Author: Dann Corbit
Date: 15:12:17 01/13/06
Go up one level in this thread
On January 13, 2006 at 17:32:10, Uri Blass wrote: >On January 13, 2006 at 16:54:55, Reinhard Scharnagl wrote: > >>On January 13, 2006 at 15:58:57, Robert Hollay wrote: >> >>Hi Robert, >> >>>Shareware. Test SMIRF free until 2006-01-31. >> >>the beta still shows to be intended to become shareware. But I am not sure >>about that. There is no big interest facing those Rybka or top-engine hype. >>About since a year there repeatedly have been unrestricted beta versions, >>limited in lifetime to secure vanishing of old beta prereleases. But the echo >>has been very small and only one person asked, how to purchase a full version. >> >>>What will happen after that date? >> >>The beta version still could be tested, but the program would answer nearly >>immediately then, not reaching higher thinking levels, nag screens included. >> >>>I looked around the SMIRF site, but didn't quite understand it's licencing >>>model. Part of the text is written in German, especially the shareware licence. >>>What should we do to get it permanently? >> >>A sold / donated version would have texts also translated into English. >> >>SMIRF is now in a stage, where it should be rewritten completely to dense its >>data structure and to incoorporate made experiences. I am against open source >>programs for end-user applications like a chess engine. Arguing for that had >>raised a banning from the most visited german chess forum. I think, that >>freeware chess programs are dumping the whole scene, killing any respect and >>refund of creative programmers. > >It is correct that free chess programs clearly make it harder for programmers to >make money from chess engines but it seems to be also correct that free chess >programs help to improve the level of the best programs. I doubt this very much. There would never have been any money in mediocre chess engines with or without free ones. I believe that free engines stimulate the market. In fact, I am pretty sure I would never have bought any professional engines if it were not for the free ones to get me interested in them. Suppose that there are no free engines. Your program will still have to beat Junior, Shredder, Fritz, CM, etc. to be interesting as far as strength goes. And if you try to sell on features you will need a snazzy interface and a good database and hundreds of thousands of dollars for marketing. I think that the engines like Deep Sjeng, Ruffian, Rybka, Ktulu, etc. would not sell at all if it were not for the hobbyist market created by people who cruise forums like this one. I get if you ask Lokasoft, almost all of his sales will go to people who he recognized the names of (just a guess). >There was a long time with little improvement when shredder dominated and top >programmers could not improve their program even by 50 elo per year and suddenly >we find some programs that are better than shredder(rybka,commercial fruit and >fritz and probably hiarcs and the toga1.1 that is based on fruit). The improvement always goes in jumps and starts. The introduction of Junior was like that. Junior came out of nowhere as an amateur engine to be the best in the world. It was fairly similar for Chess Tiger (which occupied the SSDF top spot for a short while). So Rybka is not an exception. I guess that a careful examination of all the big movers and shakers will show that Rybka is the rule. >It seems clear that at least part of that improvement is thanks to the free >source code of fruit2.1. There we agree. If people follow Fabien's coding methods, that will be an even bigger benefit. > So I am very demotivated and now about to start >>with programming the game of Go instead of improving the SMIRF chess program. >> >>If you would know, that there is nearly no nullvove heuristic yet working in >>SMIRF engine, you might be able to imagine, that this program would have some >>potential to become stronger. > > >I am sure that every program has the potential to become stronger. >It is possible that null move pruning is not productive if you do different >pruning and at least Junior does not use null move pruning. > >Uri
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