having 5 chances out of N. That I call 'unfair' odds. Which was >the same reason many protested "gunda-1' in the Jakarta event. Add rules for this it too in the license agreement. Kind regards, Ed Schroder
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