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Subject: Re: Clones and moral behavior

Author: José Carlos

Date: 13:50:48 08/23/05

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On August 23, 2005 at 00:44:33, Cesar Contreras wrote:

>"Clone" it's just a moral word. It seams to be intended to distinct "original"
>from "not original" chess engines. Useless today in my opinion. Maybe a diferent
>word can serve that good purpose for some more time.
>
>The fact it's that this diference don't exist anymore, most programs are pretty
>unoriginal altought some have more original touches than others.
>
>So originality came in the form of some "touches of originality".
>
>I see some similarities with "moralily" or "good behavior":
>
>* Nobody really know what does "clone" means
>* Every chess programmer is afraid being named a "cloner"
>* If you defend a cloner be ready to be named a "cloner"
>* If you discover a cloner, be ready to be named "X the just"
>* Every programmer it's tempted to "clone"
>* Everybody it's ready to punish the "clonner"
>* Every new strong engine on town must "hide something"
>* "Clone" meaned one thing 2 years ago, now means something diferent, it's like
>a fashion thing.
>* Things that some years ago meaned "to clone", now are bean threated with more
>open mind.
>* Everybody agree clonning it's bad (except some freaks out there).
>
>
>My conclusion.
>    * Typical nonsense human behavior.
>    * Legality must be well defined, it's just wrong to punish someone for
>something that undefinied.
>
>PD. I hope this is not copyrigthed.

  I agree with you and Uri about there's no clear definition of what a clone is.
"Having source code of other engines" is miles away from clear. Example: I have
in my code:

int i = 0;

  Either it is in some prior program (I'm a cloner) or in some later program (he
cloned me -early versions of Averno were open source-).
  Of course copying that line is not cloning. But then, what is cloning? Copying
5 lines? 10? 100? Only some specific lines? Maybe some "magic" numbers in
evaluation?
  So please, if someone has an exact definition, post it here.
  BTW, I strongly disagree about everyone's tempted to clone. What's the fun of
seing other people's creating winning games? What is really fun for me is seeing
_my_ creation winning games. I'll never be able to understand what anyone can
get from copying other's work.

  José C.



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