Houdini 2

[lmader]

That aside, my single issue with Houdini, whether commercial or not, is that Houdart took someone else's code without acknowledgement.

Thanks Jeremy. I agree, that really is the best point. I should have broken that out as a separate reason of its own, i.e.

3) The flagrant lack of acknowledgement by Robert Houdart of Houdini's Ippo or Robo origins.

I think this is mainly a real communication gap issue. Non-authors are likely not going to understand the issues involved. And that's a problem, since many non-authors are taking part in the discussion, without really grasping exactly what the discussion is about. Some use "ideas and code" as if they are interchangeable synonyms. Yet we know they are not even close.

Looks like this issue is here to stay, however. Until we reach the point where every person is required to take a course on computer ethics before they can touch a computer.

True, it does seem that a lot of people don't get the distinction between "ideas and code".

However in this case the issue of plagiarizing the code is slightly murkier due to the possibility that the code was public domain. I am not aware of any requirement to cite the use of public domain code, outside of what we might consider good behavior. *IF* the code base for Houdini started out as a public domain Robo of some sort, then the author(s) of that public domain code intentionally decided that they did not need to be cited. They freely chose to give that up, and it would be odd if they turned around and chose to feel slighted.

So... if we accept the public domain scenario, and if we therefore conclude that the authors of the public domain code don't feel injured by lack of acknowledgement, then the distaste surrounding the lack of acknowledgement is really about the fact that other chess programmers that write original work feel slighted by someone that clones and doesn't own up to it - keeping in mind that what was cloned was specifically made available for that purpose.

That said, it certainly does seem sleazy.