An Open Letter to Prospective Cloners

[Olivier Deville]

I am getting clones in my mailbox on a regular basis.

It usually takes me a few minutes to find out they are clones and from which engine.

Lately two of them (xyclOps and Oxygen) somehow managed to pass my tests and were allowed to play in my tournaments. But as you know, they were finally caught.

I hope that from now on people will refrain from sending me clones. If you do so, you will be exposed as a cheater and a liar.

Olivier

[Vegan]

Probably 2/3 are clones from the various open source engines out there.

[Olivier Deville]

Probably 2/3 are clones from the various open source engines out there.

The many honest programmers who read this forum will certainly appreciate your support.

Beware, BigLion is not a vegan...

Olivier

[Guenther Simon]

Probably 2/3 are clones from the various open source engines out there.

I completely disagree. If that was true, all our struggles would have failed.
There are several people including serious testers and well known programmers
who always checked new releases for clone issues.
And yes they found a lot during the last 8 years or so.

May be your definion of a clone is different from mine. Reading ideas
in open source programs or books and then writing your own particular
code around that idea in your own program is of course not cloning,
if you mean something like this.

Guenther

[Matthias Gemuh]

Probably 2/3 are clones from the various open source engines out there.

The many honest programmers who read this forum will certainly appreciate your support.

Beware, BigLion is not a vegan...

Olivier

The vast majority of engine authors don't even read open source anymore after releasing the first buggy version of their engine. I don't, though I collect and store some source code as a hobby

Authors mostly learn new stuff by following discussions in fora and trying out the ideas.

BTW, I started by studying TSCP and looking into Crafty, without cloning any of the two.

Regards,
BigLion.


.

[Vegan]

Its not hard to take an existing program and make a derivative work. Change the I/O a bit and it looks like an original, bit more code tweaking, no binary searching is going to be able to tell.

I don't care myself, do what you wanna do. I suggest, citations and give credit to those who's work you a basing you're efforts on.

If its only a clone, so what, eventually the person might learn something. Maybe......

[Matthias Gemuh]

If its only a clone, so what, eventually the person might learn something. Maybe......

Clones eliminate legal engines from many tournaments and also waste time and electricity (and hardware) of testers.
It is not right to be indifferent to all that.

Matthias.


.

[H.G.Muller]

Its not hard to take an existing program and make a derivative work. Change the I/O a bit and it looks like an original, bit more code tweaking, no binary searching is going to be able to tell.

You wouldn't be much good as a cloner. People that do what you suggest will be caught in a minute by our anti-cloners brigade!

[Volker Pittlik]

...People that do what you suggest will be caught in a minute by our anti-cloners brigade!

If the "new program" compiles...

[GenoM]

Hi
My view is that derivatives have to have in their names the names of the engines they're grown up from.
For example:
Fruit Toga
Toga Cyclone
etc.

Other thing I suggest that we differ derivatives and clones. Derivatives can be programs that came out from open-source programs and they're open-source too. So in this case clones are closed source programs that contain pieces of the other software -- open or closed source without mentioning such a fact.

Of course, tournament organizers are completely free to not include such engines (derivatives or clones) in the tournaments they conduct.

Regards,
Geno

[JuLieN]

So, at first generation we would get :

- Toga Fruit

At second generation :

- Gambit Toga Fruit

At third generation :

- CyCLONE Gambit Toga Fruit

We'll have problems with such naming conventions.

[Matthias Gemuh]

So, at first generation we would get :

- Toga Fruit

At second generation :

- Gambit Toga Fruit

At third generation :

- CyCLONE Gambit Toga Fruit

We'll have problems with such naming conventions.

CycloGambiFruitoga sounds fine

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

So, at first generation we would get :

- Toga Fruit

At second generation :

- Gambit Toga Fruit

At third generation :

- CyCLONE Gambit Toga Fruit

We'll have problems with such naming conventions.

CycloGambiFruitoga sounds fine

It sounds amazing

[Teemu Pudas]

Just name all clones Dolly.

[Tony Thomas]

Just name all clones Dolly.

Bang! Or you can call them goat..

[Teemu Pudas]

Or you can call them goat..

No! That's the name of my (not quite ready to play chess yet) engine. Not a clone of anything.

Or at least it will be its name once I get around to search-replacing its former name in the source, (Placeholder).

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

Or you can call them goat..

No! That's the name of my (not quite ready to play chess yet) engine. Not a clone of anything.

Or at least it will be its name once I get around to search-replacing its former name in the source, (Placeholder).

Sorry,but you have to obtain the copy rights from Tony Thomas first,goat is a registered mark