I'm glad the group spoke up. Free software or no, details matter, and in this case the details point to false claims and unethical behavior:
> It is sad to see claims of innovation where there has been none, and claims of improvement in an engine that is weaker than its open-source origins. It is also sad to see people appropriating the open-source work and effort of others and claiming it as their own.
> Everyone is permitted and encouraged to modify and improve code from Stockfish/Leela while giving credit; that is the intent of open-source software. Everyone is allowed to copy Stockfish/Leela and sell them, provided the terms of the Stockfish/Leela license are met. But don’t pretend that the product being sold is something it isn’t.
ChessBase is selling this Stockfish clone for
€99.90. They have also disabled comments on all of their articles so far about Fat Fritz 2. Not a good look.
Thanks for the link. That git diff is absurd: 9 changed files with 21 additions and 30 deletions[1]. It really is just Stockfish using different weights and changing the name... The fact this Albert Silver fella did the same with Leela Chess Zero two years ago is even worse, no remorse!
They are a sketchy company, from the over-zealousness to defend their "IP" to the price they demand for their yearly software, to the creepy vibe their articles about young female players have. So no sympathy from me, go stockfish.
Im looking at the diff, they doubled the size of NN and added themselves as additional authors in addition to the original authors and released source when requested. I.e. they gave credit to original devs, I don't understand where they violated anything. NN weights is data not code.
ITT: People missing the point by making it about software licenses, when the real issue is lying about the product.
ChessBase could easily comply with any open source license by linking the full source code, including the method they used to generate NN weights (if they think the license applies here as well), in a footnote.
It would still be a scam, because their claims of superiority, originality ("almost from scratch"), and innovation (see the funny part about technology from Japan) are wrong, and purposely so.
For instance, let's look at the BSD license. It requires copyright notices in source code to be preserved. That means that it reserves the attribution right.
The original license required them in executable code; the two-clause version relaxes it; it doesn't demand any expression of attribution in the compiled code.
However, it does not appear to fully waive the attribution right; it requires the copyright notices and license clauses to remain in the source code. The compiled code is still the original author's copyright; nothing in the license says that it isn't.
If someone claims they developed it, it's infringement on the attribution copyright, even though they have the license-granted right to redistribute the code without making such deceptive claims.
IANAL, but if you're going to plagiarize, I suspect the safest bet is to pick something that has lapsed into the public domain, not something with copyrights and licenses in it.
What are these _open source_ licenses, which require you to link to the full source code? I might not have seen such a license yet. Usually "open source license" equates to MIT license and BSD licenses, which do not require you to link to the source code.
I was simply pointing out the fact that your claim that '[u]sually "open source license" equates to MIT license and BSD licenses' is simply completely untrue.
There are no 'might's or 'usually' here. Both Open Source and Free Software licenses have very clear criteria. There are no licenses which are 'usually' one or the other. They are mostly strictly equivalent.
Well then, how about you look at the next 10-20 repositories, which interest you and which are labeled "open source" and see what their licenses are? Then you will get a picture of what is "usual". You can also increase N, if you want more indication.
a) AGPL (and other Free Software licenses) are also Open Source licenses, Open Source is not "BSD or MIT"
b) the comment you originally reply to didn't even claim anything about licenses "requiring" links to the source, just that doing so is one quite clear way of attributing.
> this means "most people think of MIT or BSD licenses, when they hear open source"
I'd strongly disagree with that too.
> Open source does not contain the same garantees for freedoms and therefore cannot be a superset of free software. It is the other way around. Free software makes sure that open source requirements are met and adds requirements on top of that, to make sure user freedoms are preserved.
Free Software adds additional requirements, yes. Which is why it can be usefully thought of as a subset of Open Source: AFAIK all common Free Software licenses are recognized as Open Source licenses, and give you the rights expected from an Open Source license, whereas many Open Source licenses do not qualify to be Free Software (and do not guarantee what's expected from Free Software). Certainly in my circles, the vast majority of people working on GPLed software describe what they do as "Open Source".
You may disagree with me of course, but this kind of understanding of OSS is very very common. Most people, even software developers do not even know there is a difference between free and open source software. And as I have suggested before in another comment: Consciously check the licenses of the next 10-20 repos (or more, if you have time or motivation), which are labeled "open source" and you will very quickly see what many people think open source license to mean.
I'd love for it to not be so, surely. I would like to discover, that I have, mostly dealt with a niche group of software developers, and that the broad majority in fact knows the differences. I have a hunch though, that this is not the case, as I always check the licenses of repos and almost always see MIT or BSD when its label is "open source". This is my experience on an almost daily basis on the job, but if you have good sources, please link them to me, to prove me wrong about this.
"“Free software.” “Open source.” If it's the same software (or nearly so), does it matter which name you use? Yes, because different words convey different ideas. While a free program by any other name would give you the same freedom today, establishing freedom in a lasting way depends above all on teaching people to value freedom. If you want to help do this, it is essential to speak of “free software.”
We in the free software movement don't think of the open source camp as an enemy; the enemy is proprietary (nonfree) software. But we want people to know we stand for freedom, so we do not accept being mislabeled as open source supporters. What we advocate is not “open source,” and what we oppose is not “closed source”. To make this clear, we avoid using those terms."
(quote end)
People intentionally making free software do not see themselves as merely open source software making. They do not wish to be mislabeled. Is that not enough for you? I mean, what more do you need, for me to convince you, that this subset-superset-structure, you are proposing, is not according to the definition of what free software is?
Now I don't know in what circles you work, but I suggest, that the people take another look at the definitions and begin distinguishing, if they have any interest in using the correct terms. Why is that important? Well, another quote from the same page:
(quote start)
Some of the supporters of open source considered the term a “marketing campaign for free software,” which would appeal to business executives by highlighting the software's practical benefits, while not raising issues of right and wrong that they might not like to hear. Other supporters flatly rejected the free software movement's ethical and social values. Whichever their views, when campaigning for open source, they neither cited nor advocated those values. The term “open source” quickly became associated with ideas and arguments based only on practical values, such as making or having powerful, reliable software. Most of the supporters of open source have come to it since then, and they make the same association. Most discussion of “open source” pays no attention to right and wrong, only to popularity and success; here's a typical example. A minority of supporters of open source do nowadays say freedom is part of the issue, but they are not very visible among the many that don't.
(quote end)
Thank you for now engaging in an actual discussion about the subject and bringing arguments.
"check the licenses of the next 10-20 repos (or more, if you have time or motivation), which are labeled "open source" and you will very quickly see what many people think open source license to mean."
That proves no such thing.
You might as well say "check the programming language used on the next 10 or 20 repositories and you will very quickly see what many people think open source programming language to mean."
I only ever licence my own stuff as gpl or the closest cc analog for projects with a physical component, and in almost all conversations, with people in and out of any IT related field or hobby, I call it all open source.
The special meanings for "open source" and "free" are definitions a very few people have come up with as a way to give a label to a distinction which exists so that they can deal with that distinction, but no one I know ever uses those terms in that way in any ordinary conversation or even writings. Even professional writers writing news articls, most frequently use the term open source to apply to anything that isn't closed source. Even they might only say "free" to mean without monetary cost.
The special definitions are almost like a document-local definition. They aren't even jargon. Meaning, you can't even say that everyone in a given field means those definitions when they say those words. The set for which that assumption would be true or at least plausible is only everyone in one or two organizations.
There's nothing incorrect or even controversial about what you're saying. It could be your tone, but I suspect that if you share these opinions during peak west coast hours, e.g. 10am - 7pm pacific time, you're likely to get more upvotes and a more receptive response.
There is an odd pattern I've observed where my opinionated comments get a lot of upvotes during the day and evening, and then I wake up the next day to find they've been nearly reversed overnight. There's some kind of ideological split in the the US tech scene and the rest of the world.
Huh, interesting observation, will keep that in mind, thank you.
Basically people build their own bubbles everywhere. If you are the one to poke it, you better prepare for the backlash, I learn once more.
I had a hunch initially though, that I would get downvoted for the attempt to distinguish between free and open source though, just like the previous times. However, if I start to self-censor, just because of downvotes, ... imagine if everyone did that. Opinions would go unheard. It is a bad trend. People need to speak up and voice their opinions.
I have also noticed, that if one makes a comment, that is purely positive about something, you are much more likely to get upvoted, but as soon as you criticize anything, you run the risk of being massively downvoted ("Please stay positive!"), especially when it is about open source vs free software or when it is about javascript. Perhaps these populations are just bigger and more people will take offense or they are especially touchy about having something criticized.
Anyway, I should not care too much about random downvotes on HN. There are more productive ways to spend my day.
I think anyone would be massively downvoted and flagged whatever the subject, if they talk like you have on this page, going on about how and why you're being downvoted and how people are idiots who should read your noble words more carefully etc. For example
> Can you please _read_ what is written and consider it, before writing things, that I already know might be true? ... Ah, you mean _free_ software. Why not be more specific and say that in the first place? ... Would you please read exactly what I wrote, and not go and interpret things and then make claims? ... It seems impossible to have a discussion about this on HN, without being downvoted into oblivion. Obviously there is a rather big population on HN, which does not understand the differences of the two and feels like they need to downvote any comment, that tries to differentiate or point to imprecision in wording. ... Basically people build their own bubbles everywhere. If you are the one to poke it, you better prepare for the backlash, I learn once more.
All this adds less than nothing to HN, breaks the guidelines in several ways, and everyone is the poorer for having read them. Aside from the unbearable, self-important whining and pouting, it's not so much what you said as how you say it. It seems common to then create a conspiracy theory where it's all about the what, where downvotes somehow just go to show the writer was right. Even if you were 100% right on this page and everyone else 100% wrong, that's no excuse at all to write as you have. And if you are trying to persuade, ranting at people like that seems the worst possible way.
The difference between 'open source software' and 'free software' has nothing to do with copyleft. The vast majority of open source software licenses are also free software licenses, and vice versa.
Check out the GNU or FSF websites. Copyleft is an important part obviously, as it is the thing preventing things to be forked, modified and then license changed. Did you ever watch a Stallman talk about the 4 freedoms and how copyleft works? If not, please do so, before writing more untrue things like: "The difference between 'open source software' and 'free software' has nothing to do with copyleft."
Please don't patronize me. I am responding to claims, not judging you and will ask you to please do the same.
The difference between Open Source and Free software (incidentally, I am in favour of the latter, but this is irrelevant) has to do with ethos and values, not copyleft.
"The two now describe almost the same category of software, but they stand for views based on fundamentally different values. For the free software movement, free software is an ethical imperative, essential respect for the users' freedom. By contrast, the philosophy of open source considers issues in terms of how to make software “better”—in a practical sense only. It says that nonfree software is an inferior solution to the practical problem at hand."
But how does any of this make it untrue, that copyleft is an important aspect, without which the freedoms are not maintained?
You quoted 2 phrases, which are not wrong, but which do not argue against what I wrote before. Here are more quotes from the same pages:
"Second, when a program's source code carries a weak license, one without copyleft, its executables can carry additional nonfree conditions. Microsoft does this with Visual Studio, for example."
It should be quite clear, that, when I can copy a program and modify it and then release under a different license, I can circumvent user freedoms easily. Do you have any counter point to this? What exactly are you trying to tell me?
I don't mean anything, I jumped into this with an example and Free Software is Open Source Software, I gave an example of OSS (that also happens to be FS). I didn't make the first comment so reply accordingly. You are the one starting a semantical discussion.
Many commenters are missing that the issue is not that an Open Source project was repackaged as a commercial project, but that the open source origin has been hidden.
> Many commenters are missing that the issue is not that an Open Source project was repackaged as a commercial project, but that the open source origin has been hidden.
That is not what Joost VandeVondele, current maintainer of the Stockfish project, posts:
> Recently, ChessBase has started distribution and sales of the Fat Fritz 2 chess engine. This chess engine is a Stockfish derivative, with a few lines of code modification (engine name, authors list and a few parameters), and a new set of NNUE net weights considered proprietary
> Selling Stockfish derivatives is possible with the GPLv3 license we grant, but not without requirements. In particular, the license states that if one redistributes a program derived from our work, the corresponding modifications of our sources and all information needed to build that program must be made available. Only after explicitly informing Albert Silver (the author of the net in Fat Fritz 2) of a license violation have matching C++ sources, but not the net weights, been made available. Obviously, we condemn the approach taken.
> but that the open source origin has been hidden.
What is the specific licensing issue here?
If this is about them not liking the product, fine, but don't dirty the open source ethos unless they are breaking the license. Part of the problem is the current HN headline perhaps.
The specific licensing issue is that both are under GPL v3.0. Which means that you can sell a derivative, but you have to clearly advertise that it wasn't your work, provide source upon request, and so on.
They did none of this and so are in copyright violation. And so should be sued.
...and if they're breaking the license, don't "name and shame"; send them a C&D. And if that's ignored, sue them.
Seriously, there's some attitude in open source circles that looks down on using the law to achieve compliance. Why bother putting up such a carefully thought-out legal document, and then whining on a blog when it's broken, instead of using it for its intended purpose -- a court of law?
> Also, due to the ill view of patents on this forum, I imagine people here are simply put off from using the law
I'm not talking about HackerNews in particular here. There's a deep divide in the Linux kernel community, for instance, about GPL enforcement. Some people, often represented by the Software Freedom Conservancy, believe in "speak softly but carry a big stick": i.e., try by negotiation to get violators into compliance, but sue when negotiation fails. Other people (including, IIRC people like Greg KH) have at some point openly stated that they would never consider a lawsuit an appropriate course of action.
I'm not sure where the Leela Zero and Stockfish people stand on this; I just sort of assumed from the tone of the article that they were in the "never sue" camp. Maybe they're in the "I didn't realize we could do that" camp, in which case I'd strongly recommend they get in touch with SFC.
> ... send them a C&D. And if that's ignored, sue them. Why bother putting up such a carefully thought-out legal document ...&c&c&c... instead of using it for its intended purpose -- a court of law?
Because
* legal action is expensive, time-consuming, and may be simply impossible (or equivalently impracticable) depending on where you, or the other parties, reside/do business; and
* legal documents do not in actuality exist to enable someone's courtroom drama fantasies. In anticipation of civil disagreement, competent lawyers will advise that adversarial proceedings are a last resort, not a first measure, and draft documents accordingly.
> “Installation Information” for a User Product means any methods, procedures, authorization keys, or other information required to install and execute modified versions of a covered work in that User Product from a modified version of its Corresponding Source. The information must suffice to ensure that the continued functioning of the modified object code is in no case prevented or interfered with solely because modification has been made.
This article is light on the details about this being a GPL license violation or not. The final paragraph also makes it sound like Stockfish is under a permissive license (only requiring attribution) when in fact it's licensed under the copyleft GPLv3.
It was, but according to Wikipedia they sorted that out by moving the proprietary neural network out of the executable. If this is correct, it means that the source is available and the nature of the changes (including removing the original authors) should be visible.
Stockfish _is_ currently licensed under GPLv3. Chessbase is allowed to sell a modified copy, but only under the same license and they have to provide the source.
I think it can be argued that the set of weights of a neural network is a program, but not “the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it”.
That would mean the training set and training algorithm (and random number generator seed) would have to be distributed under the GPL, too.
They did the same thing though. Two differently trained neural networks will have different outcomes, in this case they'd pick different chess moves in some special cases.
I’m fairly sure there were (maybe still are) linkers that, given duplicate symbol names, would happily grab one of them without checking whether they had the same code.
Add in parallel linking, and program behavior can change.
where the author tries to argue that doubling the neural network size in StockFish makes for an appreciable strength increase.
However, only blitz results are shown. Looking at http://computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/ we see Fat Fritz
being only 2 ELO stronger than SF at blitz while losing out on longer time controls.
This questionable tradeoff makes for a very poor excuse to charge $100 versus the free SF.
Copyright doesn't make a distinction between software and other text, but GPL3 probably does, and maybe allows changed weights without them being released (unlike software, where it's explicitly stated). I didn't read the license though.
No, but copyright (in the US and US-influenced countries) does make a crucial distinction between work that is an expression of human creativity and work that doesn't, even more strongly since Feist. If the weights are a dump from some kind of ML training algorithm, it's likely that they're not copyrightable under US law.
This (to its logical absurd extreme) would mean that compiled binaries are not copyrightable and only source code is.
The GPL is clear here: you must release sources in the preferred form of the work for making changes in it. For a neural network, that is the training data, models and scripts - unless you really are just editing the final weights.
For better or worse, US courts have not interpreted the Feist precedent to mean that compiled binaries are not copyrightable. I'm not sure if any defendant has tried that argument when admitting to copying binaries; it doesn't seem likely to be a winning argument.
The analogy of "email connectivity parameters" is way too simplistic. Neural network weights are a lot more like VHDL code on FPGAs that enable/disable individual gates.
The NN engine is just a substrate. It can't do anything on its own, and what it can do is vastly altered by the specific database of weights that are applied.
Additionally, as a proportion of what makes a NN system work, the weights are the vast, physical bulk of it.
I don't think any legal team employing a real ML expert witness would have any trouble arguing that the weights are the code.
It sounds more like the weights are data like an image, and the engine is the image viewer.
Or like the bitstream to an fpga not the vhdl.
vhdl really is source, so it comes down to if nn weights really are more like vhdl or more like the bitstream.
It seems like the closest analog to a source for nn weights is training data and scripts.
In that case, it seems fine to license the weights seperately, just like the source to an image viewer or audio player, yet not some image that is displayed in it.
I'm not so sure about shipping them together under a single name as a single product. Maybe that act causes them to be obligated to provide the source to generate the nn weights?
I would love that, not because I value their data but because it would mean it was only their own attempt to mis-represent that now makes them have to give away their store. If they had simply packaged up their fork of Stockfish plus proprietary nn model honestly and in good faith, there would be no problem. Maybe they couldn't get $99 for that from very many people but, oh well!
I would have assumed that most people interested in chess engines are a pretty savvy and will do their research before buying anything, making the whole "create a sub-par ripoff" a rather ineffective strategy.
Not really. Plenty of middling to world-class chess players aren't technically literate, but use chess engines for preparation. And Chessbase is the biggest name in chess software, though they've always had a slightly scummy approach to marketing.
As long as the license allowed it, I'm not seeing the issue. Sure; it's a less-then-advertised product, but the world is full of those.
If people want to drop 100$ on something that doesn't work as well as the free alternative, more power to them. People do it everyday in the real world.
While this is something I would expect from a small random company, ChessBase is pretty big in the chess world.
For them to promote this "new" engine on their shop[0] feels wrong, I would expect them to meet certain quality threshold.
Lichess does mention this in the bottom of the post, which has the same feeling:
> Everyone is permitted and encouraged to modify and improve code from Stockfish/Leela while giving credit; that is the intent of open-source software. Everyone is allowed to copy Stockfish/Leela and sell them, provided the terms of the Stockfish/Leela license are met. But don’t pretend that the product being sold is something it isn’t.
"It is sad to see claims of innovation where there has been none, and claims of improvement in an engine that is weaker than its open-source origins. It is also sad to see people appropriating the open-source work and effort of others and claiming it as their own."
The license allows to use the code, it does NOT allow taking the credit for things you did not do.
There's way too little credit given in open source in general, and I'm glad to see people fight back again (it was more customary to fight back before 2010).
And I might be the only idiot here, but I tried to run stockfish from source and it was not an instant process. In addition, there isn't really a front end, you essentially end up with a CLI to input moves.
And for those who say, hey you, there are prebuilt binaries, just download them! Check out this message [1]
"
The binaries at the top of the table are fastest, but may not support all CPUs. If you don't know which CPU you have, you can go down the list and pick the first binary that does not crash.
"
Yeah okay, a pragmatic set of instructions that can't fail...
From this I think we could see why a product built on top of stockfish might make sense, even if the linked product might not do as such.
Because the engine is not an interface. You can have then engine you want on any interface that supports it. I suppose the easiest way to play stockfish is to click "Play with the computer" on lichess.org, you don't even have to signup!
Then, you will find a /lot/ of GUI interfaces for your favorite OS (Linux, Android, BSD, Win/Mac...), and probably it will have Stockfish included.
As such, you don't have to download or build stockfish, basically any free chess app that you will find will make it available to you. I can think of no reason to make a free chess interface without Stockfish.
There are literally hundreds of FREE stockfish packages with frontend all good to go. To ask 99$ and lie through your teeth when it comes to authorship and performance is a ruse to rip people off, with the help of a famous name, plain and simple.
> This chess engine is a Stockfish derivative, with a few lines of code modification (engine name, authors list and a few parameters), and a new set of NNUE net weights considered proprietary.
There is no way this is the outcome, but I’d love to live in the world where ChessBase get a proper commercial license to Stockfish to sell to people who don’t want to click three buttons to set it up themselves, in exchange for permanently opening up their database to the public.
Can somebody explain to me how NN is used in Stockfish? I always assumed that some heuristic rules are used by Stockfish to evaluate the position, and I think this was actually the case not that long ago. So, does this mean heuristics are now being completely replaced by NN evaluations in Stockfish, all the prior work being completely thrown away?
In fact, isn't the position evaluation pretty much the only thing that makes Stockfish different from Leela, the rest being just some tweaks on top of traversing the decision tree? And if it now seems that NN is better at this after all, what is the purpose of having these 2 engines at all, shouldn't all the future work just be moving over to Leela?
It uses clever integer arithmetic in the neural network, so you don't need a monster GPU to get good performance. I believe as of now it's using both the nn and the classic heuristic-based system for different situations.
It doesn't answer any of my questions, though. In the end, it doesn't matter how exactly that NN works, in terms of architecture, weights, framework, etc. Given there is a common API, one position evaluation module can be used as a drop-in-replacement for some other implementation of position evaluation module. I mean, it kinda made sense that Leela was a different project, because it wasn't clear back then if a community will be able to train an NN which can surpass heuristics-based engine, and heuristics was at the heart of Stockfish. But if it turns out to be that heuristics-based approach has lost to NN, it isn't that clear anymore why these have to be 2 separate projects. At least, in terms of the rest of the engine.
> I believe as of now it's using both the nn and the classic heuristic-based system for different situations.
That's what I'm actually curious about. How does it combine these 2, precisely?
Edit: actually, reading more carefully the "Hybrid" section it kind of answers the last question. But still makes me wonder if the rest of the 2 engines cannot be combined.
(1) an evaluation function, that quantifies black/white advantage in a chess position.
(2) a search algorithm, that iteratively checks move sequences from a starting position using (1) and returns a recommendation of the best move to play.
Historically (1) was handcrafted, but it recently switched to a 'NNUE' neural network architecture (now it using different evaluation functions depending on how balanced the position is).
This is a good video if you want to understand how Stockfish works.
"But if it turns out to be that heuristics-based approach has lost to NN, it isn't that clear anymore why these have to be 2 separate projects. At least, in terms of the rest of the engine."
Leela's evaluation function is a deep neural network, inference can only be carried out efficiently using GPU, whilst the Stockfish system has been optimised for a CPU-based computer architecture. The innovation of NNUE is that inference can be performed efficiently on a CPU, partly because the network is much smaller, and partly because the architecture is designed to be efficient at recomputing evaluations of only a single piece has changed.
Copyright issues aside, you would think claims of innovation would be taken with a grain of salt until this engine competes with, and beats Stockfish and Leela at the TCEC (top computer engine championship).
Everyone is permitted and encouraged to modify and improve code from Stockfish/Leela while giving credit; that is the intent of open-source software. Everyone is allowed to copy Stockfish/Leela and sell them, provided the terms of the Stockfish/Leela license are met. But don’t pretend that the product being sold is something it isn’t.
Pulling the download isn't sufficient if it has already been downloaded - either they have to offer the source to everyone who downloaded, or they have infringed copyright by this distribution and can be justifiably sued for that.
However, this article implies that nobody really cares about them releasing the source, as it seems that it does not have any interesting improvements.
Yes, but they need to provide the code under the same GPL license, so in practice it would be available to everyone in the world as long as a single person who downloaded it wants to share it futher.
Hopefully. I also hope this gets spread throughout the online chess community so that ChessBase gets their name dragged through the mud, as they rightfully should, for this blatant plagiarism.
Taking the work of others, erasing their name and inserting your own, is the kind of crap we expect from lousy cheaters in high school, not businesses who want to establish themselves in a market based on a centuries-old global institution.
The market and the history of the game is precisely the reason they became like this. It's hard to build a profitable server platform that can compete with what's already there. Engines are already very advanced, especially on the open-source front. Free resources are plentiful. Bookshelves are already crowded and chess-related articles probably don't make that much money. To make a successful app, you'd need some name recognition like Magnus. Coaching services are probably a no-go as well, since a professional player interested in that can always get a lucrative deal with chess.com or chess24 if they are high-profile or simply quickly get clients on their own and not have to pay a percentage.
All that is really left is targeting people who can't or won't perform even the most cursory research relating to their purchases.
I get the impression every good player uses it. And I've never heard anyone talk about using anything else in its place. People use it with the Mega Database, which ChessBase also sells, 8+ million games, including 85+ thousand annotated games. Just updating the Megabase looks like it costs 70 euros a year.
> Everyone is allowed to copy Stockfish/Leela and sell them, provided the terms of the Stockfish/Leela license are met. But don’t pretend that the product being sold is something it isn’t.
What's the issue? Did OS contributors suddenly realize you can make money off software? They're upset at marketers doing marketing?
Don't understand the downvotes. If they violated the terms of the license or did something illegal then sue, otherwise they're just whinging.
“It is sad to see claims of innovation where there has been none, and claims of improvement in an engine that is weaker than its open-source origins. It is also sad to see people appropriating the open-source work and effort of others and claiming it as their own.”
The only people who can enforce the GPL are the people who own the copyright of the code infringed. They may be able to win huge fines, but (with some infamous exceptions) generally aim more for compliance than punishment.
>It's a scam (it doesn't even use the best version of stockfish, so much for "the best chess engine available").
Have you used the internet or turned on a Tv in the last 20 years? Do you really think Dodge has "The Best Truck in the world" or that Verizon really has the "fastest 5g in America". This is marketing 101 for any business in the US.
If a seller only gets sales because of the ignorance of their customers, it's a rip off. I'd be annoyed if my work was being used to rip people off, even if no licence terms or laws were being broken.
Apart from the question of legality of removing copyright notices/changing authorship (which is definitely a copyright violation in some jurisdictions), there is more than just legality.
One can (and most people do) condemn some actions even if they are technically legal.
Arguably no, taking the neural network weights into account. The Chessbase folks seem to think that this isn't part of the code, the Stockfish folks disagree.
As described in the article, selling it isn't the problem. Selling it and refusing to live up to the license obligations is.
This is a natural consequence of releasing an open source project.
It’s the equivalent of leaving a car open with a key, documents and an invitation to drive it for free.
> in this case if they make him faster they have to make their changes public because of the GPL
Related to this: the GPL's obligations about sharing the source, kick in if you're sharing the binary. It's not relevant whether you made any changes yourself. [0] For compliance, the lazy derivative product will have to make the source available. I wonder if they've done that.
> It is sad to see claims of innovation where there has been none, and claims of improvement in an engine that is weaker than its open-source origins. It is also sad to see people appropriating the open-source work and effort of others and claiming it as their own.
> Everyone is permitted and encouraged to modify and improve code from Stockfish/Leela while giving credit; that is the intent of open-source software. Everyone is allowed to copy Stockfish/Leela and sell them, provided the terms of the Stockfish/Leela license are met. But don’t pretend that the product being sold is something it isn’t.