Author: Frank Mueller
Date: 13:56:56 08/24/05
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On August 24, 2005 at 14:43:39, Christos Gitsis wrote: >On August 24, 2005 at 06:04:33, Frank Mueller wrote: > >>On August 24, 2005 at 04:10:36, Fabien Letouzey wrote: >> >>>There is also the insufficiency (IMO) of the GPL in the chess case that I have >>>to ponder on (pun intended). >> >>I don't understand that. You deliberately decided to publish under GPL, thus all >>consequences were/are conceivable. And publishing under GPL doesn't imply that >>you -- as author of Fruit -- have to waive all your rights. >> >>Frank > >In June, when Fruit 2.1 was released, Shredder was undisputed number 1 and about >100 elo stronger than any free engine. Fritz, Junior, Hiarcs etc were also >clearly stronger than the free engines (perhaps with the exception of Toga II >0.93). > >It was not conceivable to me at that time that two months later there would have >appeared so many new strong engines that there is no knowing which one is the >strongest. But this is the current situation, and it probably is not irrelevant >to the prior release of Fruit 2.1. > >Obviously a program released under the GPL is vulnerable to people who take and >don't give back (ideas). Not everyone is interested in sharing of ideas and >progress of computer chess - some people are just interested in making their You can't avoid that, some people are cooperative, others are not -- like in all fields of life. GPL doesn't require that a modified software goes through the original author and there is some good reason for that (what will happen, for example, if the original author won't react after such user input?). Moreover, users have the *right* to release and distribute their modifications, but you can't force them to release; under GPL they are free to use their modifications privately. >engine as strong as they can. And there is no way to know if the programmers of >closed-source engines have taken ideas out of Fruit, which combined with their >own ideas give them an advantage. Nobody could prevent such illegal practices, but if they come to light, adequate measures could be legally enforced. >All the above really give a lot to ponder on, and I can understand Fabien's >decision. Maybe, Fabien wasn't completely aware of all rights and obligations under GPL. But even if he feels uncomfortable now, the things happened and he will look ahead. And everybody will respect Fabien's decisions and appreciate his courtesy giving the computer chess community something important for free which contains a lot of his time and energy. IMO, in the long run, the assets of free software will (also in computer chess) outweigh the drawbacks. >I would like to add that I am a fan of open-source software and a Linux user. Frank
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