ChessBase finaly speaks of Rykba banning (using biased Rybka forum moderator)

ChessBase finaly speaks of Rykba banning (using biased Rybka forum moderator)
Angels_77 just now



ChessBase on the Rybka/Fruit controversy: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]


PLEASE NOTE.....
"In the new article, they should have mentioned that a) Søren is a moderator on the Rybka Forum and b) ChessBase is a distributor of Rybka and in no way impartial."

BB+responds to this and ed Shroders continued nonsensical defense of the indefencable

chessbase presents NO new evidence to exonerate vasich, just a smokescreen of deception
At this point, nothing short of releasing the source code could exonerate Rybka.

- Angels77

~~
BB+ posts

» Mon Jan 02, 2012 11:39 pm
I respond to the ChessBase part 1 of Dr. Riis. Among various extraneous parts, he brings up two things of import. Firstly, he claims that Rybka implements concepts and algorithms learned from Fruit” appears to be the most correct and accurate formulation -- this opinion was essentially considered and rejected by the ICGA process. The conclusion was that Rajlich did more than just "implement concepts and algorithms learned from Fruit". Secondly, he quotes Rajlich as saying: When two modern top chess programs play against each other maybe 95% of the programs are algorithmically the same. What is classing is the other 5%. I find these numbers almost laughable, unless the word "algorithmically" is couched quite carefully. Dr. Riis seems to assume that the evaluation function is part of this "algorithmic" quantity, whereas the ICGA process found that there was wide scope for creativity therein. Quoting Rajlich himself: As far as I know, Rybka has a very original search and evaluation framework. The juxtaposition of this with the 95% number seems obscure.

Finally, after giving a selection of Rybka highlights over the years (his article is in part to defend the reputation of Rajlich, and thus does not deal only with the ICGA process), Dr. Riis plays the role of lawyer, essentially asking how the ICGA can interpret its own rules, how exactly this should be done, etc. One might as well ask how any quasi-judicial process might occur if it relies on "subjective" or "interpretative" aspects. The typical legal adage here usually relies on the fact that the law need not over-specify every offense, as then the capacity of man for mischief would necessitate legal manuals that would inundate the world. As an example, I refer him to the information page regarding "plagiarism" at Queen Mary (his home institution) -- do they define this any better than the ICGA? [There is presumably an accompanying body of regulations and procedures, but I doubt they shed any light on the initial definition]. I particularly note #10: If in doubt, ask! If in doubt always speak to a member of staff before submitting your work – it’s too late after the work has been submitted. Oh how such a norm of behaviour could have prevented this mess!

Here is a more itemised list of quibbles, some of picayune import:

Soren "" The latest public edition of Rybka (Rybka 4.1) is more than 400 Elo points stronger than the top competitors that existed in late 2005 on comparable hardware.""

BB+ ...I'm not quite sure what the comparison is (or its basis), as the "top competitors" are not mentioned. The "self-Rybka" comparison is closer to a 250-300 Elo gain on a 1cpu 64-bit basis. I can't find enough records of whether R1 was already 100-150 Elo ahead of everyone (and 32-bit might be a better comparison standard). As noted elsewhere, of the 250-300 Elo gained by Rybka since R1, approximately 100 of this was between 1.0 and 1.2f (May 2006), then 50 to R2.3.2a (SMP was also added), then 100 in R3 (when LK re-wrote the eval), and the rest with R4.

Soren "" Rybka went on to become a commercial engine in 2006.""

BB+....Rybka was already a commercial engine in 2005. See CCC posts from Dec 2005 (e.g. this link).

Soren "" [Rajlich] refused to be drawn into a protracted dispute with his accusers or mount a comprehensive defense. ""

BB+..Indeed. Calling the subsequent result a "gross miscarriage of justice" when the accused fails to defend himself is, well, a gross misuse of the English language.

Soren "" Judging from the Wiki which they used during their investigation, approximately seven of these 34 experts actively participated in the discussions. ""

BB+..I am not aware that Dr. Riis had access to said the internal part of said wiki, nor is quantity a measure of much (posting is more of an indicator of "free time" than anything else :lol: ). In any event, it was the warrant of the Board to make any decision in the end.

Soren "" None of the actual Rybka versions that participated in the four WCCC tournaments were investigated, although a very close version (Rybka 2.3.2a) was examined following a laborious process of reverse-engineering.""

BB+..The former was the choice of Rajlich (possibly by necessity, in that they no longer exist). Dr. Riis slightly errs when he says "four" WCCC tournaments, as 2006 was also considered.

Soren "" It is argued within the paper that this rule is vague on key points and become obsolete for several reasons, and that the overarching reason it has passed into obsolescence is that there has been a paradigm shift in computer chess programming in the past decade which the rule does not take into account.""

BB+...If the rule is vague, it is at least partially the responsibility of the entrant to ask for guidance. Furthermore, for an outsider(?) such as Dr. Riis to declare an ICGA rule to be "obsolete" is odd to say the least. The ICGA has no compulsion to follow "paradigm shifts", in its interpretation of rules, or otherwise.

Soren "" Based on the evidence I will present, a person can form a very credible alternative conclusion: that the implementation of similar evaluation concepts and algorithms in a computer chess program will inherently lead to code similarities even if no code is copied. Thus, the statement “Rybka implements concepts and algorithms learned from Fruit” appears to be the most correct and accurate formulation—a semantically subtle difference that nonetheless completely overturns the ICGA’s conclusion. It is important to understand that the implementation of ideas and algorithms learned from other programs is universal practice in chess programming as well as many other types of programming. The issue in contention in this case is whether source code was copied from one program to the next.""

BB+...OK, we finally get to something of merit. Dr. Riis is quite right to make this distinction. However, the ICGA process also realised the crucial nature of it, and the conclusion was that Rybka did more than just "implement concepts and algorithms learned from Fruit".

Soren "" Here’s the main point: to convict and sentence a man due to his presumed ethical failings and then attempt to ruin him on a world stage you need a very high standard of evidence. The ICGA claims its evidence is of a high standard. We shall explore the veracity of that claim.""

BB+...To "convict and sentence" a man who decides not to defend himself is hardly a great leap. Furthermore, the implication that the ICGA "attempt[ed] to ruin [Rajlich] on a world stage" seems unfounded -- the media will do what they want (such as ignore it, if convenient). Finally, the phrase "its evidence" is odd (meaning the ICGA's), as the evidence doesn't exactly belong to anyone. If anything, the evidence is support of Letouzey's complaint.

Soren "" In early 2011 sixteen chess programmers, many of whose programs were in direct competition with Rybka, signed a letter wherein they asserted that Rajlich copied programming code from another engine [...] ""

BB+...Dr. Riis makes it sound like only non-competitors should have signed such a letter?!

Soren "" Rajlich "When two modern top chess programs play against each other maybe 95% of the programs are algorithmically the same. What is classing is the other 5%.""

BB+....This is simply not true. Maybe if you render "algorithmically" to mean the generic alpha-beta search framework, ignore evaluation, etc., you might justify this number, but even then the amount of pruning concepts that have been introduced are quite large. I seriously doubt that (say) Komodo and R3 are "95% the same". Given that Dr. Riis then uses this quotation to conclude (bluntly) that Rule #2 is obsolete, I find his argument essentially baseless.
As an additional rebuttal to this, I will simply quote Rajlich, who writes: "As far as I know, Rybka has a very original search and evaluation framework." To claim that that all engines are "95% algorithmically the same" while Rybka is "very original" is a bit undecipherable (and, as with many things, Rajlich seems undesirous of any clarification).

I have yet to decide whether a PDF is a better way to address Mr. Schröder's website. [In reality, I am tempted to simply let it speak for itself, but as Dr. Riis quotes it as "extensive", a response is perhaps due].

Finally, Dr. Riis attempts to show that ICGA's Rule #2 is "absurd", though he seems to be creating as many obstacles as possible.

Soren ""To make Rule 2’s absurdity as clear as possible, let me pose some straightforward questions:""

* Given the great algorithmic overlap between modern chess programs, what is the definitional distinction between “original” and “non-original” work? ""

BB+....The ICGA found that the evaluation overlap between Rybka 1.0 Beta and Fruit 2.1 more than sufficed in the case at hand. The evaluation function is not an "algorithm" in the strict sense of input->output, but rather there is a large capacity for choice by the implementor. This is fairly well adumbrated in (say) the EVAL_COMP write-up. Dr. Riis also seems to accept Rajlich's claim of "95% algorithmically the same", while I find it nearly laughable (unless codified more).

I might add that I think this is the main basis for his erroneous conclusion -- he accepts that most computer chess programs are "essentially the same", while the ICGA programmers, Panel, and Board, all appear to disagree.

Soren ""A modern computer chess program can consist of tens of thousands of lines of code. Which of these lines can a programmer feel certain are in public domain and therefore exempt from Rule 2, and which are not? ""

BB+...The programmer should ask the ICGA for clarification. The ICGA might canvass its members, make a decision based upon precedent, etc.

Soren "" What exactly is meant by “game playing code” and on what basis does the ICGA make its distinction?

What exactly is the definition of a “close derivative”? Is this phrase entirely a “we know it when we see it” construct, and if not, then what sensible, consistent, well-defined and articulated principles is such a determination based upon? ""

BB+...Dr. Riis is essentially trying to argue that the ICGA is not capable of interpreting its own rules. He might as well argue that all law itself is de facto moot, as it depends on interpretation. Again, one can note that a competitor typically has the responsibility to ask for clarification when there is an issue. In his piece in the ICGA Journal, Levy essentially noted this, recalling that Rajlich was present in Turin with the LION++ disqualification, and certainly was not unaware of the ICGA interpretation. [The LION++ team could similarly argue that the ICGA rules were "vague" or "unclear", and what do they exactly mean].

Soren "" Does Rule 2 require all competitors to maintain a copy of any source code they used in competition for an indefinite number of years?
Can Rule 2 be invoked after tournaments are completed without any time limitation whatsoever? (In law, there is a defense called laches, which certainly applies to the Rajlich/Rybka case.) ""

BB+...The start of the "clock" for a statute of limitations usually only starts when the offense comes to light. For instance, Letouzey will have 3 (or 4 years) from Jan 2011 [the date of discovery] to pursue Rajlich in court regarding copyright infringement. The alternative, where entrants tried to hide their misdeeds until enough time passed, would be "absurd" to say the least.

Soren "" Finally, what safeguards exist to prevent ex post facto interpretations of rules which are not fully consistent with what competitors understood at the time the tournament took place? ""

BB+....I think most of the other competitors (but wait -- I thought their opinions were to be excluded, due to "bias"?!) in, say, 2007, understood the rules. If Rajlich had a different understanding, he should, again, have asked for a clarification.

Soren "" It seems to me rather imperative that a tournament billing itself a “world championship” have crystal-clear rules.""

BB+....No matter "clear" they are, people will find exceptions. See: Elista, toilet.

Soren "" These rules should evolve in response to circumstances, contain well-defined procedures and credible enforcement mechanisms, and be designed to protect the integrity of the competition and the title.""

BB+....I think the disqualfication of Rajlich, at least for 2006 and 2007, did exactly this. Admittedly, I think it would have been (much) better to simply change the entry name to "Fruit/Rybka" with similar "Rajlich/Letouzey" attribution, but this did not seem to be a possible endpoint, given the circumstances.

BB+

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Angels_77

ANYONE believing for one moment that this fool Dr. Søren Riis may not be more of a proctologist than professor and is not either an ignorant retard or completely biased should note this quote of his from part 2 of the chessbase trash



Søren Riis wrote..

"Robert Houdart, author of current Elo-leader Houdini, provides a short and refreshingly candid acknowledgement confirming this thesis on his website:

[Quote] Without many ideas and techniques from the open source chess engines Ippolit [a Rybka 3-based derivative --SR ** ] and Stockfish, Houdini would not nearly be as strong as it is now. " [Quote]


~
Angels_77
NOTE HE ADDS HIS tiny minds LIBELING **




Post by BB+ » Tue Jan 03, 2012 10:52 pm


Part #2 has appeared. A Part 3 is promised (where the evaluations will be discussed).


A bit surprisingly, Dr. Riis thanks a number of people for "eagle-eyed proof reading" at the end, yet I found some (rather obvious) factual errors at first glance (e.g., claiming FL's interview was from 2008) -- maybe fact-checking was not their task? :lol:

From the top:

Dr. Riis obsesses over a "paradigm shift". He then gives some (unsourced) Elo-based data to try to bolster this conviction (he also argues that the ICGA should adopt this shift also). Some of the data appears wrong and/or presented in a dubious manner (see below -- the errors seem significant enough to affect his conclusions). It is also almost completely irrelevant (similar to his hagiography of Rybka games in Part 1) to the question of whether Rajlich's entries into the ICGA events met their originality standard (he tries to argue that Elo gain is a sign of originality, but does not make apparent why it should imply complete originality, or at least something close to it).

He then addresses the question of reverse engineering. He quotes a Wikipedia article concerning its legality in the EU (see here for the law text). He admonishes the ICGA for publishing RE'd R2.3.2a code (among others). Given that the published part of the code is derivative of Fruit 2.1, his argument would appear moot.

Ironically (to use his term), he parenthetically labels IPPOLIT an R3-derivative(!). Though I largely agree with this, on what basis does he make this conclusion? For instance, what standard can one invent where IPPOLIT is an R3-derivative but Rybka 1.0 Beta is not a Fruit-derivative? He seems (as typical) just to quote Rajlich about this, and thus assure us of its truth.

He then turns to the dictionary about "plagiarism", plying as if a few crumbs of praise for FL suffices (perhaps he should ask FL about this...). This doesn't address (e.g.) the fact that the ICGA Rules demand (minimally) such acknowledgment with the entry. [Riis seems aware of the LION++ case; they acknowledged Fruit in the READ_ME, and this was found inarguably to be insufficient]. And again I might refer him to the QMUL plagiarism page: Plagiarism is presenting someone else’s work as if it were your own, whether you intend to or not. This is exactly what Rajlich did in entering ICGA tournaments when the Rybka evaluation function was derivative of that of Fruit.

Riis then turns to "similarity testing", measuring functional differences in programs. This is the wrong standard. For instance, it is perfectly legitimate to try to make your program play like others. Famously, Deep Thought tuned its evaluation by matching moves from GM games. It appears there is a possibility (small, perhaps) that Fritz 11 might have done something similar with Rybka/Strelka. Furthermore, Dr. Riis seems aware of the legal issues regarding computer programs, and thus must know that they are typically protected as literary works, and not functional devices (where patent law would be more likely to apply). Thus "code comparison" (as applicable in a given case) is often of more interest than operational similarity.

Riis then concludes by asking what an "original program" is. I can't say he answers the question too well (if at all). [The word "original" has been taken by courts to apply to the "origins" -- in the case of Rybka 1.0 Beta, this is demonstrated by the evidence to have its origins in Fruit 2.1]. He then gives some quotations from Letouzey, erroneously claimed to be from 2008 (the interview is from 2005, note that "Fruit 2.0" is the latest version therein). He then promises to address the evaluation function issue in the next part.

More specific comments:

Riis first gives a graph of 11 engines with ratings over almost 20 years. He gives no source for the data. Some of it appears erroneous. I might also dispute that he gives "Rybka" a 2004 datapoint in the same line as Rybka from 2005, as the former only appeared in a few pirivate tournaments, and is not much related to the Rybka from 2005. He then zooms in on the last 7 years (the "paradigm shift"), with data from 7 engines. He claims: Focusing on the last seven years, a number of chess engines either sharply improved around the time that Fruit source code was released, or debuted after Fruit and then soared. Looking at his graph, only Fruit itself and Naum fall in the former category (with Rybka). I myself would further exclude Naum, as (the later) Naum 4 uses a re-implementation of the Rybka/Strelka evaluation function, and so I have my doubts about its transgressive Fruit-iness already in 2005. Excluding Rybka, this leaves him with zero engines that "sharply improved around the time that Fruit source code was released", so I find his phrasing notably misleading. [He might have added Zappa to the engines, BTW].

As noted above, all these graphs are irrelevant to the ICGA decision in any event, but I noticed some other errors/problems. For instance, Rybka in 2005 is plotted with a point at about 2675. I can find no list that gives this. Indeed, the Rybka datapoint is below the Naum/Fruit datapoints(!), even though Riis expands greatly on how Rybka 1.0 Beta was already superior to them at the time of first release (Dec 2005). In short, I have no idea how the Rybka datapoints for 2004 or 2005 are derived, or for that matter, from where he gets the Naum 2004/2005 numbers (e.g., Naum 2.0 was released in Sep 2006 according to CCRL, and is 2800 at 40/40 64-bit, compared to 2919 for Rybka 1.0 Beta --- Naum 2.2, gaining 100 Elo to ~2900, was apparently from July 2007).

Riis then conflates strength with originality: It had to be [original], because from first release Rybka was already far ahead of Fruit, and the gap just kept widening. This is a dubious conclusion. Fruit 2.1 was essentially a development snapshot, with much room for improvement, both in engineering (bitboards, for example) and otherwise. Letouzey himself added about 100 Elo in the next year. Riis also gives CEGT data that lists Fruit 2.1 at 2712 on a 32-bit machine, to be compared (via highlighting) with Rybka 1.0 Beta at 2868 on a 64-bit machine, presumably in support of his Rybka was as much as 150 Elo ahead of the pack on equal hardware. He is, at least, kind enough to list the 32-bit Rybka 1.0 Beta number (2816) in the same table, which shows it to be closer to 100 Elo on equal hardware -- again I find his text deliberately misleading and exaggerative.

Riis then notes that HIARCS (derogatorily labelled a "slow-climber" -- though since R3 the Rybka climbing is even slower, I might say) had "its biggest Elo jump in twelve years" (quoting the HIARCS site). He suspects it to be due to the Fruit influence. However, upon looking at his first graph, one does not see any big jump. A plausible alternative is simply that the time period between the HIARCS 9 and HIARCS 10 releases was longer than typical (Oct 2003 to Jan 2006, by my account), with there being no additional Elo/year jump from Fruit influence. If nothing else, the HIARCS blurb concerning Elo jump is version-based, while the data of Riis is year-based, and conflating the two is sloppy.

He makes a similar claim about Junior, for which his first graph does show a more notable leap. Again, though, his data is unsourced, and I cannot replicate it. I find Junior 9 to be from late 2004, while Junior 10 was released in Aug 2006 (after the Turin victory). CCRL 40/40 lists the former at 2778, and the latter at 2843, about 70 Elo over more than a year and a half. So I find the conclusion of Riis regarding Fruit influence to be (at best) difficult to justify, at least on the data given (or not given).

I think I've covered most of the next few sections above.

As noted above, Riis then gives a history of Rybka derivatives. Unsurprisingly, he fails to say how Rajlich concludes that Strelka and IPPOLIT fall into such categories. Assertion appears enough. He then notes Rajlich was (essentially) in absentia at the ICGA proceedings, failing to note that this was Rajlich's own design.

Riis then turns to plagiarism (thinking a random thankyou suffices for an ICGA entry), and assumes Hyatt speaks for the ICGA. This is bizarre. He attempts to justify it, but I might simply suggest he is too lazy to read anyone else's posts, outside his Rybka Forum bubble. Accordingly I will develop the Rajlich defense under the assumption that Hyatt speaks for the ICGA. I don't see any reason to a) listen a "Rajlich defense" (developed or not) unless VR specifies this is indeed his definitive defense, or b) debate with anyone who assumes Hyatt speaks for the ICGA.

Riis then turns to ponderhit data. As noted above, this is a improper standard. Again Riis justifies it by quoting Rajlich. Also, as in other places, he seems to assume that a lack of similarity (of moves, in this case) from a high level test implies a lack of low level similarity, when this need not be the case.







Graham Banks wrote:
Wonder if this is further evidence of a rift?

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Quote 2011
ICGA Journal Vol. 34, No. 3, The 2010 Best-Publication Award:
In 2011 the ChessBase company informed us that after twelve years of sponsorship they believed that it was time to stop with the ChessBase Best-Publication award. Although we regret their decision we would like to express the ICGA's gratitude towards the generous sponsorship of twelve consecutive years. Thank you, Matthias Wüllenweber and Frederic Friedel, you did an excellent job for our community and for its dedicated members by offering the best researchers among them a platform where their performance was recognized.


~~~~

Terry McCracken
Joined: 01 Aug 2007
Posts: 9101
Location: Canada


It shows ChessBase is a business and will do and say anything to cast others in a poor light to protect themselves since they supported and sold Rybka for 6 years!

What they are doing is making the situation much worse and I hope they along with Vas are dragged through the legal system for their attempt to vindicate the guilty and besmirch the innocent!

It's a very sad time in computer chess and if some morons here who didn't tell the truth about what was going on with Fruit to Fabien and mislead him should hold their heads in shame for helping conmen to take over the chess programming scene at great expense to the community!

I also know that Chris Whittington played a vital role to worsen this mess and hope that vindictive worm is forced out of the community forever!
_
Terry McCracken


~~

Cunningham
posts,,,,

If only Chessbase would mention a single word about the author being a moderator in the official Rybka forum:
Quote:
The author, Dr. Søren Riis, is a Computer Scientist at Queen Mary, University of London, though it’s surely also relevant in this context to note that he also appears to be a moderator at the official Rybka forum.


Or the fact he was part of the Rybka team in Pamplona:




For me, this makes more than a grain of salt

~
Angels_77 just now

A bucket full would not make this Søren Riis more honest . he missed his vocation as a proctologist , but works still in that area

Angels_77 4 minutes ago

proctola...oppsa proff Søren Riis states

"Comparing the UCI parameters for the two engines reveals they are markedly different..."


he ignores this simple fact ( cant think why )


Make the following changes to Fruit and you'll have the same UCI parameters as Rybka:

diff -abBdEHrw Fruit/eval.cpp Fruit_mod/eval.cpp
147,149c147,149
< PieceActivityWeight = (option_get_int("Piece Activity") * 256 + 50) / 100;
< KingSafetyWeight = (option_get_int("King Safety") * 256 + 50) / 100;
< PassedPawnWeight = (option_get_int("Passed Pawns") * 256 + 50) / 100;
---

PieceActivityWeight = (100 * 256 + 50) / 100;
KingSafetyWeight = (100 * 256 + 50) / 100;
PassedPawnWeight = (100 * 256 + 50) / 100;

diff -abBdEHrw Fruit/material.cpp Fruit_mod/material.cpp
80c80
< MaterialWeight = (option_get_int("Material") * 256 + 50) / 100;
---

MaterialWeight = (100 * 256 + 50) / 100;

diff -abBdEHrw Fruit/option.cpp Fruit_mod/option.cpp
29,30c29,31
< { "Ponder", true, "false", "check", "", NULL },
<
---

//{ "Ponder", true, "false", "check", "", NULL },
{ "Search Direction", true, "Very Position", "combo", "var Very Position var Slightly Positional var Slightly Tactical var Very Tactical", NULL },
/*

54c54
< { "Passed Pawns", true, "100", "spin", "min 0 max 400", NULL },
---

{ "Passed Pawns", true, "100", "spin", "min 0 max 400", NULL },*/

diff -abBdEHrw Fruit/pawn.cpp Fruit_mod/pawn.cpp
164c164
< PawnStructureWeight = (option_get_int("Pawn Structure") * 256 + 50) / 100;
---

PawnStructureWeight = (100 * 256 + 50) / 100;

diff -abBdEHrw Fruit/protocol.cpp Fruit_mod/protocol.cpp
89c89
<
---

/*

92c92
< }
---

}*/

diff -abBdEHrw Fruit/pst.cpp Fruit_mod/pst.cpp
111,113c111,113
< PieceActivityWeight = (option_get_int("Piece Activity") * 256 + 50) / 100;
< KingSafetyWeight = (option_get_int("King Safety") * 256 + 50) / 100;
< PawnStructureWeight = (option_get_int("Pawn Structure") * 256 + 50) / 100;
---

PieceActivityWeight = (100 * 256 + 50) / 100;
KingSafetyWeight = (100 * 256 + 50) / 100;
PawnStructureWeight = (100 * 256 + 50) / 100;

diff -abBdEHrw Fruit/search.cpp Fruit_mod/search.cpp
141c141
<
---

/*

161c161
< }
---

}*/

diff -abBdEHrw Fruit/search_full.cpp Fruit_mod/search_full.cpp
128c128
< string = option_get_string("NullMove Pruning");
---

/* string = option_get_string("NullMove Pruning");

134c134
< } else if (my_string_equal(string,"Fail High")) {
---

} else if (my_string_equal(string,"Fail High")) {*/

136c136
< UseNullEval = true;
---

UseNullEval = true;/*

144c144
< }
---

}*/

146c146
< NullReduction = option_get_int("NullMove Reduction");
---

NullReduction = 3;/*

154c154
< } else if (my_string_equal(string,"Endgame")) {
---

} else if (my_string_equal(string,"Endgame")) {*/

156c156
< UseVerEndgame = true;
---

UseVerEndgame = true;/*

164c164
< }
---

}*/

166c166
< VerReduction = option_get_int("Verification Reduction");
---

VerReduction = 5;

170,171c170,171
< UseHistory = option_get_bool("History Pruning");
< HistoryValue = (option_get_int("History Threshold") * 16384 + 50) / 100;
---

UseHistory = false;
HistoryValue = (60 * 16384 + 50) / 100;

175,176c175,176
< UseFutility = option_get_bool("Futility Pruning");
< FutilityMargin = option_get_int("Futility Margin");
---

UseFutility = false;
FutilityMargin = 100;

180,181c180,181
< UseDelta = option_get_bool("Delta Pruning");
< DeltaMargin = option_get_int("Delta Margin");
---

UseDelta = false;
DeltaMargin = 50;

185c185
< CheckNb = option_get_int("Quiescence Check Plies");
---

CheckNb = 1;



Søren Riis > < Facts

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Postby lmader »
Thu Jan 05, 2012 11:41 pm

Part of the problem is that a lot of people are confused about the issues.

In an attempt to boil down all of the discussion into something easily understood, I think that we need some kind of Rybka Code Copying for Dummies FAQ, so that less technically oriented people can understand the discussion. Something like this, maybe (It seems like even the author of the Chessbase articles might benefit):

0) What is code copying in this context?
The goal of the ICGA investigation into Rybka was to determine if code copying occurred. To clarify, this does not mean "going through Fruit and using the ideas", which would be fine. This means actually cutting and pasting sections of code, or perhaps even starting with the Fruit code and making modifications.

1) But isn't some of the allegedly copied code irrelevant?
It does not matter if the evidence for code copying shows code that doesn't seem important to the strength of the engine, because the only point is to see if _any_ code copying happened. If any code copying happened, then VR has to explain himself.

3) Why does this matter?
It matters because it is a violation of Fruit's GPL to use _any_ code, and a violation of ICGA's rules to enter an engine of this nature.

2) How is the Fruit/Rybka code compared?
The only way to make the comparison is to disassemble the Rybka binary into a c code representation, and look for constructs that match the Fruit source code. The original Rybka source code, as written by the original programmer, is not recreateable in exact form by disassembling the binary. i.e. The resulting code produced from disassembly is c code, but you can't compare it word for word with the Fruit source code because c code can be structured in a variety of ways. What you can do is look for what is known as semantic equivalence - the code does the same thing even though it may be structured slightly differently. That is the purpose of the side-by-side comparisons in the submitted documents. i.e. The disassembled code is not "imaginary code", it is a functional representation of the binary and does indeed contain information that can be used for comparison.

3) The code comparison documents are long, tl;dr. What do these code comparisons show?
The documents show beyond any shadow of a doubt there are long sections of code that match semantically. This fact cannot be reasonably disputed.

4) What does all that mean?
The real question is whether or not all of this semantic equivalence constitutes enough evidence to prove that Rybka copied code. It is indeed possible for two programmers to implement a feature or algorithm such that their compiled form will look semantically equivalent. However the odds of this happening go down exponentially with the length of the code sample and number of occurrences. Thus the question could be restated like this: Is the amount of semantic equivalence shown in the documents far enough beyond what can be explained by normal occurrences to conclude that code was copied?

5) Once the above is understood, one can make a more informed conclusion. And it's pretty obvious that there is indeed a level of semantic similarity that is tough to dismiss. Programmers familiar with code comparison consider it impossible to explain any other way (code was copied).

(This discussion ignores other smoking guns like the use of unusual constants, etc.)


~~
permalink
by Prima » Thu Jan 05, 2012 11:16 pm


I've always appreciated Bob's witnessing of the facts, as demonstrated by copious [Fruit-Rybka] data comparisons & candidness. Personally, If I were in Bob's shoes, I'd reply and confute EVERY false posts ubiquitous only in the Rybka forum, appertaining to this issue. People need to know the truth. Bob IS doing a good job at that.

These are clearly 'cheap shots' & straw-man's attempts, by soren & the rest of Rybka moderators, to silence Bob by complaining of the quantity of his posts/day. Whoa!.....I guess that really proves Vas didn't copy-codes and is innocent
Like the IPPOLIT-censor era, they attempt to censor the quantity of posts by individuals proving Vas copied-CODES & lied about it, and/or disfavoring Rybka's dubious origins.
Postby Prima » Thu Jan 05, 2012 11:16 pm
Their arguments (soren & Rybka moderators and advocates) are so faulty on so many levels, it's hilarious. And to think these folks actually fathered children! Is it any wonder why the world is so mentality-warped as it is today, or where such prevalence of mental illness stems from?



- Angels_77

We are not hyatt fans but defend his right to respond to the countless slurs insults and questions fired at him by the rybka fanboys
ie in particular -
- Ed Schroder
- Chris Whittington
- Alan Sassler
- Derrière Pensée/sidserious/whoeverthefuckheis
- Jeroen
- Nelson Hernandez

Dr. Søren Riis shows his love of proctology

in scrapping the barrel and acts more as hes conducting Colorectal surgery than even trying to mount a respectable advocacy , perhaps he act only for the financial interests of rybka and chessbase
hes certainly loses any credibility as an honest man with this diarrhea of fabrications hes undoubtedly been paid to produce



re A Gross Miscarriage of Justice in Computer Chess

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re: ChessBase finaly speaks of Rykba banning (using biased Rybka forum moderator)
Angels_77 just now
when desperately trying to use statistics to besmirch dr hyatts name this so called expert Søren Riis fails to disclose dr hyatts posts were in response to others posts by the die hard rose colored spectacle wearing ( vested interets ones )
ie
Ed Schroder
- Chris Whittington
- Alan Sassler
- Derrière Pensée
-sidserious
- Jeroen
- Nelson Hernandez

example of this ...
Jeroen has posted 500 mostly Rybka/ICGA-related messages in the last 20 days

OMG 500 posts in last 20 days !!! How many in same time frame as this hider of truths Søren Riis uses to fabricate deceit for rybka and chessbase as regards dr hyatts posts whilst the case dragged on for months on end

how many when the other sycophants
- Ed Schroder
- Chris Whittington
- Alan Sassler
- Derrière Pensée
-sidserious
- Nelson Hernandez
posts are included


pray tell us all.... IF you DARE Søren Riis

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re: ChessBase finaly speaks of Rykba banning (using biased Rybka forum moderator)
Angels_77 just now


hmmm... stoney silence from Søren Riis , scared to come away from chessbase skirts isnt he

Doc Hyatt opinion of " proc fessor " Søren Riis's garbage
in brief as he responds to more garbage from tantrum thrower and vas's puppet ed schrodder ...

[Quote] "I see NOTHING in Soren's article that merits any debate. Nothing new. Lots of incorrect information. Incorrect dates. Incorrect ratings. Incorrect quotes. ZERO "meat" which is what one MUST produce to make the ICGA report look weak. He offers NOTHING but a reference to your nonsensical web site that attacks statements/opinions that were NEVER expressed in the ICGA report. Or it offers nonsensical stuff like "try 0. instead of 0.0 and you might be surprised." YOU might be surprised. No first year computer science student would...

Again, "I" didn't cause this damage. Vas bears 100% of the responsibility for that by copying my program, and then copying fruit, and denying it to this day, in spite of impossible-to-refute proof.. " [Quote]


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Robert Hyatt (Doctor Bob Hyatt ,Crafty author )



My comments to Ed are a DIRECT result of his continually posting lies and/or distortions. His web site is one such example......




rebel nonsense web page wrote:

Wisdom is knowing how
little we know -- Socrates
About Company
Started in 1980, retired in 2004 REBEL was baptized into ProDeo, latin for gratis according to Dutch tradition.
Other Information


Rybka-ICGA fiasco



* Rybka menu
* Rybka originality
* Rybka fruitification
* The ICGA speaks
* Rule 2
* Opinion poll
* Dann Corbit
* Crafty fruitification
* The notorious PST's
* More unburden stuff
* ICGA resignation



* HOME




The below PST tables were generated with the Fruit and Rybka utilities from Mark Watkins which eventually were released under great pressure. Its source code can be downloaded.



Left column - Fruit PST

Middle column - Rybka PST / 32

Right column - Original Rybka PST values as found in the Rybka 1.0 beta executable



MG - PST in use for middlegame

EG - PST in use for the endgame



Fruit Pawn Value = 100

Rybka Pawn Value = 3200

Hence the Rybka values are divided by 32 for visual comparison in the middle column.



Note that there is only one exact PST match, the ROOK and notice how litte information the cells contain, just 2 values.



###
Bob Hyatt responds.....


The ICGA report CLEARLY states that the Fruit PST initialization can be changed by modifying 3-4 constants per piece type, and that will produce the Rybka PST values EXACTLY.

Ed takes the Rybka PST values, divides by 32, and says "there are no matches." The math is wrong, he knows it is wrong, and he knows we did not say any PST values match.

Those kinds of dishonest statements need to be addressed before they sit around so long they become "fact" rather than the fiction they actually are...

The ICGA's rebuttal to Soren Riis
1 - 4
Angels_77 Angels_77 Yesterday 11:54 pm

David Levy wrote:No Miscarriage of Justice - Just Biased Reporting
By David Levy [ICGA President]

Introduction
In his four-part article on Chessbase.com about the Rybka scandal (see chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7791 et seq.) Dr Søren Riis has tried very hard to defend Vasik Ralich’s actions that led the ICGA to find him guilty of breaking ICGA Tournament Rule 2. As a historical review of progress in computer chess Riis’s article contains important and interesting information and comments. Unfortunately, however, his thesis lacks objectivity because it circles the core question and attempts to defend Rajlich by attacking the rule he was accused of breaking, attacking the investigative process in various ways and attacking some of those involved in that process.
When a defendant is brought before a court of Law, what is in question is whether or not (s)he broke the Law and not whether the Law itself is appropriate. And so it is with the ICGA rules. In considering the Rybka case the ICGA’s task was to decide the matter on the basis of its Tournament Rule 2, not to question the rule itself. ICGA Tournament Rule 2 applies to the World Computer Chess Championships and states:
“Each program must be the original work of the entering developers. Programming teams whose code is derived from or including game-playing code written by others must name all other authors, or the source of such code, in their submission details. Programs which are discovered to be close derivatives of others (e.g., by playing nearly all moves the same), may be declared invalid by the Tournament Director after seeking expert advice. For this purpose a listing of all game-related code running on the system must be available on demand to the Tournament Director.”
Note that this rule requires programmers to list all authors and the source of code, even “derived” code. Entering a competition such as this brings with it the obligation to abide by the competition rules.
Any readers of Riis’s articles who wish to understand the ICGA’s stance in this matter should visit the ICGA web site at icga.org where they will find a link to the full report of the ICGA Investigation Panel together with its supporting evidence and the judgement made by the ICGA based on that report.

How the Scandal Started
The Rybka scandal came about because when Vasik Rajlich submitted his entry applications for the World Computer Chess Championships in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 he failed in his duty to include the name of Fabien Letouzey, the programmer of Fruit, in his authorship statements. The correct procedure would have been to obtain Letouzey’s permission to use the Fruit derived code and to name Letouzey within the authorship statement, thereby advising the ICGA of the provenance of the derived code. Sadly Rajlich did neither. Had he conformed to the rule it would then have been up to the ICGA either to accept Rajlich’s entries as they stood or to ask him to remove the Fruit derived code for the purpose of the tournaments.
These are the bare facts of the case and are, I believe, beyond dispute. It was upon these facts that the ICGA based its decisions regarding Rajlich being stripped of the World Championship titles awarded to Rybka and being banned for life from ICGA events.

Incidentally, even if the later versions of Rybka contained reduced amounts of Fruit-derived code, the historical roots of an engine are of import. For as long as Rybka engine development was continual, Letouzey’s name should not have been omitted on the ICGA entry information, it then being at the discretion of the ICGA as to how to classify the level of Fruit’s involvement.

Some Comments on Søren Riis’s Arguments
Søren Riis is a moderator on the Rybka forum and clearly a big Rybka fan. Nothing wrong there. But when one examines the detail of Riis’s arguments one finds that his enthusiasm for Rybka has outweighed his objectivity, causing him to make points that do not affect the simple basic need for laws (and tournament rules) to be adhered to.
A detailed and robust technical rebuttal of Riis’s article is in preparation by the ICGA and will be posted shortly. Here I shall point out the irrelevance to the ICGA rules of some of his key arguments and correct some of his erroneous assumptions.

[1] Riis states that the matter was not investigated by the ICGA until:
“over five years had elapsed since the alleged offense, and four consecutive world computer chess championships had been decisively won in head-to-head competition by Rybka.”
In fact when the ICGA was formally requested to investigate (early 2011) it was only a few months after Rajlich’s fifth WCCC violation of rule 2. And prior to 2011 no complaint had been made to the ICGA regarding Rybka, so there was no call for the ICGA to launch an investigation earlier than it did. The ICGA started its investigation within a month or so of a complaint being made by Fabien Letouzey, the author of Fruit.

[2] Riis states that:
“It is clear that Rybka is an original program by any reasonable standard.”

Rajlich has also stated, in a CCC post of Dec 16 2005:
stmintz.com/ccc/index.php?id=470751

"As far as I know, Rybka has a very original search and evaluation framework.”

And in an interview Rajlich said:
superchessengine.com/vasik_rajlich.htm

“Anyway, if I really had to give a number – my wild guess is that Rybka would be 20 rating points weaker had Fruit not appeared.”

Let us now consider the above comments in the light of the evidence. We shall first repeat the last quotation (by Rajlich) because it is so astounding.
“Anyway, if I really had to give a number – my wild guess is that Rybka would be 20 rating points weaker had Fruit not appeared.”
Rajlich himself has admitted that “I went through the Fruit 2.1 source code forwards and backwards and took many things”. Is he here really expecting us to believe that only 20 Elo points of Rybka’s improvement were due to what he took from Fruit, especially as this contradicts Riis’s statement that, after the publication of the Fruit source code, “everyone else” gained much more?

Next consider the investigation report where it refers to Zach Wegner’s analysis found at webspace.utexas.edu/zzw57/rtc/eval/eval.html
“From looking at the piece evaluation of both engines, we find that they are almost identical.” A partial listing of Fruit identical terms:

Identical formulas for calculating piece-square tables for:
. pawns
. knights
. bishops
. rooks
. queens.

Highly similar formulas for piece square tables for kings.

Identical procedures for calculating king safety:
. count of pieces attacking squares around the opponent king
. adding in an attack factor based on piece type then multiplying by a weight based on attack counts

Identical simple mobility counting for:
. knights
. bishops
. rooks
. queens

Identical measurements of pawn features:
. isolation
. doubling
. open
. highly similar backward, candidate and passed pawns

Rook Evaluation:
. identical methods for R on the 7th
. rooks on half and opened files
. king file proximity

Queens:
. identical Q on the 7th.

Blocked Bishop and Rook terms

And to quote the summary in this part of the report:

“Nearly the entire evaluation function is derived from Fruit. This includes the formulas for calculating piece-square tables, methods and features of evaluating piece mobility, rook king file proximity, rook and queen on the 7th rank, and king safety.”

I shall leave it to readers to study the evidence presented in the investigation report, in Riis’s article and in the ICGA’s forthcoming technical rebuttal, and decide for themselves who they believe.

[3] Riis states:
“Here’s the main point: to convict and sentence a man due to his presumed ethical failings and then attempt to ruin him on a world stage you need a very high standard of evidence.”

I take great exception to the suggestion that the ICGA attempted “to ruin” Rajlich. The ICGA made no such attempt, it merely reported accurately on the evidence it had considered and on its findings. It is also not true that the ICGA convicted and sentenced Rajlich “due to his presumed ethical failings” – the ICGA’s verdict and sanctions were because he broke Tournament Rule 2.

[4] Riis points out that:
“Rybka maintained unbroken supremacy on the chess engine rating lists for five years. However its performance in dozens of competitive tournaments held all over the world was, if anything, even more spectacular. Rybka did not merely win nearly every tournament it entered; it won them with a near-90% success rate. It is difficult to overstate the degree of superiority that the Rybka team exhibited in these years in chess software, mastery of hardware, and even in opening theory.”

All of this paragraph is perfectly true but totally irrelevant when considering Rajlich’s guilt or innocence. How would we view an Olympic athlete found guilty of taking performance enhancing drugs if he performed superbly, winning races by huge margins, breaking world records and taking gold medals? Would he be forgiven his drug taking just because his performances were outstanding? No, of course not!

[5] Riis’s article includes quotes by Vasik Rajlich in which he publicly praises the work of Fabien Letouzey. Riis comments:
“If these acknowledgements were insufficient to satisfy WCCC Rule 2, then we must return again to arguments made earlier on the inadequacies of the rule itself and how it is applied.”
Clearly any such acknowledgements made by Rajlich on Internet forums or other public postings are in no way related to his obligations when submitting his applications to participate with Rybka in World Computer Chess Championship tournaments. What counts when making an entry submission is the information that the entrant submits with his application and any relevant information which he fails to submit. Suspecting that these acknowledgements are insufficient to satisfy Rule 2 Riis then reverts to another of his defensive claims, that Rule 2 itself is inadequate. But as I have pointed out earlier, disagreement with a rule or a law does not serve as an adequate defence for breaking it.

[6] Riis points out that, of the sixteen programmers who petitioned the ICGA early in 2011 to investigate Rybka:
“many . . . were in direct competition with Rybka”.
The implication here is that programmers who were competitors of Rajlich might be biased in their call for an investigation. So if one athlete reports a drug-taking rival to the athletics authorities, should the authorities discount the report because the whistle-blower is a rival? Surely not?
All six of the above points are, I submit, irrelevant to the core question – did Vasik Rajlich break ICGA Tournament Rule 2 or did he not? That is what the investigation panel considered, and it was on the basis of their findings and conclusions that Rajlich was sanctioned by the ICGA. Rajlich was given ample opportunity to present a defence to the allegations – as President of the ICGA I invited him to do so before the investigation started, then again during the investigation when I sent him some of the evidence being considered, then again after the panel’s report had been completed (attaching the report and all of the evidence to which it referred) but before the report was considered by the ICGA executive, and yet again after the ICGA executive had considered the report but before we decided on the appropriate sanctions. These prompts by me were sent (inter alia) on February 2nd, March 2nd, April 4th, May 13th, May 31st and June 9th. But despite being given all these opportunities to provide a serious defence to the allegations against him, over a period of five months, Rajlich consistently declined to do so. What could he reasonably expect to happen as a result?

Biased Reporting

I should now like to turn to some aspects of Søren Riis’s article that I regard as biased reporting.

I regret the bias in Riis’s writing, I also regret Chessbase’s attitude to the Rybka scandal. When this scandal erupted early in 2011 I sent my first posting on the matter to Chessbase but they decided not to publish it. Yes, I know that Chessbase sells Rybka, and therefore they might have worried about losing sales, but as a web site of record in all matters chessic it would surely be good journalistic practice to publish important criticism of parts of one’s own “empire”, together with any comments on that criticism which they feel is appropriate. As an example, consider the recent phone hacking scandal that has engulfed News International, the London based company that publishes ‘The Times’, ‘The Sunday Times’ and other newspapers, and caused News International to close down one of its titles, ‘News of the World’, in the middle of 2011. In the midst of the hacking scandal News International itself and its famous proprietors Rupert Murdoch and his son James Murdoch were all castigated in the media, and extensive reports of the scandal were published throughout the News International media empire itself, even though the criticism faced by the Murdoch group of companies was the worst in the history of the UK media. That was responsible and unbiased reporting, no attempt being made to sweep the hacking scandal completely under the carpet. In contrast, when the Rybka scandal erupted Chessbase.com acted as though no Rybka scandal existed.

On now to some examples of the bias in Riis’s article.

[a] The link Riis provides to the ICGA report does not give his readers access to the important evidential documents on which the report was based. A knowledge and understanding of the evidence is needed by any of Riis’s readers who want to consider both sides of the arguments, and many visitors to Chessbase.com will not yet have seen them. I was rather sorry to see that Riis failed to provide such links, the more so because he did provide many links to the “defense” side.

[b] Riis states:

“It really goes without saying that the panel members voted based on the findings of the ICGA report. . .”

This implies that the members of the panel were not privy to all of the evidence, and as such it is misleading. In fact the members of the panel all had access to all of the evidence documents, so they voted not only on the basis of the report but also on the basis of the evidence on which the report was based.

[c] Riis states:

“A panel was formed. Dr. Hyatt served as panel gatekeeper and determined who was and was not allowed to participate.”

Not true. The decision on who was and was not allowed to participate was taken jointly by the three members of the Secretariat and myself, after each of us had had the opportunity to make comments in favour or against particular individuals. With this statement Riis implies that the composition of the panel was somehow skewed against Vasik Rajlich, but that is also untrue. For example, Chris Whittington, a strong Ralich supporter, asked to join and made the comment that he supposed that I would refuse to admit him. Quite to the contrary, I was in favour of admitting him. Unfortunately, when we asked him as part of the registration procedure to verify his email address, which no longer matched those he used for older forums, he responded using phrases such as "wasting humiliation" and "occasional little hitler"? The Secretariat felt he was unwilling to have civil dialog with others and all three of them felt he should not be a member if he was going to be rude. Then, after a brief period, he was invited to re-apply but declined to do so.

Another pro-Rajlich programmer is Ed Schroeder, who was similarly welcomed to the panel when he joined. Sadly Ed then decided that he did not wish to serve and asked for his name to be removed from the panel.

Naturally Vasik Rajlich was asked to be a member of the panel with full access to all the evidence but he refused multiple requests to join.

[d] Riis criticizes Bob Hyatt in various ways, hardly surprising in view of the fact that he also criticizes the rule that Rajlich broke as well as various other aspects of the investigative process. Suffice it to say that Bob Hyatt is one of the world’s leading experts in the field of computer chess, has been so for some thirty years, has twice won the World Computer Chess Championship, and has contributed hugely to the field in various ways, including making his program Crafty open source. Who has a better understanding of computer chess and its minutiae, and who would be more appropriate as a member of the Secretariat of the Investigation Panel – Bob Hyatt or Søren Riis?

[e] Riis incorrectly states that in my first posting on ChessVibes.com I:

“made a preemptive declaration of Rajlich’s guilt”.

Wrong. I wrote about the rumours that had been circulating regarding Rybka and said that:

“But as I have mentioned, at first the Rybka-Fruit case was mere rumour. More recently, however, these rumours have become firm allegations, made by expert chess programmers and supported by evidence which appears on the surface to be rather compelling, both in its nature and in its volume. At this point in time I do not intend to make any definitive statement of my own on these allegations, but will allow the reader to form their own opinion after reading the following.”

So even though I specifically wrote that I did not intend to make a definitive statement of my own at that time, Riis accuses me of declaring Rajlich guilty in that article. In fact I made no public comment at all about Rajlich’s guilt until after the Investigation Panel had completed its work.

[f] Riis states:

“Not even half of the original committee of 34 voted for a guilty verdict. Was it even clear in advance how many guilty votes were needed to convict?”

There was never any compulsion on the members of the panel to take part in the vote that the ICGA conducted when the report had been completed. The purpose of the vote was to determine how the balance of opinion went amongst those panel members who did wish to vote. The result was that not one single member of the panel voted for a not-guilty verdict. Amongst those panel members who were convinced of Rajlich’s guilt was Ken Thompson, a past World Computer Chess Champion programmer, co-author of Unix, winner of the ACM Turing Award (inter alia) and arguably the most august computer scientist who has ever graced our community with his active participation.

[g] Riis’s bias is perhaps at its most telling in the following paragraph from his article:

“While no one questions the fact that the ICGA gave Rajlich ample opportunity to respond to their charges and he did not, there is much more to the matter than “we queried him and he did not respond.” Rajlich was not merely queried. He was publicly accused by the head of the ICGA and publicly excoriated by a group of individuals who stirred themselves up into a crusading lynch mob. A pile of “evidence” was jubilantly thrown together based on a passionately-held predetermined conclusion of code-copying which happened to be wholly at variance with actual reality. And then Rajlich was offered the opportunity to formally respond.”

There is so much to fault with this paragraph that it is difficult to know where to begin. To describe the panel of computer chess experts, many of whom are eminent academics and including a number of former world champions, as a “crusading lynch mob” is, in my view ridiculous and totally uncalled for. The members of the panel were there because they had expressed an interest in following the course of the investigation, perhaps taking some part in it, and because they were assessed as having some expertise that could be helpful to the discussion. To say that the evidence was “jubilantly thrown together” implies an unfair bias on behalf of those who compiled it. To go a little deeper into this particular sentence, the words “thrown together” imply that the evidence was not carefully prepared, whereas anyone reading all of the supporting documents referred to in the report would readily understand that a huge amount of time and assiduous effort had been devoted to the task of collecting and evaluating that evidence. And the words in the final sentence of this paragraph: “And then Rajlich was offered the opportunity to formally respond.” imply, through the emphasis on the word “then”, that the opportunity for Rajlich to defend himself came only after the investigative process had gone a long way towards its conclusion. In fact, as I have shown above, Rajlich was given several opportunities to defend himself, over a period of five months, before the report was considered by the ICGA executive.

Summary

As I have already mentioned, a robust technical rebuttal to Riis’s article will shortly be distributed by the ICGA, so here I have stayed away from the technicalities and commented on the legalistic aspects of the Rybka case. The ICGA would have welcomed an objective appraisal of its conduct of the investigation and its conclusions, but Søren Riis cannot be described as objective in this matter, not by any stretch of the imagination. The resulting article, full as it is of Riis’s bias, does nothing in my view to make the case for a miscarriage of justice to have taken place. It is, put simply, biased reporting.
END
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Postby K I Hyams » Wed Jan 11, 2012 10:58 pm

Judoka wrote:Shouldnt the main requirement been to have programmers on the panel? Not SOME not partially but entirely composed of experts and programmers of equal level not 1 or 2 that could sway the group. The problem with 1 expert and 10 amateurs would be that the 1 experts opinion could sway the others. Hyatt formed and led the panel even with this the panel returned a 14-0 out of 34 members .

K I Hyams wrote
The panel members are listed below. Look at their names. look at their qualifications......................................................
Panel members:
Albert Silver (software designer for Chess Assistant (1999-2002); currently editor of
Chessbase News (2010-present))
Amir Ban (author of Junior: World Champion 2002, 2004, 2006, World microcomputer
Champion 1997, 2001)
Charles Roberson (author of NoonianChess)
Christophe Theron (author of Chess Tiger)
Dariusz Czechowski (author of Darmenios)
Don Dailey (author of Cilkchess, Star Socrates, Rex, Komodo)
Eric Hallsworth (part of Hiarcs Team, Publisher of Selective Search magazine)
Fabien Letousky (author of Fruit)
Frederic Friedel (Chessbase.com)
Gerd Isenberg (author of IsiChess)
Gyula Horvath (author of Pandix, Brainstorm)
Ingo Bauer (Shredder team)
Jan Krabbenbos (Tournament Director of Leiden tournaments)
Kai Himstedt (author of Gridchess and Cluster Toga)
Ken Thompson (creator of Belle Chess Machine, World Computer Chess Champion
1980, Turing Award winner 1983, creator of B and C programming languages,
Unix and Plan 9 developer). More Information about Ken can be found here [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Thompson
Marcel van Kervinck (author of Rookie)
Maciej Szmit (assistant professor at Technical University of Lodz)
Mark Watkins (MAGMA Computer Algebra Group, School of Mathematics and
Statistics, University of Sydney)
Mark Uniacke (Hiarcs, World Microcomputer Champion 1993)
Mincho Georgiev (Pawny)
Olivier Deville (Tournament Director of ChessWars)
Omid David (author of Falcon)
Peter Skinner (Tournament Director of CCT--the major annual online computer chess
tournament)
Ralf Schäfer (author of Spike)
Richard Vida (author of Critter)
Richard Pijl (author of The Baron)
Stefan Meyer-Kahlen (author of Shredder, multiple world champions from 1996-2007)
Thomas Mayer (author of Quark)
Tord Romstad (author of Stockfish, Glaurung)
Tom Pronk (ProChess, Much)
Vladan Vuckovic (Axon, Achilles)
Wylie Garvin (game Programmer at Ubisoft Montreal)
Yngvi Björnsson (The Turk)
Zach Wegner (author of ZCT and Rondo, an upgraded version of Anthony Cozzie’s
Zappa program, which was world champion in 2005)

Judoka wrote:Asking laypersons to be a part of the panel just usually results in them falling in line behind the experts.

K I Hyams wrote
To which “laypersons” do you refer? Your logic is flawed anyway, even if there were “laypersons" and those hypothetical "laypersons" fell in line “behind the experts”, there would have been fewer abstentions, wouldn’t there?


Judoka wrote:- Convicting someone for an activity that didn't take place in their tournament seems to be grasping for straws. If this was the case it would have been much easier to determine guilt by using version that was used that had clear cases of copying from Crafty that participated in events?
The panel did not present a clear guideline and criteria to follow to prove guilt or innocence."The Abstraction-Filtration-Comparison test (AFC) is a method of identifying substantial similarity for the purposes of applying copyright law." This IS the method to use to add steps makes the process questionable.The AFC process was only 1 step? What were the other steps used?
While evidence is very critical so is the manner in which it is examined. There have been people who have been tried and convicted by juries that were 100% sure of their decision based on the evidence presented only to be later proved innocent by additional evidence. The DNA in this case is the original code but after 5 years of accusations drama I dont blame Vas for basically giving the group the silent treatment when they asked him for it.

K I Hyams wrote
More nonsense. This was not a jury trying a legal case, a "beyond reasonable doubt" verdict was not required. This was simply an internal affair; a panel deciding on whether someone had broken the rules of a private club. The composition of the panel and the way in which they reached a decision was therefore a private matter. There is no obligation for a member of a private club to be present at a disciplinary hearing and there is not even an obligation on those who are conducting the hearing to invite him.


Judoka wrote:The program examined was NOT the same version that competed in the ICGA championships.

K I Hyams wrote
The version of Rybka 1 was effectively the same and the version of Rybka 2 was exactly the same. Rybka 2.3.2a featured in the tournament and Rybka 2.3.2a was the version examined.

In the post below, Cimiotti admits that a version of Rybka that was inspected by the ICGA played in the WCCC:
By Lukas Cimiotti‭ (*****) [‬de‭] ‬Date‭ ‬2007-08-19‭ ‬19:36
Rybka‭ ‬-‭ ‬2.3.2a MP x64‭ ‬gets a reasonable boost from going from‭ ‬4‭ ‬to‭ ‬8‭ ‬cores.‭ ‬Rybka is continously beeing improoved,‭ ‬so the version that will‭ (‬hopefully‭) ‬be playing in Mexico isn't ready yet‭ ‬-‭ ‬it won't be publicly available,‭ ‬but i think,‭ ‬multiprocessor efficiency will not be improoved until then.‭ ‬Btw.‭ ‬WCCC in Amsterdam was run the first day using Rybka‭ ‬2.3.2‭ (‬with TBs and hash size hardcoded‭ ‬-‭ ‬no other modification‭)‬,‭ ‬from the second day it was‭ ‬2.3.2a‭ ‬-‭ ‬the version that was released later to the public.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] ... how.pl?pid‭=‬22407‭;‬hl=wccc


If you did some basic research before shooting off your mouth, you wouldn’t look quite so stupid.

K I Hyams


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wgarvin » Wed Jan 11, 2012 11:14 pm
(1) Most of the panel members were experienced programmers active in computer chess, who had written at least one chess engine. A small number (including myself) were experienced programmers with a long-standing interest in computer chess, but who had not written a complete chess engine. There were a few non-programmers who signed up, but they did not participate much in the discussion of the strength of the evidence.

(2) there was no rule that everyone would have to vote. Some people signed up just to see what was going on, or decided after signing up not to participate much. Users who tried to sign up were vetted by the Secretariat to make sure the discussions would be productive and civil (i.e. to avoid the noise you see in talkchess General, where everybody has opinions whether they are qualified to have them or not).

(3) The purpose of the panel was NOT to find Vas guilty or innocent. It was the Panel's job to collect the evidence together, make a technical assessment of the evidence, and advise the ICGA Board (a 5-person body led by Dr. Levy) about whatever the panel found. If you want to compare it to a courtroom, the Panel was NOT like a judge or jury--it was more like an "expert witness for the prosecution".

(4) Because no Rybka source was available, semantic comparisons had to be done by reverse-engineering the executable code and matching up the parts of an assembly listing with Fruit source, etc. Thus, not all programmers are qualified to judge the strength of that evidence (and its above the heads of laypersons). You need years of experience with x86 assembly code, a decent grasp of what optimizing compilers do when they compile source code into x86 machine code, AND the chess-programming experience to judge how significant a particular snippet of code is for the originality of the whole. Anyways, the pool of such people in the whole world is not that big (a few hundred? a few thousand?). A few people did most of the work, but (1) it took them months of effort, (2) they were emminently qualified to do it, and (3) very few people had both the skills and the interest to carry out the work of investigating, comparing, and documenting what they found. The rest of the Panel then studied the evidence, debated its significance, and tried to poke holes in it. When the panel voted, everyone who participated in the vote was convinced that significant amounts of Fruit 2.1 had been copied by Rybka 1.0 Beta and that Vas had broken rule 2. (there was a lot of copying of Crafty code into earlier versions, too... Not all of the evidence was even discussed, since the Fruit-like eval was already enough).

(5) as Dr. Levy has explained several times, Vas was given LOTS of chances (at least 4 or 5) to present any evidence or arguments he wanted. We would all have welcomed some sort of response from him. But he declined tp join the panel. He did not provide any source code to help make comparisons. He was sent a preliminary set of evidence, and again ignored it. The panel voted, a report was prepared by the Secretariat to give to the Board. That report was sent to Vas and he was given time to respond, and again he ignored it. He decided not to engage with the process in any way, in effect, he decided not to defend himself at all. This probably contributed to the harshness of the ICGA Board's decision (the lifetime ban).



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by lmader »

I appreciate that you are trying to wend your way through this muddle. I think it is hard for people to sift through.

Judoka wrote:I have seen NO clear definition or guidelines presented by ICGA in their examination of Rybka.


lmader wrote
Personally, the guidelines used by the ICGA to make their determination aren't that interesting to me because I think the more important issue is simply the issue of "did Vas copy code from Fruit". This question is simpler and more important to the general concern of whether there was wrong doing on the part of Vas. Why is it simpler? Because, and this is important, the Fruit code was covered by a license. It is "open-source" code, but it is NOT public domain. This means that copying the code is subject to the terms of its license. If Vas broke these rules, he is offending the law, as well as programmers in any domain (i.e. not just chess programmers).

Judoka wrote:The Closest I have seen is: from chessvibes.com

Watkins: "Furthermore, [Riis] is similarly lacking in any knowledge of the relevant aspects of copyright law, particularly the Abstraction-Filtration-Comparison Test that formed a basis for one part of the ICGA Panel analysis. He appears to apply a minimalist copy/paste standard to what “copying” might mean, ignoring any other creative aspects."

emphasis is mine.... what are the other parts? WHY add other parts? the test was created to determine guilt (


lmader wrote
I think the implication here is that copyright law can extend to code that isn't _exactly_ copy/paste, but close enough due to some level of minimal modification. As an example, perhaps the code isn't exact because Vas took Fruit and changed the board representation to bitboards, but otherwise didn't change things. This would still be considered a violation of copyright law because there are still extremely significant elements of the Fruit code that were carried over. I suppose this is an area that can be difficult to assess without some technical knowledge of the specific situation.

Judoka wrote:Essentially ICGA made a ruling and they can do what they want since it is a private organization. they need no evidence or even proof just a vote. In this case a simple we dont like you and we THINK you did something wrong would be enough evidence for the ICGA to throw Rybka out of their system. Again ICGA can do what they want.
the problem they tried to create an illusion of a legal process to indicate credibility.


lmader wrote
I'm not sure that the ICGA can be blamed for any perception of legal process. Their ruling was simply very visible. On the other hand, I think the report given to the board contains evidence that stands on its own, and that is the more relevant aspect here. That is, does that evidence stand up? I don't see the point in worrying about how fair the ICGA's decision was. In the end it's about that fundamental question - "did Vas copy code from Fruit."

Judoka wrote:

it absolutely[url]looks like[/url]code was copied and the GPL was therefore violated.


Looks like , similar, vaguely ,.... understand the base code isnt available but this begs doubt

lmader wrote

I use this language because I think that absolute certainty is always difficult. But this I feel 100% certain about - there is enough evidence there that it demands a real refutation from Vas. He could have played this much more openly. There were members of that panel that have no vested interest in computer chess anymore, such as Ken Thompson - who is absolutely luminary and beyond reproach by the way - with whom he could have negotiated an agreement to view his source code or whatever.

Also, it's important to keep in mind that some people simply cannot be convinced regardless of the amount of evidence. There are people who will deny the holocaust ever happened. Can you prove it 100%? You can cite eye-witnesses, journals, logs from the prison camps, etc., and yet some people can still find a way to doubt.

Judoka wrote:

A couple of people have attempted to introduce FUD (fear uncertainty and doubt) into the interpretation of the investigation's code comparison, but none of that FUD is valid. Sadly I guess one has to have some programming experience to be able to evaluate that statement

.
And how do you consider the evaluation of those people that are expert 3rd party programmers that have expressed doubt?

lmader wrote

To my knowledge, there are really only a few chess programmers expressing doubt. Ed Shroder, Chris Whittington, and Miguel Ballorca (apologies for misspelling their names, i know I didn't get them exactly right) being the ones with which I am familiar. Ballorca has, to my knowledge, been reasonable, but the only thing he has argued is that the Piece Square Table evidence isn't convincing. I agree that by itself the PSTs are not compelling, so no big deal. I do think that given the rest of the evidence it fits. As far as Shroder and Whittington, their form of argument has been steeped with distortion and manipulation of the facts. I cannot explain what has happened to Shroder, who once had a decent chess engine and thus should be accorded some respect. Most of the people on this forum will agree that regardless of the VIG vs VII thing, he has lost a lot of respect and credibility. So to answer your question, I don't think Shroder or Whittington are credible. I don't have an explanation for their behavior though, except to comment that it really has sounded like the ravings of madmen.

Judoka wrote:

The Fruit code was protected by a software license that doesn't allow code to be copied without adhering to the terms of that license. The answer is that there cannot be _any_ code copied. Just because some parts of the program were dramatically changed, does not move it along some continuum towards being ok. If there is code left in Rybka that was copied, it's a violation. No gray area.


Maybe in an academic world yes but read the article [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
"Eliminating elements dictated by external factors is an application of the scènes à faire doctrine to computer programs. The doctrine holds that elements necessary for, or standard to, expression in some particular theme can not be protected by copyright.[8] Elements dictated by external factors may include hardware specifications, interoperability and compatibility requirements, design standards, demands of the market being served, and standard programming techniques.[9]
Finally, material that exists in the public domain can not be copyrighted and is also removed from the analysis.[2]"
So code can be copied... again the modification of things are covered as well in the article so the area is grey .

I am a layperson in this issue. I have actually zero interest in Vas as a person or anyone else.
My questions are based on a sense of justice. When I look at what happened I see some serious gaps in what I would consider a fair, open and just process.

lmader wrote

Certainly a fair question. The first part of the above statement "... elements necessary for, or standard to, expression in some particular theme can not be protected..." could in principle possibly apply to something like a UCI interface in a chess engine. Probably not, but that's ok. In any case, much of the code in question is unique to the implementation of the engine and doesn't fall into this category.

The "public domain" section also doesn't apply - Fruit was not public domain, but instead covered under the Gnu Public License (GPL).

Judoka wrote:

The [ICGA] board formed the panel by asking Mark, Harvey and myself to "chair" the panel and to enlist the aid of others as we saw fit. -Hyatt


Shouldnt the main requirement been to have programmers on the panel? Not SOME not partially but entirely composed of experts and programmers of equal level not 1 or 2 that could sway the group. The problem with 1 expert and 10 amateurs would be that the 1 experts opinion could sway the others. Hyatt formed and led the panel even with this the panel returned a 14-0 out of 34 members .
. with 34 members a 14-0 result in guilt so 20 members of the panel abstained?! if they chose not to vote or participate or anything else why were they asked to be on the panel? That amount indicates a clear problem in 1) the evidence was not convincing enough to sway enough members to get at 50% to vote guilty. 2) or that the committee was flawed in its formation with members on the panel who shouldn't have been there in the first place.

lmader wrote

I guess I'm just not that interested in the process used by the ICGA. Zach W, Mark W, Bob Hyatt, etc spent a lot of time researching this and produced a report with their evidence. Regardless of the ICGA, the evidence has been produced, and it is this evidence that needs to be considered. It stands on its own; Whether or not one considers it convincing is the only real question.

Judoka wrote:The ONLY evidence presented was by the opposition. Vas was asked to offer a defense but well providing code to a group that was formed and led by your critics? Who would jump on that wagon.


lmader wrote
I don't agree, as mentioned above. Vas was accused of code copying and some very serious evidence was presented. If he was really innocent he could have negotiated a way to defend his code. There were some excellent people available.

Judoka wrote:The program examined was NOT the same version that competed in the ICGA championships.

lmader wrote

This is an example of the misinformation out there - we know that one of the Rybka 2.3.2 variations competed in the ICGA. They examined one of the 2.3.2 versions. Was it the exact same one? It really doesn't matter because they were all insubstantially different. (i.e. there were a bunch of very minor releases of 2.3.2, labelled with a suffix like 2.3.2a, 2.3.2n, etc., with very little difference between them). It really is crazy to imagine that the version of 2.3.2 that competed was somehow completely different from the 2.3.2 examined.






Thank you Donna & Natasha

Judoka wrote:The program examined was NOT the same version that competed in the ICGA championships.



Judoka, it does really help to be cognizant in issues BEFORE jumping in & making assertions that turns out to be non factual, or at best, contradictory.

Here is proof from Lukas Cinmiotti affirming that Rybka 2.3.2a mp x64 did in fact play in WCCC 2007 (ICGA). This announcement directly contradicts your assertion that the Rybka 2.3.2a version examined was not the same Rybka 2.3.2a version that competed in ICGA [and/or WCCC] in 2007:



Also here, mjlef expresses the same concern of possible differences in Rybka 2.3.2a versions that played/ or not played in WCCC 2007. Vas confirms, AGAIN, as of today January 11 2012, that the Rybka 2.3.2a that was examined (in ICGA investigation) CAN be used for the Rybka 2.3.2(a) version that competed in WCCC 2007



In reiteration, YOUR assertion(s) directly contradicts Lukas Cinmiotti's & Vasik Rajlich's statements. The rest of your current posts, including previous ones, have already been stated ad nauseam by those who hate adherence to licenses/rules/law/ethics/morals, only to be disproved with evidences & simple moral lessons.


@ K I Hyam: I agree with you. I didn't notice you already researched Luka Cinmiottie's public admittance of using Rybka 2.3.2a mp x64 in WCCC 2007. In any event, the link you provided is correct but broken or unable to link to the specific Rybka forum page of said 'confession'. I pulled it up and captured it, just in case the post somehow 'mysteriously vanishes' from Rybka forum, seeing it contradicts them in a major way.

@ Imader: I also agree with you. Apparently there are lots of misinformation circulating out there. In general, it clearly shows lots of Rybka zealots DON'T know nor understand exactly WHAT they're arguing for, or against.


Links to Lukas Cinmiotti and Vasik Rajlich's Statement concerning Rybka 2.3.2a version.txt
Links to Lukas Cinmiotti's and Vasik Rajlich's statement contradicting the notion that Rybka 2.3.2a that competed in WCCC 2007 is not the same Rybka 2.3.2a investigated in ICGA 2010

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Prima

Jans F., Somerville, MA
"This article makes a couple of interesting points. Vas Rajlich took code from Fruit, improved it, and that's good. The developers of Ippolit took code from Rybka, improved it, and that's bad. So, the point is made that when your friend does something, it's good, and when your enemy does the same thing, it's bad. In fact, let's write a long, complicated explanation about how it's not the same thing at all. The other interesting point is that the availability of free open source programs has advanced computer chess rapidly. Closed-source, paid programs have advanced computer chess more slowly. The point here is that profit motivation impedes progress. It also gets in the way of intellectual honesty by causing personal preference bias, which is obvious to the reader, but perhaps invisible to the author."

Andrei Olsen, Norway
"Unless it was intended, there is just no way any programmer (not even a beginner) would ever write "if(movetime >= 0.)" or "if(movetime >= 0.0)", it just doesn't happen by accident. And it couldn't be a typo either, the "." (dot) is located at a completely different place on the keyboard (be it a US, Czech, Polish, Dvorak, etc. layout)."

John Hornibrook, Sydney, Australia
"I very much enjoy the chessbase news site, but I feel I must comment about the horridly one-sided articles on the ICGA decision regarding Rybka. Yes, of course you are entitled to post a piece from someone on the Rybka side, but the articles do not address a majority of the evidence presented against Rybka and misrepresent some of the claims. This seems intentionally misleading for readers not in programming circles, and chessbase should weigh some responsibility against its financial interests. The section on Bob Hyatt in the final piece is, of course, unnecessary. However abrasive his manner, he is certainly generous with his time and assistance to the computer chess community."

Rick Fadden, Barre, Vermont, USA
"In looking inside the Rybka 1.0 beta binary I found that Vas Rajlich was lying about how deep Rybka was searching, how many nodes it searched, and the Nodes per second reporting. In the code I point out that Vas includes a lot of code to "obfuscate" and to hide the fact that Rybka was a "fast, deep searcher", not a "slow searcher with max chess knowledge.""

Chris Kantack
"I think the "gross miscarriage" here is that ChessBase is only printing one side of the story. Why don't we see the rebuttals from David Levy and Tom Watkins. I'm disappointed that you show extreme bias here. My opinion of ChessBase has greatly diminished."
_______________
Ted Summers


Some of the issues with Rajlich’s behaviour that come to my mind as I type this are listed below. I am sure that the list is not complete. When people see the nature of your support for Rajlich, in the light of that list, do you not understand why a number of people wonder whether the inside of your head is a "scary place"?

# Dodging pertinent questions on Rybka site.
# Refusal to release (even to a secure source) obsolete code that would clear his name if untainted.
# Repeated claims that he has “lost” evidence that incriminates him/clears his name.
# An apparent withdrawal of the repeated claim that he has lost evidence that incriminates him/clears his name, when presented with a document that challenges that claim.
# Apparent inability and absolute refusal to address issues relating to copying Crafty.
# Obfuscating output which, if corrected, shows a Fruit like search.
# Refusal to answer questions posed by ICGA.
# Unsubstantiated claims that Ippolit is a Rybka 3 clone.
# Claims that the Fruit clone Strelka contains so much code that is also in Rybka that he was considering claiming ownership of Strelka.

K I Hyams