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Subject: What constitutes a clone?

Author: John Merlino

Date: 15:38:43 02/15/05


I'm not trying to start a brutally long thread here, but I'm just curious about
how people feel about a particularly touchy subject -- clones. What, in your
mind, would lead you to the conclusion that an engine is a clone?

Let's forget trying to find ways to PROVE that a clone is a clone; I'm just
trying to define one. For the sake of argument, assume that the author of this
engine in question tells you exactly what he did and did not do, and you must
decide whether to call it a clone or not.

Here are some hypothetical questions to start the debate:

If the author took Crafty and completely rewrote the evaluation code and nothing
else, would it be a clone?

How about if the author rewrote the evaluation code and search algorithm only,
but left the hashing code, et. al.?

How about if the author rewrote everything EXCEPT for the evaluation?

How about if the author rewrote everything EXCEPT for Crafty's evaluation of
passed pawns?

I think you can see where I'm driving. Obviously, many engine authors have
studied Crafty and other engines whose authors have graciously provided their
source code. But, for an engine to not be considered a clone, does it have to be
absolutely 100% the work of the author? (Forget about Nalimov's EGTB probing
code and any other code that can be used with permission).

Many thanks in advance for your thoughts,

jm (who's just preparing for any eventuality during his upcoming stint as
moderator :-)



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