I find it quite interesting that this has become about perceived flaws in the _process_, as opposed to erroneous conclusions.  Apparently, copying in Rybka 1.6.1 is irrelevant, somehow.  (ok sir, we discovered that you robbed 3 convenience stores on your spree, but we don't hold that against you, we are only investigating the robbery at the local "candy R us" store.  That's nonsense.

Vas made a statement to the ICGA inquiry in response to our early request for him to join.  Namely that "_all_ versions of Rybka were 100% original except for public domain snippets..."  Mark Watkins decided to verify that statement with respect to early versions, and 1.6.1 was the first that was examined.  And found to be not just a "little bit of copied code" but "a _lot_ of copied code."  But apparently when someone makes a statement to the panel, we are not allowed to verify the statement as true/false, "just because"??

I also find it interesting that this wholesale copying in 1.6.1, a version that was distributed to rating list testers, in direct violation of Crafty's license, is considered to be "irrelevant and OK because this happened 6 years ago." 

You, and others, seem to adopt the reasoning "Anything is OK here.  Rules don't matter.  Copyright/GPL does not matter.  Common ethics in Computer Science don't matter.  Whatever Vas does is OK, period.

Why you believe that is beyond me.  And beyond a _lot_ of other folks as well.  You might ask yourself "why?" 

What is even stranger is that "outsiders" (non-authors) want to dictate to "insiders" (authors that participate in ICGA events and other events that use their rules) how we ought to do things, how we should change the rules, how we should interpret the rules and how we ought to compete.  As if we cared what _they_ think about _our_ competitions and rules of participation.  If a group wants to form a golf association where you can't use woods, when a right-handed person can only use left-handed irons, and where you can only use a sand-wedge for putting, more power to them.  People that like the rules will participate, those that don't, won't.  And those that don't will _not_ be continually telling 'em that they should change their rules, they are unfair, they make no sense.  If a group of people want to participate in some sort of contest, the first thing that is required is rules, so that everyone knows what is allowed and what is not.   In a horse race, no motorcycles or cars allowed.  etc.  Once the participants define the rules that they all agree on, then they compete using those rules and all are happy.  The "outsiders" should have no expectation that they can dictate the rules when they do not even compete.

This has been just about the strangest situation I have ever seen, even though several others have been barred from competing, booted from tournaments, exposed in public, etc.  But "this" case is different.  why?  Because this is a forum of supporters, some of which simply refuse to accept that something _bad_ has happened.  And they keep trying to find reasons that the "bad behavior" was exposed for every possible reason under the sun, the process was flawed, the people were biased, the investigation was biased, completely ignoring the small fact that a major rule was broken and that this was proven beyond a doubt to those that understand computer chess programming.

Strange is not really the best word, but it fits...

There was no "lynch mob."  Each time Vas opened a door, we chose to walk through it to see what we might find.  It really was a simple and straightforward investigation that required some pretty decent technical skills to pull off.  This has nothing to do with a grudge, otherwise we would have done the same to Ken when he dominated, or to Hsu when he dominated.  There is no attempt to "belittle his contributions" although we have shown that much of his contribution was tainted by rules violations that gave him a significant competitive edge.  I would never look at his contributions in the same light as those of Slate, Thompson or Hsu, because _they_ didn't cheat.