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Subject: zappa, monopoly and the fight against powerful companies

Author: Thorsten Czub

Date: 01:59:08 09/05/05

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On September 04, 2005 at 18:34:50, Vincent Diepeveen wrote:

>You should worry instead about the monopoly of chessbase in Europe.


People should have worried about chessbase monopol in the 80ties and 90ties when
the race was not over.

many did. only we were not capable to break the frontier of CSS propaganda and
Chessbase both using the same people bringing the right propaganda in place for
their own programs.

many tried.

Marty Hirsch
Ed Schröder
You tried
Lokasoft
...

some made deals with Chessbase and also sold their own stuff
(stefan).

In the years BEFORE chessbase went powerful we had nearly the same
problems with H+G and the Mephisto Computers beeing
pushed and supported in a monopoly way.

it is always the same: people involved in a business bring articles
about the products into magazins/newspapers, write articles in internet or
make a hype in newsgroups .

and later the people find out the product is not as good.

this has happened how often ??

Today dedicated chess computer companies live in poverty.
they rarely sell something important.

their machines are too slow, too weak and too expensive.

novags star diamond beaten by palm + tiger/hiarcs/genius.

Saiteks atlanta beaten by palm.

H+G bancrott.
Weiner finished.

computerchess was dominated a long time by the same people.

richard lang and ossi weiner.

frans morsch and fritz tried to break them.

then stefan dominated for a long time. and amir ban and shay came and
they fought against each other.


with the fall of the old monopolists, fresh wind came into the scene
and new talented programmers, who had their own ideas managed to
invade the rusty computerchess scene.

suddenly new strong programs appeared out of nothing.

ruffian was mainly the first.

then came fruit, and it's style toga.

now zappa.

Chris Whittington once wrote:

"When should we expect a major breakthrough in science ?
When will a lone developer 'step through the looking-glass' ?
Who will this developer be ?

The answer to the above two questions is of course whenever the old, classical
programmers say 'we've reached perfection, there is no way to improve'; when the
old paradigm says 'there is only one way'; when all the developers produce
roughly equal results."

This - exactly this has happened IMO again.

Suddenly, out of nothing, new strong programs appeared just in the moment the
traditional programs had problems to make progress.
we saw shredder leading the ssdf list and nobody believed there would be much
more progress or new programs reaching shredder.

BUT IT CAME DIFFERENT, so chris was right.

and he is right concerning this text:

"Who will be the developer ?
===========================
To answer our third question - 'who will be the developer ?', it is  necessary
to look at the personality of the classical programmers and  their hangers-on.
These programmers are characterised by a failure to  show their emotions (do
they ever smile), fear (just watch them  operating at tournaments), refusal to
discuss how their programs work  (just try talking to them) , aversion to taking
risks. It has always  surprised me that the 'top' programmers are not good chess
players. The  hangers-on only make a little money, they jealously support their
chosen proteges, and viciously attack their opponents. The hangers-on  know
little, pretend to know much and are governed by fear and greed.
Overall the impression is of a static, non-risk taking, hostile, World  War I
environment. The new paradigm will come from an unexpected  quarter. From a
developer with extrovert personality, accustomed to  taking risks, a developer
with chess knowledge, probably someone  unpopular with the classical paradigm
supporters, certainly unpopular
with the hangers-on and computer chess entourage. This developer will  have been
and certainly will be furiously attacked by the classicists."

I am looking forward to the new zappa and the new gui.

i am happy because i have so many chessbase GUIs and they were all buggy and it
was a pain in the ass to use them, but i had to, to get my shredder, my junior,
my hiarcs running.

The next program i want to see is fruit.


ruffian
fruit
fruits clone toga
spike
zappa
...

this will be a nice time !!




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