Author: Andrew Williams
Date: 02:36:28 02/16/05
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On February 15, 2005 at 18:38:43, John Merlino wrote: >I'm not trying to start a brutally long thread here, but I'm just curious about >how people feel about a particularly touchy subject -- clones. What, in your >mind, would lead you to the conclusion that an engine is a clone? > >Let's forget trying to find ways to PROVE that a clone is a clone; I'm just >trying to define one. For the sake of argument, assume that the author of this >engine in question tells you exactly what he did and did not do, and you must >decide whether to call it a clone or not. > >Here are some hypothetical questions to start the debate: > >If the author took Crafty and completely rewrote the evaluation code and nothing >else, would it be a clone? > CLONE >How about if the author rewrote the evaluation code and search algorithm only, >but left the hashing code, et. al.? > CLONE >How about if the author rewrote everything EXCEPT for the evaluation? > It's hard to tell how this could be done, because the evaluation will be deeply integrated into the rest of the program. CLONE, but why bother? >How about if the author rewrote everything EXCEPT for Crafty's evaluation of >passed pawns? > See previous comment. CLONE, but why bother? I think evaluation and search are bad examples, because I feel that they define an engine in a way that many of the other parts don't. For example, if someone adopted Crafty's book format and access code - assuming they followed the terms of crafty's license (I don't know what those terms are), I wouldn't call that program a clone. >I think you can see where I'm driving. Obviously, many engine authors have >studied Crafty and other engines whose authors have graciously provided their >source code. But, for an engine to not be considered a clone, does it have to be >absolutely 100% the work of the author? (Forget about Nalimov's EGTB probing >code and any other code that can be used with permission). > >Many thanks in advance for your thoughts, > >jm (who's just preparing for any eventuality during his upcoming stint as >moderator :-) Interesting questions! Andrew
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