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Subject: Re: question about definition of clones

Author: Juan Pablo Naar C.

Date: 19:56:36 08/20/05

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On August 20, 2005 at 22:17:06, Uri Blass wrote:

>On August 20, 2005 at 22:06:24, Uri Blass wrote:
>
>>Suppose that somebody look at some public source code and decide to write code
>>that does the same algorithm but with different data structure so he cannot use
>>copy and paste for chess tasks.
>>
>>Do you think that the program is a clone or use code of another programmer?
>>Do you think that the programmer should not be allowed to participate in
>>tournaments?
>>
>>Note that my opinion is that the programmer should be allowed to participate
>>because copying ideas unlike copying code is allowed but before even considering
>>to try this idea(I am not sure if I will try it even if it is allowed) I prefer
>>to ask this question.
>>
>>Uri
>
>I can add that even if I try this idea sometimes in the future I will certainly
>not plan to put things unmodified and if I think that something can be improved
>easily then I will improve it but the first version may be with the same data
>structure and I think that except exercise in programming it may be a test for
>the quality of a different data structures(if the program is slower it suggests
>that the data structure is worse and if it is faster it suggest that it is
>better).
>
>Uri

IMO:

Clone: Engine that is based on other's source code and the engine is not
developed further and much increased and the lines are still the same.

Not clone: An engine project which a source code is being chosen to start
developing the engine for this way not to start from scratch.

For example, take TRACE. It is an engine which is based at TSCP's source code,
which is a simple source code. Then, its author developed that source and
started creating original lines, implementing his own ideas and knowledge and
that made TRACE.

IMO too, any modify, knowledge, ideas you implement on an already advanced code
(such as fruit and crafty's) will be always considered as a clone, no matter if
even the clone gets 200 elo improvement; this is because of the source's ideas
are already developed with the author's original ideas in contrast of TSCP's
source code (i'm not saying that TSCP is not original).

Another example, if you plan to modify Fruit/Crafty's sources, the most thing
you could do is add knowledge to the engine, improve and bugfix the evaluation
and search, which is not enough to call the clone your own work.

In contrast, TSCP is a source where the evaluation is very simple and you can
completely re-write it or improve it greatly, implement more ideas without
*damaging* the engine, you can do more things.

I hope that someone can explain this better than me, I'm not a programmer, but
you can understand my paragraphs by the context.

JPN



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