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Subject: Re: La Petite 1.0 (download)

Author: Bruce Moreland

Date: 17:23:28 10/25/99

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On October 25, 1999 at 04:01:32, Tom Kerrigan wrote:

>You know, there has been a lot of talk about similar strings and data patterns
>in the executables, but this overlooks the most obvious way to tell that a
>program is cloned: how it plays. If you run it for a while on the same
>positions, are the results similar? Same moves? Same depths? Same evaluations?
>Perhaps similar patterns in the evaluations, indicating similar searches or
>evaluation terms? Perhaps similar scores on test suites? If all this stuff is
>different, then it seems like the program has been modified enough for it to be
>interesting. Definitely interesting enough to be allowed at a tournament...
>whether or not it should be sold is a different ethical question.

If someone takes Crafty and fiddles with the eval, there is a good chance that
they can make it play differently.

This does not mean that they have created something new and original.  I have
not tried to prove it, but I believe you could make a program appear to be
different by changing piece square tables and a few other eval terms, which you
understand would take no effort.

I argue strongly against this "playing style" method of determining program
originality, because I don't want to be at a tournament where someone
successfully uses this argument on the organizers.  It is a bogus argument.

bruce



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