OpenChess

syzygy wrote:It is not up to you to decide whether leaving this out is unimportant. The purpose of the document is to present the evidence to the reader, so that the reader can make up his mind himself. Or am I missing something here?

syzygy wrote:

User923005 wrote:Without the code to examine (the result of reverse engineering is *not* the code) we are left with guessing "Did Vas modify existing code until it did what he wanted, or did he learn what Fabian was doing and then do something very similar himself?" I consider either outcome a possibility. The problem, as I see it, is that it is very, very difficult to tell which is which.

The way I understand things now, there are basically two separate accusations.

One is about literal code copying (with some modifications afterwards). The time allocation code allegedly is an example of this.

The other is about non-literal code copying. The set of common evaluation features allegedly is an example of this.

The two are not completely unrelated, but I would say they do not add up: if both can only be "half proven", this does not add up to a "full proof" of wrong doing.

Having the Rybka source would probably help for the first accusation, especially if there turns out to be much more than the few small pieces that I have seen so far. Those few pieces seem to allow for alternative explanations, especially since a lot of those pieces are explained e.g. by reading the UCI protocol. One could also wonder whether, even assuming those pieces were copied, this amounts to an infringement of Rule 2. The pieces are tiny compared to the whole programs and are hardly related to game play (sure, time allocation is a little bit game play related).

Suppose those tiny pieces had been copied with full permission from Fabien. Would Vas then have infringed Rule 2 for not entering Fabien's name as co-author on the form? I think not. (Note that Fabien (not) giving permission is not an element of Rule 2: whether he gave it or not does not change whether Vas violated Rule 2 or not.)

The second accusation I have already discussed in my comment above. I don't have the impression that having the Rybka source code would make much difference here. The code implementing the evaluation featurse was certainly not copied. It is completely different. The only question here is whether Vas crossed the line between idea and expression in selecting his set of evaluation features. I would say no, but I accept that reasonable people can disagree on this point. One thing is certain: this is a grey area.

User923005 wrote:Algorithms are not protectable without a patent. Whether or not Vas has gone beyond fair use with bits of code or whether his use of creative expression extracted from Fruit being beyond what is allowed with copyright laws would probably require a level of legal expertize that nobody involved has (just guessing here, but I doubt any of the panel members is an expert is software intellectual rights).

This area is so grey, that it seems almost sure that different jurisdictions would come to different conclusions. It seems rather credible that Vas honestly thought he did nothing wrong when "copying" evaluation ideas. Even if the ICGA would have to disagree that he did nothing wrong, it seems very questionable to punish Vas so heavily for happening to be on the "wrong" side of a very vague line.

And then of course there is the whole conviction process. Although the ICGA Board bears responsibility for the final decision, the panel was clearly intended to prepare the decision for the Board. This in itself is not a problem at all, but it does mean that all panel members should have been impartial. This was clearly not the case.

Even if the ICGA Board has not acted unlawfully by not ensuring a fair procedure (which is debatable), that is not an excuse. (If it was an excuse, the Board could as well have decided straight away, without any investigation.)

Until recently, for me the by far strongest argument against Vas was his lack of cooperation. However, now that I have seen a bit more of the history of this whole issue I can understand that Vas did not see any point in cooperating with a panel basically led by Bob. Bob was not the whole panel, but it takes a lot of faith to believe that the panel could have deviated from his views.

syzygy wrote:

User923005 wrote:Without the code to examine (the result of reverse engineering is *not* the code) we are left with guessing "Did Vas modify existing code until it did what he wanted, or did he learn what Fabian was doing and then do something very similar himself?" I consider either outcome a possibility. The problem, as I see it, is that it is very, very difficult to tell which is which.

The way I understand things now, there are basically two separate accusations.

One is about literal code copying (with some modifications afterwards). The time allocation code allegedly is an example of this.

The other is about non-literal code copying. The set of common evaluation features allegedly is an example of this.

The two are not completely unrelated, but I would say they do not add up: if both can only be "half proven", this does not add up to a "full proof" of wrong doing.

Having the Rybka source would probably help for the first accusation, especially if there turns out to be much more than the few small pieces that I have seen so far. Those few pieces seem to allow for alternative explanations, especially since a lot of those pieces are explained e.g. by reading the UCI protocol. One could also wonder whether, even assuming those pieces were copied, this amounts to an infringement of Rule 2. The pieces are tiny compared to the whole programs and are hardly related to game play (sure, time allocation is a little bit game play related).

Suppose those tiny pieces had been copied with full permission from Fabien. Would Vas then have infringed Rule 2 for not entering Fabien's name as co-author on the form? I think not. (Note that Fabien (not) giving permission is not an element of Rule 2: whether he gave it or not does not change whether Vas violated Rule 2 or not.)

The second accusation I have already discussed in my comment above. I don't have the impression that having the Rybka source code would make much difference here. The code implementing the evaluation featurse was certainly not copied. It is completely different. The only question here is whether Vas crossed the line between idea and expression in selecting his set of evaluation features. I would say no, but I accept that reasonable people can disagree on this point. One thing is certain: this is a grey area.

User923005 wrote:Algorithms are not protectable without a patent. Whether or not Vas has gone beyond fair use with bits of code or whether his use of creative expression extracted from Fruit being beyond what is allowed with copyright laws would probably require a level of legal expertize that nobody involved has (just guessing here, but I doubt any of the panel members is an expert is software intellectual rights).

This area is so grey, that it seems almost sure that different jurisdictions would come to different conclusions. It seems rather credible that Vas honestly thought he did nothing wrong when "copying" evaluation ideas. Even if the ICGA would have to disagree that he did nothing wrong, it seems very questionable to punish Vas so heavily for happening to be on the "wrong" side of a very vague line.

And then of course there is the whole conviction process. Although the ICGA Board bears responsibility for the final decision, the panel was clearly intended to prepare the decision for the Board. This in itself is not a problem at all, but it does mean that all panel members should have been impartial. This was clearly not the case.

Even if the ICGA Board has not acted unlawfully by not ensuring a fair procedure (which is debatable), that is not an excuse. (If it was an excuse, the Board could as well have decided straight away, without any investigation.)

Until recently, for me the by far strongest argument against Vas was his lack of cooperation. However, now that I have seen a bit more of the history of this whole issue I can understand that Vas did not see any point in cooperating with a panel basically led by Bob. Bob was not the whole panel, but it takes a lot of faith to believe that the panel could have deviated from his views.

hyatt wrote:

syzygy wrote:It is not up to you to decide whether leaving this out is unimportant. The purpose of the document is to present the evidence to the reader, so that the reader can make up his mind himself. Or am I missing something here?

Apparently. No one knew there was a mistake until recently.

hyatt wrote:

Bob was not the whole panel, but it takes a lot of faith to believe that the panel could have deviated from his views.

You should ask a few panel members about my participation. I did not push anyone. I didn't try to persuade anyone to vote "yes". I helped when looking at the crafty / rybka 1.6.1 evidence, because I certainly understood my code. I helped with writing parts of the final report. But ask around to see how much influence I tried to exert. I suppose I could simply copy and paste every post I made on the Wiki during the investigation, which would reveal just how far off the mark your last paragraph goes...

hyatt wrote:

Suppose those tiny pieces had been copied with full permission from Fabien. Would Vas then have infringed Rule 2 for not entering Fabien's name as co-author on the form? I think not. (Note that Fabien (not) giving permission is not an element of Rule 2: whether he gave it or not does not change whether Vas violated Rule 2 or not.)

Since both competed in the same event, yes it violates rule 2.

hyatt wrote:

syzygy wrote: Until recently, for me the by far strongest argument against Vas was his lack of cooperation. However, now that I have seen a bit more of the history of this whole issue I can understand that Vas did not see any point in cooperating with a panel basically led by Bob. Bob was not the whole panel, but it takes a lot of faith to believe that the panel could have deviated from his views.

You should ask a few panel members about my participation. I did not push anyone. I didn't try to persuade anyone to vote "yes". I helped when looking at the crafty / rybka 1.6.1 evidence, because I certainly understood my code. I helped with writing parts of the final report. But ask around to see how much influence I tried to exert. I suppose I could simply copy and paste every post I made on the Wiki during the investigation, which would reveal just how far off the mark your last paragraph goes...

hyatt wrote:

syzygy wrote:Regarding paragraph 6.3.2 of RYBKA_FRUIT_Mar11.pdf, it seems to be accepted now that the decompiled line "if (movetime >= 0.0) {" should have read "if (movetime > 0.0) {". In other words, the ">=" from Fruit cannot be found in Rybka.

A panel member has suggested that this error in the decompiled Rybka code was already known to him and at least one of the other the panel members in 2010, and therefore certainly at the time of the official investigation.

Is this true? If so, why was this not corrected in RYBKA_FRUIT_Mar11.pdf?

According to this panel member, it was not important. In his words:

You think that a different comparison just invalidates that entire section of the comparison? Not for me.

Could anyone explain this point? Why was it not important that the readers of this document (i.e. the other panel members, the ICGA Board, the public) were presented facts that were as accurate as possible?

After Ed pointed the >= vs > comparison error out, I remembered that I had seen this a while back. I originally thought Mark Watkins might have mentioned it, and asked him. He thought it had come up on CCC in mid-2010. I did not recall this until Ed's comment. And even then, the "recollection" was vague and I still don't know exactly when/where/who mentioned it.

The reason I said "this is unimportant" is that this is a single line of code, out of all the evidence that has been shown. It is not even 0.1% of the total evidence. And as I said, "If you remove that line" nothing changes. The rest of the code around that line STILL matches between the two programs, not to mention the search and eval code included in the report.

Clear enough???

syzygy wrote:

hyatt wrote:

Bob was not the whole panel, but it takes a lot of faith to believe that the panel could have deviated from his views.

You should ask a few panel members about my participation. I did not push anyone. I didn't try to persuade anyone to vote "yes". I helped when looking at the crafty / rybka 1.6.1 evidence, because I certainly understood my code. I helped with writing parts of the final report. But ask around to see how much influence I tried to exert. I suppose I could simply copy and paste every post I made on the Wiki during the investigation, which would reveal just how far off the mark your last paragraph goes...

It does not even matter so much what happened inside the panel. The point is that Vas had no reason to trust the process, if only for your presence. Just look at your posts from 2010.