Author: Christos Gitsis
Date: 15:14:59 08/24/05
Go up one level in this thread
On August 24, 2005 at 16:56:56, Frank Mueller wrote: >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. I am not sure about that. I was not talking about cases where someone takes the source code of Fruit and alters it slightly to make a new engine. I meant that an author of an existing engine can look into the source of Fruit and implement Fabien's ideas in his "own" engine. He could do that without copying a single line of code. Is this illegal according to the GPL? >>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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