It sounds pretty simple, then, for a swan hunter: paint the swan, then kill it.
Piracy is stealing.
Piracy is the unauthorized use or theft of one's copyright, or an item protected by such copyright.
Just because you can not physically hold what you pirate does not make it less or a crime
Piracy is the unauthorized use or theft of one's copyright, or an item protected by such copyright.
Just because you can not physically hold what you pirate does not make it less or a crime
piracy is immoral but I disagree that it is stealing.
Stealing is more immoral than piracy.
Stealing is an action that the victim directly lose from it.
In theory it is possible that nobody lose from piracy because the people who get illegal copy are people who never buy in the first place
even if they had no possibility to get an illegal copy.
I believe that practically it is the case for most of them so if there are 100,000 illegal copies of some product with a price of 40$ the seller may lose only 400,000$ because of piracy and not 4,000,000$
Uri
Stealing is more immoral than piracy.
Stealing is an action that the victim directly lose from it.
In theory it is possible that nobody lose from piracy because the people who get illegal copy are people who never buy in the first place
even if they had no possibility to get an illegal copy.
I believe that practically it is the case for most of them so if there are 100,000 illegal copies of some product with a price of 40$ the seller may lose only 400,000$ because of piracy and not 4,000,000$
Uri
Your opinion is _exactly_ why piracy is a problem. You don't see it as a criminal act, when it certainly is.
Take the argument:
"If it wasn't so high priced I would have purchased it." = Theft. The intent was there to purchase but do to that individual's lack of wanting to pay a certain price, they STEAL it. Loss to a company or individual.
Or
"I never intended to purchase it in the first place" = Theft. If I steal a car and drive it, even though I would have NEVER purchased it, does that make it less of a crime? Of course not. Same thing, just different view on "property".
Someone always directly loses from piracy. You just can't see it because it doesn't affect you.
Take the argument:
"If it wasn't so high priced I would have purchased it." = Theft. The intent was there to purchase but do to that individual's lack of wanting to pay a certain price, they STEAL it. Loss to a company or individual.
Or
"I never intended to purchase it in the first place" = Theft. If I steal a car and drive it, even though I would have NEVER purchased it, does that make it less of a crime? Of course not. Same thing, just different view on "property".
Someone always directly loses from piracy. You just can't see it because it doesn't affect you.
Again, piracy is illegal and should be, but you use very fallacious logic.
Can you define the loss to the company when a $40 program is copied? If the program is stolen from a store, the loss is $40 because that program must be replaced. However, when it's copied, there is no need to replace anything. The upper limit of ANY loss is only the profit that would have been gained from legally buying the program. The reason that this is an upper limit is because studies show that in actuality, most of the time, the pirated products would not have actually been bought had piracy not been available. Thus, in reality, the actual loss is perhaps something like 10% of the profit, and even this is probably more like an upper limit due to even other factors involved with the fact that there is often no intent to buy and the fact that no product was stolen.
Also, people often gain from piracy, especially in the music industry--many up-and-coming artists become popular due to such spreading of their works.
Anyway, if we're going to argue against it, we must at least be truthful.
Can you define the loss to the company when a $40 program is copied? If the program is stolen from a store, the loss is $40 because that program must be replaced. However, when it's copied, there is no need to replace anything. The upper limit of ANY loss is only the profit that would have been gained from legally buying the program. The reason that this is an upper limit is because studies show that in actuality, most of the time, the pirated products would not have actually been bought had piracy not been available. Thus, in reality, the actual loss is perhaps something like 10% of the profit, and even this is probably more like an upper limit due to even other factors involved with the fact that there is often no intent to buy and the fact that no product was stolen.
Also, people often gain from piracy, especially in the music industry--many up-and-coming artists become popular due to such spreading of their works.
Anyway, if we're going to argue against it, we must at least be truthful.
Then the logic I just put forward is correct.
Just because someone wouldn't have purchased the product, but pirate to use it, the loss is to the company or individual.
Whether you steal from a store or online, you are STEALING. Why is this so hard to understand?
If I steal a car that I would have never intended to purchase, then it is still stealing. If I steal a program that I never intended to purchase, it is still stealing. Intent is the major factor in piracy. If you want to use something you purchase it. The loss comes in with projected income if those thieves _had_ purchased.
Try explaining to a judge that no harm was done when you stole something because you never intended on purchasing the item anyway, so you don't understand how someone lost or incurred losses for your actions. That will go over well, and I would _love_ to see the argument made.
So if I steal a garden rake from a store, tell people that it is the best rake I have ever used, and when caught I should get off without punishment because the company may or may not have benefited from my word of mouth advertising?
I still don't see why piracy is so hard to understand. It is theft. Plain and simple.
Just because someone wouldn't have purchased the product, but pirate to use it, the loss is to the company or individual.
Whether you steal from a store or online, you are STEALING. Why is this so hard to understand?
If I steal a car that I would have never intended to purchase, then it is still stealing. If I steal a program that I never intended to purchase, it is still stealing. Intent is the major factor in piracy. If you want to use something you purchase it. The loss comes in with projected income if those thieves _had_ purchased.
Try explaining to a judge that no harm was done when you stole something because you never intended on purchasing the item anyway, so you don't understand how someone lost or incurred losses for your actions. That will go over well, and I would _love_ to see the argument made.
So if I steal a garden rake from a store, tell people that it is the best rake I have ever used, and when caught I should get off without punishment because the company may or may not have benefited from my word of mouth advertising?
I still don't see why piracy is so hard to understand. It is theft. Plain and simple.
Okay, all you're doing is repeating your exact same talking points and putting in nothing new; you're doing the same below. I addressed all of your arguments, showed where and why they were wrong, and you have ignored them and simply repeated what you said previously. Very simply, you're not making a fundamental logical connection that must be made to correctly understand this. We don't support piracy, but still most of us have successfully made this connection. I think you can make it if you reread what I have above, but looking for any logical nuances that you might need to find to make the connections.
I am arguing against what you call a 10% loss.
The loss is absolute as the person stealing the product _could_ be a potential customer if it were not for them being a thief.
You still do not get the point that piracy is theft. Understand it and love it. The loss is absolute. Not 10%. Not 20%. It is 100%. That is revenue that they can NOT recover.
The loss is absolute as the person stealing the product _could_ be a potential customer if it were not for them being a thief.
You still do not get the point that piracy is theft. Understand it and love it. The loss is absolute. Not 10%. Not 20%. It is 100%. That is revenue that they can NOT recover.
That is revenue that they can NOT recover.
Absolutely misleading. If the product was sold legally, there are production costs that cause a loss that is offset by the revenue that comes in and the extra revenue is what the seller gains (though not always--the stuff is often sold at a loss so as to gain exposure for future sales, among other things). If someone pirates a copy, there are no production costs except for the person doing the pirating (and yet there is still the gain for future sales, among other things).
Again, as before--tell me: if someone downloads a song illegally out of curiosity, who gets a loss? The person would not have bought the CD in the first place (this is true something like 90% of the time, and even more so if it's one song). If you cannot explain who gets the loss from something that wouldn't have otherwise happened anyway, then you have no basis for your statements. Actually, I already know that you have no basis for your statements--the lawyers aren't able to explain this, either, for a very simple reason: it's not possible. That's why the cases that are pressed are those involved where someone serves as a base for sharing music illegally (which is actually exactly what "Yuri Osipov" is doing with Strelka).
Absolutely misleading. If the product was sold legally, there are production costs that cause a loss that is offset by the revenue that comes in and the extra revenue is what the seller gains (though not always--the stuff is often sold at a loss so as to gain exposure for future sales, among other things). If someone pirates a copy, there are no production costs except for the person doing the pirating (and yet there is still the gain for future sales, among other things).
Again, as before--tell me: if someone downloads a song illegally out of curiosity, who gets a loss? The person would not have bought the CD in the first place (this is true something like 90% of the time, and even more so if it's one song). If you cannot explain who gets the loss from something that wouldn't have otherwise happened anyway, then you have no basis for your statements. Actually, I already know that you have no basis for your statements--the lawyers aren't able to explain this, either, for a very simple reason: it's not possible. That's why the cases that are pressed are those involved where someone serves as a base for sharing music illegally (which is actually exactly what "Yuri Osipov" is doing with Strelka).
> If I steal a car and drive it, even though I would have NEVER purchased it, does that make it less of a crime?
That's an example of stealing not piracy. If you wan't to pirate a car you need to have an advanced factory that can copy or duplicate it. The owner won't loose his original car unlike when you steal it. He can still enjoy driving his own car even without knowing that you copied it.
Piracy is when the original copyright holder's rights are violated.
When a license specifically states that said item is to be used once or per user, per purchase, then a loss is incurred when another user _steals_ it for use again. Until you purchase the right to use someone else's property, you are stealing from that person.
Whether it is a copy or an exact item, you are still illegally using the item.
I think you need to look up the legal definition of piracy, as you have no clue as to what it really is. Stealing is stealing and loss is loss.
Make a program and sell it. When it shows up on websites for free download, tell me you don't feel a loss for all the users that just stole from you.
When a license specifically states that said item is to be used once or per user, per purchase, then a loss is incurred when another user _steals_ it for use again. Until you purchase the right to use someone else's property, you are stealing from that person.
Whether it is a copy or an exact item, you are still illegally using the item.
I think you need to look up the legal definition of piracy, as you have no clue as to what it really is. Stealing is stealing and loss is loss.
Make a program and sell it. When it shows up on websites for free download, tell me you don't feel a loss for all the users that just stole from you.
I am in general a great supporter of open source and think that many copy right laws are outdated. In many areas e.g. music and film the artists are in a double bind, since they on the one hand want their products distributed (which the copyright makes more difficult) as well as they want to make a money. It is a fact of life that most computer literate people age <25 download virtually all their music as well as all films free of any charge (the http adresses of such sites circulate freely among people in this age group). Legally, it is not even clear to what extend this is illegal. It is not illegal to record music from the radio or record videos from movies broadcast on television. I spoke to a internet layer and in general it is hard to claim it is illegal to download music or a film from the internet. What IS illegal is to make a profit and distribute the music/films without permission.
Though it might be hard to prosecute, I am sure it is illegal to reverse engineer Rybka and distribute it without permission. In general I support ethical payments, and other business models where there is a higher degree of cooperation between the authors/programmers and their costumers. Had there been a "donate" option on Rybka's web pages I might in fact help the Rybka team with a small donation (on top of what I pay for Rybka).
The idea that downloading say music or a film as the same is theft is based on a misunderstood and outdated idea about what rights one can have over digital information one has released into the public domain. All digital information can be encoded as a number. How can one have copyright on a natural number? If it was possible to have copyright on a number I would copyright 0.123456789101112131415.....
The digital information of any movie, or any film is embedded as a subsequence of this number. Thus I could claim that any digital data in effect was part of my "creation".
Though it might be hard to prosecute, I am sure it is illegal to reverse engineer Rybka and distribute it without permission. In general I support ethical payments, and other business models where there is a higher degree of cooperation between the authors/programmers and their costumers. Had there been a "donate" option on Rybka's web pages I might in fact help the Rybka team with a small donation (on top of what I pay for Rybka).
The idea that downloading say music or a film as the same is theft is based on a misunderstood and outdated idea about what rights one can have over digital information one has released into the public domain. All digital information can be encoded as a number. How can one have copyright on a natural number? If it was possible to have copyright on a number I would copyright 0.123456789101112131415.....
The digital information of any movie, or any film is embedded as a subsequence of this number. Thus I could claim that any digital data in effect was part of my "creation".
It amazes me how people rationalize this thing or that... I suppose it is just as easy to rationalize black is white and white is black as long as the conscious is appeased.
Rob O.
Rob O.
It amazes me how people think "inside the box" and still have not realised that the world is moving on and old ideas are being replaced by new ideas.
Had your country had copyrights on jokes, would you also suggest that I had problems distinguising white from black if a claimed I had the right to tell other peoples jokes without permission?
To quote Boucher, a Virginia Democrat "Free speech doesn't mean much if you have to get prior permission of an intellectual property owner" to use the work for your own purposes.
I suppose in some juristictions (e.g. many European contries) the law mainly is designed to bennefit individual people and their rights, rather than solely being designed to bennefit the multinational companies and their lobyists, on expense of the general population.
Had your country had copyrights on jokes, would you also suggest that I had problems distinguising white from black if a claimed I had the right to tell other peoples jokes without permission?
To quote Boucher, a Virginia Democrat "Free speech doesn't mean much if you have to get prior permission of an intellectual property owner" to use the work for your own purposes.
I suppose in some juristictions (e.g. many European contries) the law mainly is designed to bennefit individual people and their rights, rather than solely being designed to bennefit the multinational companies and their lobyists, on expense of the general population.
Soren, lets take your concept of digital information being converted into a number and apply it to a physical product. A body/frame of a car for example, can be melted down completely into say a perfectly square block of solid metal. Can anyone copyright a plain square block of metal? Nope. Same goes with your number comparison. You can try to argue against this, but reach deep down inside and you'll realize it cannot be denied.
I think you missed the number example. Melting the car ruin the car and change it. If the data file of your movie starts with 010100010100101010101010101000001010101010010101001010...........and 4GB later ends with.....101001010, this very same sequence occur in the number 0.12345678910111213141516...... if you start reading at the right place. Technically this is a bit like lifting a chapter from a book! In this case the digital information for the book is like a chapter in my number. The example with the number is of course somewhat far fetched but the underlying problem of when and how someone can claim to have rights on digital information does not go away.
We need to support and protect the artists, entrepreneurs etc, but we also need to protect the rights of the individual. Far from all intellectual products can be copyrighted.
We need to support and protect the artists, entrepreneurs etc, but we also need to protect the rights of the individual. Far from all intellectual products can be copyrighted.
As far as I know, it's also illegal to download copyrighted music or video to which you do not already have rights. For example, you cannot download a CD that you have never bought and that is only available for sale (i.e. doesn't have a free version), but it is perfectly all right to download one that you do already have so that you simply have it in that .mp3 form on your computer. I've done this with a number of my CDs for individual songs because it's often quicker to do it that way then to rip from my CD, especially since my CD and DVD drives work only X percent of the time, where X is a positive real number less than 50.
This does, of course, depend a lot on your jurisdiction. To take the example I'm most familiar with: Until recently, it was not actually illegal in Norway to download copyrighted music or video. (Making it publically available, OTOH, was.) Then the laws changed and these days it's more complex.
/* Steinar */
/* Steinar */
Your words:
"Make a program and sell it. When it shows up on websites for free download, tell me you don't feel a loss for all the users that just stole from you. "
You seem to confuse between people who are quilty in putting commercial programs on the websites for free download and
people who are quilty in piracy that in most cases do not share the program with all the world.
The discussion here is about the people who download the programs from illegal sites or people who copied it illegally from a friend and not about people who are responsible for the illegal sites.
If you download a commercial program from an illegal site you are not stealing(but did something wrong that is less than stealing) and it is possible that your action cause no loss to the developer because you did not mean to buy it in the first place.
The person who allow downloading commercial programs from his site probably does something that is worse than stealing a single copy(because I believe that the developers lose more than the price of one copy from his actions) but this is a different case.
If you copy from a friend and do not download from a site that share with all the world than both of you did something wrong but less than stealing.
Uri
"Make a program and sell it. When it shows up on websites for free download, tell me you don't feel a loss for all the users that just stole from you. "
You seem to confuse between people who are quilty in putting commercial programs on the websites for free download and
people who are quilty in piracy that in most cases do not share the program with all the world.
The discussion here is about the people who download the programs from illegal sites or people who copied it illegally from a friend and not about people who are responsible for the illegal sites.
If you download a commercial program from an illegal site you are not stealing(but did something wrong that is less than stealing) and it is possible that your action cause no loss to the developer because you did not mean to buy it in the first place.
The person who allow downloading commercial programs from his site probably does something that is worse than stealing a single copy(because I believe that the developers lose more than the price of one copy from his actions) but this is a different case.
If you copy from a friend and do not download from a site that share with all the world than both of you did something wrong but less than stealing.
Uri
Yes,
it is being such a situation as you described.
There is a problem with saving the intellectual developments. It is not easy. Some examples:
a.
The game, its record shall be the ownership of the players as it is the art but profits are making the publishers without any payment to players, they even are not asking them for the permission to publish it and their names.
b.
someone has developed the novelty, it shall/not be his ownership but afterwards everyone has the right to use it without any permission.
c.
the same happens to software
I think that it is not the solution for the problem in the current time.
Rgds
Hetman
it is being such a situation as you described.
There is a problem with saving the intellectual developments. It is not easy. Some examples:
a.
The game, its record shall be the ownership of the players as it is the art but profits are making the publishers without any payment to players, they even are not asking them for the permission to publish it and their names.
b.
someone has developed the novelty, it shall/not be his ownership but afterwards everyone has the right to use it without any permission.
c.
the same happens to software
I think that it is not the solution for the problem in the current time.
Rgds
Hetman
> piracy is immoral but I disagree that it is stealing.
> Stealing is more immoral than piracy.
>
> Stealing is an action that the victim directly lose from it.
> In theory it is possible that nobody lose from piracy because the people who get illegal copy are people who never buy in the first place
> even if they had no possibility to get an illegal copy.
>
> I believe that practically it is the case for most of them so if there are 100,000 illegal copies of some product with a price of 40$ (1571.4 INR) the seller may lose only 400,000$ (15713999.99 INR) because of piracy and not 4,000,000$(157140 INR)
>
> Uri
+1.. Not only that, in long run i feel piracy promotes the product, it's one of the surprising but very effective ways the product gets marketed. That's why it's close cousin shareware is so famous. So piracy won't affect the author in long run, but stealing one's intellectual propertiy and exposing it to competitors is pure betrayal against the survival of the product. Thats really betrayal and dangerous.
> That's why it's close cousin shareware is so famous.
I was going to ask if shareware still existed... It seems that "successful" shareware products require a significant amount of effort in areas other than software development - you can't just release your product and expect the money to start rolling in (even in the PayPal era). The typical shareware developer story is usually like: "I've made two small packages and sold exactly 6 copies at $10 - yet I still get user requests on about a weekly basis" - in fact, I think over 99% of shareware is now abandonware, and it might be difficult to pay the author in any case. More typically, "successful" shareware would mean that the author was paid by a publishing house to produce a sequel (or related product). [The related crippleware probably reaps more success, but, as I indicated above, then you have to worry about more than just software development].
To some degree, open source/free software killed shareware. If something is simple enough for a single developer to do part-time, and useful enough that many want it, you can be pretty sure that some other developer can do about the same thing part-time and open up his/her version.
/* Steinar */
/* Steinar */
Hi Harvey,
Thank you for responding-I took a look at that example-but, I am thinking in terms of something more limited to the computer chess community. However, I guess right now might not be a good time to discuss this issue.
Regards,
Robert
Thank you for responding-I took a look at that example-but, I am thinking in terms of something more limited to the computer chess community. However, I guess right now might not be a good time to discuss this issue.
Regards,
Robert
Hi Robert,
If you read more closely you will see this site is aimed at Chess engine authors.
Best Wishes,
Harvey
If you read more closely you will see this site is aimed at Chess engine authors.
Best Wishes,
Harvey
Hi Harvey,
I like this section which seems to hit the nail on the head:
" Education. The harm done by piracy is massive, and not just to recording artists or corporations. It hurts you and I every time we pay for a music cd or software. By educating young people about the harms of online piracy and the effect on the global market, we hope to reduce the level of theft. There are personal threats as well in our teachings. Sites that offer pirated materials for download may contain trojans, viruses, spy ware and mal ware. While you think getting music or a program for free is awesome, a pirate is thinking the exact same! He has just infected your system with a malicious file that could hand him over all the passwords to your bank accounts and other stored information on your system... but hey! You got your program :)
No one ever stops to think about a problem until it affects them personally, or until they realize it is affecting them personally. Kind of like the old adage, "You never liked the police until you actually need one." The same is true here. "
I like this section which seems to hit the nail on the head:
" Education. The harm done by piracy is massive, and not just to recording artists or corporations. It hurts you and I every time we pay for a music cd or software. By educating young people about the harms of online piracy and the effect on the global market, we hope to reduce the level of theft. There are personal threats as well in our teachings. Sites that offer pirated materials for download may contain trojans, viruses, spy ware and mal ware. While you think getting music or a program for free is awesome, a pirate is thinking the exact same! He has just infected your system with a malicious file that could hand him over all the passwords to your bank accounts and other stored information on your system... but hey! You got your program :)
No one ever stops to think about a problem until it affects them personally, or until they realize it is affecting them personally. Kind of like the old adage, "You never liked the police until you actually need one." The same is true here. "
My point is, how many times do we come back to this issue! How many times, Vas, do you have point out that your work is being bastardized, and exploited before some real action can take place instead of falling on deaf ears.
That it is.
As Harvey and Vas know, I remove an enormous amount of links to pirated chess content each day.
While I can never be 100% effective, I certainly try to disrupt the flow of materials and bring those responsible to authorities. My company Kikrtech.com along with the CRIA was instrumental in closing Demonoid.com. We have brought down groups on IRC, other torrent sites, and individual users on Ebay.
Will this problem ever go away? Not likely. Why would someone continue when the fight will never end? Because authors like Vas need someone on the front lines protecting their rights.
As Harvey and Vas know, I remove an enormous amount of links to pirated chess content each day.
While I can never be 100% effective, I certainly try to disrupt the flow of materials and bring those responsible to authorities. My company Kikrtech.com along with the CRIA was instrumental in closing Demonoid.com. We have brought down groups on IRC, other torrent sites, and individual users on Ebay.
Will this problem ever go away? Not likely. Why would someone continue when the fight will never end? Because authors like Vas need someone on the front lines protecting their rights.
Hi Peter,
yes, thanks for all of your efforts here.
Vas
yes, thanks for all of your efforts here.
Vas
Yes, in spite of our disagreements on technicalities, what you're doing is obviously a good thing.
> For instance, Rybka and Strelka are the only engines which I know about which don't report "seldepth" and "hashfull".
Glaurung, at least the older versions?
> the author has left in hardcoded constants
These are readily apparent - for instance, it is easy to find 971, 121, 532, 246, etc. in the Rybka 1.0 disassemble.
Hello,
I took a look at the Strelka sources (sorry, couldn't contain my curiosity). I do sympathize with your legal issues and hope you can work something out. IIRC disassembly is legal but I can't imagine that releasing source code is. The worst part is that I think it will be very difficult to prevent this in the future. I looked into some of these things and unfortunately obfuscation seems to be theoretically impossible, although at least you can waste some of Osipov's time. However, you can take heart that there isn't really anything your competitors can learn from Strelka anyway ;)
Which is why I'm surprised no one is talking about the actual source code, which by your own admission is very similar to Rybka 1.0. I know a lot of the people here are basically chess players and not programmers, but that no one has taken the time to spend an hour examining the most dominant chess program in 5 years? I expected that Rybka was going to be a fast simple program with an obfuscated node count, but I had no idea just how right that was going to be. On my machine the 32-bit Strelka gets 1.2 million nps or so, which means a 64 bit compile would get 2.5M, or about 5X as fast as my poor little Zappa. In terms of knowledge, there is very little that is not in well known except for the material tables, which should be very fast. I'm also pretty amazed at how aggressively the search prunes. Not only will Strelka drop straight into the q-search on a depth-3 search search, but because it orders all captures first, it will reduce almost all noncapture/check moves.
Anyway, in my professional opinion Strelka is basically Fritz5 + history reductions + bigger (but not more) mobility/passed pawn terms + super-vasik-material evaluation. What's amazing to me is how well it works. I don't know whether to laugh at the silliness of all the speculation surrounding Rybka and how horribly wrong it was, or congratulate you for taking a completely different path than everyone else.
cheers,
anthony
I took a look at the Strelka sources (sorry, couldn't contain my curiosity). I do sympathize with your legal issues and hope you can work something out. IIRC disassembly is legal but I can't imagine that releasing source code is. The worst part is that I think it will be very difficult to prevent this in the future. I looked into some of these things and unfortunately obfuscation seems to be theoretically impossible, although at least you can waste some of Osipov's time. However, you can take heart that there isn't really anything your competitors can learn from Strelka anyway ;)
Which is why I'm surprised no one is talking about the actual source code, which by your own admission is very similar to Rybka 1.0. I know a lot of the people here are basically chess players and not programmers, but that no one has taken the time to spend an hour examining the most dominant chess program in 5 years? I expected that Rybka was going to be a fast simple program with an obfuscated node count, but I had no idea just how right that was going to be. On my machine the 32-bit Strelka gets 1.2 million nps or so, which means a 64 bit compile would get 2.5M, or about 5X as fast as my poor little Zappa. In terms of knowledge, there is very little that is not in well known except for the material tables, which should be very fast. I'm also pretty amazed at how aggressively the search prunes. Not only will Strelka drop straight into the q-search on a depth-3 search search, but because it orders all captures first, it will reduce almost all noncapture/check moves.
Anyway, in my professional opinion Strelka is basically Fritz5 + history reductions + bigger (but not more) mobility/passed pawn terms + super-vasik-material evaluation. What's amazing to me is how well it works. I don't know whether to laugh at the silliness of all the speculation surrounding Rybka and how horribly wrong it was, or congratulate you for taking a completely different path than everyone else.
cheers,
anthony
3 points:
i) can this guy be tracked in anyway - his email address etc, do we know what country he comes from etc?
ii) Can rybka 2.3.2a be copied as easily?
iii) I hope there is encryption in Rybka 3. Will it hurt performance?
i) can this guy be tracked in anyway - his email address etc, do we know what country he comes from etc?
ii) Can rybka 2.3.2a be copied as easily?
iii) I hope there is encryption in Rybka 3. Will it hurt performance?
ii) As Anthony says not as easily, but definitely can be done eventually.
The good thing is that Strelka appeared 2 years after Rybka 1.0, so after putting an encryption, Rybka will probably always have an at least 2 years advantage....
The good thing is that Strelka appeared 2 years after Rybka 1.0, so after putting an encryption, Rybka will probably always have an at least 2 years advantage....
I'd guess cracking the encryption would be rather insignificant compared to the reverse-engineering itself.
/* Steinar */
/* Steinar */
> i) As Anthony says not as easily, but definitely can be done eventually.
>
> The good thing is that Strelka appeared 2 years after Rybka 1.0, so after putting an encryption, Rybka will probably always have an at least 2 years advantage....
+1. You can keep copying the code, but Osipov can never beat Vas (Rybka). That's the difference between copy cats and classic knowledge. So i don't see him as any threat to Rybka, just a bored 'need for recognition seeking' sick guy.
I don't think it took 2 years of work to decompile Rybka. My personal guess is that if I bought a copy of IDA pro I could probably decompile Rybka 2.3.2a in 3 months tops, and this Osipov is presumably more experienced with assembly language than I am.
The encryption I am talking about is not really as effective as you might think, because in the end the code has to be executed. So at some point it gets decrypted. The usual trick is just decrypt the binary right before execution. This makes it a little harder for IDA pro as the code that is getting executed is not the same as the code in the file, but it wouldn't take that long before Osipov just pulled out the real code and got to work.
But while the decompilation of Rybka is more or less inevitable (Chrilly did it too IIRC) I don't really see the point. I doubt Osipov has the skill to actually improve a chess program, so its not clear to me what he can actually do with his decompiled source code, other than irritate Vasik by posting it online. And it would seem sort of silly to spend a few months of fulltime work decompiling a program just to annoy the author.
anthony
The encryption I am talking about is not really as effective as you might think, because in the end the code has to be executed. So at some point it gets decrypted. The usual trick is just decrypt the binary right before execution. This makes it a little harder for IDA pro as the code that is getting executed is not the same as the code in the file, but it wouldn't take that long before Osipov just pulled out the real code and got to work.
But while the decompilation of Rybka is more or less inevitable (Chrilly did it too IIRC) I don't really see the point. I doubt Osipov has the skill to actually improve a chess program, so its not clear to me what he can actually do with his decompiled source code, other than irritate Vasik by posting it online. And it would seem sort of silly to spend a few months of fulltime work decompiling a program just to annoy the author.
anthony
I think that Osipov does not have the interest to improve a chess program and it is not a question of skill.
I guess that he could have something better than strelka in case of using his energy to write a chess program of himself instead of decompiling rybka.
Edit:it does not contradict the fact that he probably did some improvements relative to earlier code
because I guess based on Vas's post that the improvements are mainly fixing bugs of rybka and not adding some original knowledge.
Uri
I guess that he could have something better than strelka in case of using his energy to write a chess program of himself instead of decompiling rybka.
Edit:it does not contradict the fact that he probably did some improvements relative to earlier code
because I guess based on Vas's post that the improvements are mainly fixing bugs of rybka and not adding some original knowledge.
Uri
I doubt Osipov has the skill to actually improve a chess program, so its not clear to me what he can actually do with his decompiled source code, other than irritate Vasik by posting it online. And it would seem sort of silly to spend a few months of fulltime work decompiling a program just to annoy the author.
This is a rather amusing comment. For the great majority of engine developers, this activity can only be seen as a hobby where its OK to waste a lot of time on an effort that is almost guaranteed not to have a reasonable financial return. Even for the very few that are actually making a living from engine development, it is hard to imagine that in most cases they couldn't be doing substantially better financially developing algorithms and software in better funded areas.
Assuming the developer of Strelka is doing this as a hobby and wants to compete at the highest levels of engine chess, he seems to have chosen a rational approach in reverse engineering the highest rated engine to find out what makes it tick, and then rewriting it and (hopefully) improving it. The problem with his performance so far is that apparently he hasn't done a complete rewrite and he may not understand the code or have the talent required to improve on it.
Regards,
Alan
This is a rather amusing comment. For the great majority of engine developers, this activity can only be seen as a hobby where its OK to waste a lot of time on an effort that is almost guaranteed not to have a reasonable financial return. Even for the very few that are actually making a living from engine development, it is hard to imagine that in most cases they couldn't be doing substantially better financially developing algorithms and software in better funded areas.
Assuming the developer of Strelka is doing this as a hobby and wants to compete at the highest levels of engine chess, he seems to have chosen a rational approach in reverse engineering the highest rated engine to find out what makes it tick, and then rewriting it and (hopefully) improving it. The problem with his performance so far is that apparently he hasn't done a complete rewrite and he may not understand the code or have the talent required to improve on it.
Regards,
Alan
> Not only will Strelka drop straight into the q-search on a depth-3 search
Is this not only in the futile case (value+125+175<beta)?
> but because it orders all captures first
It seems that bad captures are in case 6, which is after the generic case 5.
> super-vasik-material evaluation
There seems to be high regard toward the impact of nuances in material evaluation - but has anyone ever done an ELO experiment?
>> Not only will Strelka drop straight into the q-search on a depth-3 search
> Is this not only in the futile case (value+125+175<beta)?
Yes, but it's practically a stand pat at depth 2 compared to Fruit's futility pruning. With an unusually low threshold to boot. It's probably why Vas said this. :)
Yes, it only drops from 3->q in the futile case, but this is really extremely aggressive. To give you a comparison, in the standard futility pruning paper by Heinz, at depth 3 he reduces 1 ply (instead of 3!), and his margin is 10 pawns, not 4.
Good find on the bad captures; I just looked at the root move ordering.
Good find on the bad captures; I just looked at the root move ordering.
No
I do not think that it is aggresive
It may be aggresive relative to zappa but I guess that it is clearly less aggresive relative to later versions of rybka
Rybka1.0 beta is relatively better in test suites relative to later versions of rybka(that are better in playing) and the only reason that I can think that it happens is that later rybka versions are more aggresive in pruning.
Now when you know the secret maybe you can improve zappa by 50-100 elo.
Uri
I do not think that it is aggresive
It may be aggresive relative to zappa but I guess that it is clearly less aggresive relative to later versions of rybka
Rybka1.0 beta is relatively better in test suites relative to later versions of rybka(that are better in playing) and the only reason that I can think that it happens is that later rybka versions are more aggresive in pruning.
Now when you know the secret maybe you can improve zappa by 50-100 elo.
Uri
> history reductions
Tord would probably not like this terminology - a closer look seems to show that Strelka only uses history for ordering, and does late-move reduction w/o history being considered.
> congratulate you for taking a completely different path than everyone else
You sure know how to ruin a good party. And it had barely started, you, you.... party pooper! You should have more respect for those who want to convince the world that Rybka was a Fruit clone. Anyway, who is interested in an expert's opinion... not the knuckle dragging masses, that's for sure :)
> I don't know whether to laugh at the silliness of all the speculation surrounding Rybka and how horribly wrong it was, or congratulate you for taking a completely different path than everyone else.
Perhaps both. Anything you spotted in the Stelka source that you can use in Zappa Beijing? :)
Dunno. If I feel interested I might have a look at the material code.
Thanks for posting here, your opinion is very interesting. A pair of questions.
You must follow computer chess, it is not casual that you logged in yesterday and posted. Does this mean that you have been actively developing Zappa since Mexico match? Can it help you to make Zappa faster? ;)
And another one, Vas said that vast parts of Strelka were of rybka, so vast that he will claim the code.
You say that "Strelka is basically Fritz5 + history reductions + bigger (but not more) mobility/passed pawn terms + super-vasik-material evaluation"
Gian-Carlo Pascutto "From what I see, the code is a mix of Fruit, Beowulf, and Rybka!", look at his second post here
http://f23.parsimony.net/forum50826/messages/177397.htm
The russians engine developers and others that Strelka is fruit.
So the question is are all of these opinions compatible?
You must follow computer chess, it is not casual that you logged in yesterday and posted. Does this mean that you have been actively developing Zappa since Mexico match? Can it help you to make Zappa faster? ;)
And another one, Vas said that vast parts of Strelka were of rybka, so vast that he will claim the code.
You say that "Strelka is basically Fritz5 + history reductions + bigger (but not more) mobility/passed pawn terms + super-vasik-material evaluation"
Gian-Carlo Pascutto "From what I see, the code is a mix of Fruit, Beowulf, and Rybka!", look at his second post here
http://f23.parsimony.net/forum50826/messages/177397.htm
The russians engine developers and others that Strelka is fruit.
So the question is are all of these opinions compatible?
Well, I've taken a look (and I am a programmer), but you'd have to be quite familiar with the inner structure of a chess program to get anything out of what is Strelka. It's basically a pretty solid block of tables, bit-fiddling tricks and comments in Russian... (I guess it would be a lot simpler if the comments were in English.)
/* Steinar */
/* Steinar */
I guess the only way to make it less accessible to the masses would be to replace the Russian comments with comments in Norwegian! :-)
Regards,
Alan
Regards,
Alan
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