OpenChess

What do you think about Chris Conkie's claim that Naraku is a clone? I couldn't find any comment here (my fault?), and would like to know our experts' opinion.

http://74.220.23.57/forum/viewtopic.php ... =&start=20

Note that Naraku won Martin's F division...

noctiferus wrote:What do you think about Chris Conkie's claim that Naraku is a clone? I couldn't find any comment here (my fault?), and would like to know our experts' opinion.

http://74.220.23.57/forum/viewtopic.php ... =&start=20

Note that Naraku won Martin's F division...

It is a clone. The Naraku guy has no clue about chess programming.

Matthias.

Matthias Gemuh wrote: It is a clone. The Naraku guy has no clue about chess programming.

Matthias.

Matthias,

These are rather bold statements. Before I take action I would like to see some more concrete proof.
With that said, I value you as one of the experts on matters like these.

Best,
Martin

Martin Thoresen wrote:

Matthias Gemuh wrote: It is a clone. The Naraku guy has no clue about chess programming.

Matthias.

Matthias,

These are rather bold statements. Before I take action I would like to see some more concrete proof.
With that said, I value you as one of the experts on matters like these.

Best,
Martin

When he read Bob's post that parallelization is normally not do-able in a few weeks, some text disappeared from his website: "In the next weeks i will add multi core support.".
Why have the old Narakus linked with Fruit now disappeared from his website ?
He is now admitting that the Ippo family has shaped his search. I don't believe that he said so months ago in Italian. Why only in Italian ? Analyzing his binaries would be a waste of precious time.

There are more clues of the cloning, in several fora.

Matthias.

Matthias, with the respect you deserve for what you do for chess, I would give you here some informations I read in Naraku's forum

http://www.miroku79.info/blog/?page_id=88#comment-220

( I'm doing it, because as far as i see I'm the only italian speaking contributor, here, and some of the posts in there are in italian).

First of all I'm not trying to defend, neither to accuse, the author: IMHO, if there is a fault by him in taking parts of, he is not trying to hide it.

He plainly and clearly states, in a post:
" Io per imparare a sviluppare il motore di scacchi mi sono avvalso essenzialmente dello studio dei codici sorgenti di altri motori open source (in particolare la serie ippolit/ivanhoe, crafty, varie versioni di fruit, gull e in
piccola parte stockfish), di alcuni articoli universitari (lo scorso anno ho lavorato all’università la sapienza e ho avuto così la possibilità di accedere a parecchi articoli universitari), e di alcuni siti che trattano, seppure non in modo molto dettagliato, tutte le fasi della creazione di un motore scacchistico. All’inizio sembra molto complicato, ma analizzando i codici si notano parecchie analogie. Per esempio: gull usa una bitboard che è quasi
identica a quella della serie ippolit/ivanhoe, con alcune costanti proprio identiche (anche quella che uso per naraku è molto simile). Houdini ce l’ha proprio identica, fruit, toga e ora si è scoperto anche rybka, hanno praticamente il 90% delle funzioni di valutazioni identiche. Una volta “scomposto” un motore nelle sue parti principali (di solito acquisizione dei dati dall’interfaccia, valutazione dei dati, avvio della ricerca, , valutazione, controllo del tempo rimanente e visualizzazione della mossa migliore), risulta più semplice costruirsi un proprio motore. "

Google translation:
"I am learning to develop chess engine, I used essentially the study of the source code of other open source engines (in particular the series Ippolit / Ivanhoe, crafty, various versions of fruit, and gull
stockfish small part), some articles of university (last year I worked at La Sapienza University and I had the opportunity to have access to several academic articles), and some sites that deal, though not in great detail, all stages of creating a chess engine. At first it seems very complicated, but analyzing the code you see many similarities. For example, gull use a bitboard which is almost identical to that of the series Ippolit / Ivanhoe, with its few constants are identical (even the one I use for Naraku is very similar). Houdini's got just the same, fruit, toga and has now also discovered rybka, have almost 90% of the evaluation function the same. Once "broken down" an engine in its main parts (usually the data acquisition interface, data evaluation, launch the research, evaluation, control and display the remaining time of the best move), it is easier to build his own engine ."

This as a contribution. dunno if it is in his favour or not, no matter, as I said.

noctiferus wrote:Matthias, with the respect you deserve for what you do for chess, I would give you here some informations I read in Naraku's forum

http://www.miroku79.info/blog/?page_id=88#comment-220

( I'm doing it, because as far as i see I'm the only italian speaking contributor, here, and some of the posts in there are in italian).

First of all I'm not trying to defend, neither to accuse, the author: IMHO, if there is a fault by him in taking parts of, he is not trying to hide it.

He plainly and clearly states, in a post:
" Io per imparare a sviluppare il motore di scacchi mi sono avvalso essenzialmente dello studio dei codici sorgenti di altri motori open source (in particolare la serie ippolit/ivanhoe, crafty, varie versioni di fruit, gull e in
piccola parte stockfish), di alcuni articoli universitari (lo scorso anno ho lavorato all’università la sapienza e ho avuto così la possibilità di accedere a parecchi articoli universitari), e di alcuni siti che trattano, seppure non in modo molto dettagliato, tutte le fasi della creazione di un motore scacchistico. All’inizio sembra molto complicato, ma analizzando i codici si notano parecchie analogie. Per esempio: gull usa una bitboard che è quasi
identica a quella della serie ippolit/ivanhoe, con alcune costanti proprio identiche (anche quella che uso per naraku è molto simile). Houdini ce l’ha proprio identica, fruit, toga e ora si è scoperto anche rybka, hanno praticamente il 90% delle funzioni di valutazioni identiche. Una volta “scomposto” un motore nelle sue parti principali (di solito acquisizione dei dati dall’interfaccia, valutazione dei dati, avvio della ricerca, , valutazione, controllo del tempo rimanente e visualizzazione della mossa migliore), risulta più semplice costruirsi un proprio motore. "

Google translation:
"I am learning to develop chess engine, I used essentially the study of the source code of other open source engines (in particular the series Ippolit / Ivanhoe, crafty, various versions of fruit, and gull
stockfish small part), some articles of university (last year I worked at La Sapienza University and I had the opportunity to have access to several academic articles), and some sites that deal, though not in great detail, all stages of creating a chess engine. At first it seems very complicated, but analyzing the code you see many similarities. For example, gull use a bitboard which is almost identical to that of the series Ippolit / Ivanhoe, with its few constants are identical (even the one I use for Naraku is very similar). Houdini's got just the same, fruit, toga and has now also discovered rybka, have almost 90% of the evaluation function the same. Once "broken down" an engine in its main parts (usually the data acquisition interface, data evaluation, launch the research, evaluation, control and display the remaining time of the best move), it is easier to build his own engine ."

This as a contribution. dunno if it is in his favour or not, no matter, as I said.

Hi noctiferus,

the question is whether he said this before the accusations.
If he is saying this after the accusations, it is merely to rationalize away cloning.
Clearly most (if not all) people who have been testing Naraku since first version, did not know about its Fruit/Ippo connections.

Matthias.

Hi, Matthias
the post in his forum is dated 5 march.

noctiferus wrote:Hi, Matthias
the post in his forum is dated 5 march.

Hi noctiferus,

the guy should have put the infos on the website of Naraku so that people can read about the Fruit/Ippo connection before they decide whether to test the engines, or reject them as derivatives.

Thanks for informing us here.

Matthias.

I'm not going to look at this too thoroughly right now (32-bit code makes my head hurt also), but here is an IvanHoe (or R3) remnant in Naraku 1.4: So it checks if the rook is on the 6th rank, then if the opponent has a pawn or king on the 6th-8th, and if so, gives a bonus of 5 in the opening and 15 in the endgame.

Right before this is the 7th rank code: So the (10,30) bonus stayed the same, but the one for doubled rooks changed (at least from the IvanHoe version I am looking at).

And lo and behold, right before this we have rooks on the 8th: And right before that (1,2) is added for a rook outpost, with (3,4) if it is guarded. The RookHalfOpen bonus is (3,6) the RookOpenFile bonus is (10,20), the RookOpenMinor bonus is still (15,5), etc. There are some minor modifications.

I would thus but the engine in the "suspect" category until evidence to the contrary.

http://www.miroku79.info/blog/?p=218

it looks like this is the last piece of information about Naraku I can post here...