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Subject: Re: definition of clones: Danchess an Crafty

Author: Jaime Benito de Valle Ruiz

Date: 11:35:09 02/15/04

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On February 15, 2004 at 14:26:00, Dann Corbit wrote:

>On February 15, 2004 at 14:21:06, Jaime Benito de Valle Ruiz wrote:
>
>>On February 15, 2004 at 14:12:05, Dann Corbit wrote:
>>
>>>On February 15, 2004 at 14:08:24, Jaime Benito de Valle Ruiz wrote:
>>>
>>>>Does that mean that we can be sued for using ideas such as using bitboards... or
>>>>a 64 bytes array to represent the board?
>>>
>>>You can be sued if you are innocent.  Software is an extrememly complex matter
>>>and I doubt if 1% of judges or juries would be able to make a competent
>>>decision.  Therefore the quality of the legal team will probably determine the
>>>outcome.
>>>
>>>>The only two pieces of code that I have ever copied are:
>>>>
>>>>  1) A few lines to read the input, because I didn't know how to do this.
>>>>  2) A branchless assembly version of a 64-bit BSR/BSF for 32-bit processors.
>>>>
>>>>The implementation (but not the original ideas) of typical chess engine search /
>>>>evaluation functions are mine... because I don't like reading other people's
>>>>code. Do you advice to start sending lots of mails to lots of people asking for
>>>>the permission to use their ideas if I ever decide to send my program to a
>>>>tournament (or make it commercial)?
>>>
>>>Yes.  It is not a legal necessity, but I think it is a good idea.  Probably, we
>>>don't write more than one new routine a day.  That's not a lot of emails.
>>>
>>>>All this sounds a bit extreme to me.
>>>>
>>>>Regards,
>>>>
>>>> Jaime
>>>
>>>Like any idea, it has both a positive and negative aspect.
>>
>>The only problem is: How do I know who should I write for every thing that I do?
>
>Write to the person where you got the idea.  If it is from a book or a paper,
>then to the book or paper author.  If is is from code, then to the one who wrote
>the code.  If you make it up yourself, you can still be in violation (especially
>for a patent).  Commercial software systems will do a patent search to see if
>they violate any patent ideas.
>
>For instance, certain types of bitmap indexes cannot be used -- even if you make
>the idea up by yourself because there are several patents on bitmapped indexes.
>For that reason, I never use bitmapped indexes.
>
>>I know who should I ask for permission if I ever implement the tablebases (and I
>>will ask), but I'm not sure about the rest of the stuff.
>>Thanks for the advice in any case.
>
>I think that a minimal courtesy that should always be extended is to at least
>cite the sources from which the information came.

Who owns the patent for bitboards? And what bitmapped indexes are patented?

I think that using bits to represent squares is not exactly an original idea. I
started programming in assembler when I was 14 y.o., and to me it seems an
obvious choice to use 64 bytes registers for a 64 squares board. Rotated
bitboards is another story, of course, but I don't use them anyway.

Cite the sources and thank all the people who have pubished and helped with
ideas goes without saying, but I doubt I can remember where did I get every
single of these ideas in the first place. Is there any page with this
information anywhere?

Thanks again,

  Jaime



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