Author: Peter Fendrich
Date: 09:40:52 02/16/05
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On February 15, 2005 at 18:38:43, John Merlino wrote: >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.? It's a clone... >How about if the author rewrote everything EXCEPT for the evaluation? Absolutely a clone >How about if the author rewrote everything EXCEPT for Crafty's evaluation of >passed pawns? Absolutely. My problem is with the rewriting part. If you load Crafty into your editor and start rewriting, it is clone and for me the feeling is clone how much you ever rewrite. If you write your own working engine and looks into the Crafty code to get ideas it's not a clone, IMO. This is something that probably almost all engine authors have done including commercials. There should be some kind of default collective acknowledge to Bob from the whole community! Not only from the code but also from all the written advices. One more thing: Don't forget that Crafty is not the only strong engine that can be cloned these days. /Peter >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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