Author: Dann Corbit
Date: 13:27:21 02/15/99
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On February 15, 1999 at 16:08:35, Will Singleton wrote: >On February 15, 1999 at 15:13:18, Dann Corbit wrote: > >>On February 15, 1999 at 15:04:15, Will Singleton wrote: >>[snip] >>>But regarding your main point, this has been discussed before, and it's of >>>course up to Bob to make that decision. However, the cat is out of the bag as >>>far as the source goes, in it's present form it will be stronger that any >>>amateur program for the near term. So restricting it will have little effect >>>(the effects having already occurred). >>> >>>Long term, though, it would be a good thing to take it private. >>New programmers, coming on to the scene, will be severely stunted. It is a >>very, very, very bad thing. Only it may become a necessary thing. Tragic, in >>my mind. Of course, GNUChess is strong and freely available. So now what? >>Hide the source of a copyleft program? > >GNUchess isn't in Crafty's league. There are only 8 GNUchess clones on ICC, as >opposed to 175 active crafty clones. I think that indicates something. True, but on sufficiently advanced hardware, it seems to do pretty well. Better than a large fraction of current ameteur programs. If we just want the most primitive programs, then perhaps only TSCP gets exposed. If we want to share the most advanced techniques, then we only write papers about it but not share code (apparently). So that means that the advanced techniques will be harder to learn than before. State of the art stuff is very hard to absorb without an example. Something that is very complex often has a simple base explanation, but the devil is in the implementation details. Without seeing that sort of thing, every programmer will have to cross the same hurdles that have already been discovered. What it means is that now we want to hide some work. That's because there are those round about who are unscrupulous and will use the information for selfish purposes without being willing to expend their own effort. Paraphrasing: A few stinkers spoil it for everyone else. Typical.
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