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Open source chess developers warn about a commercial engine based on Stockfish

lichess.org

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Re: Open source chess developers warn about a commercial engine based on Stockfish

#11

Post by MaxBarraclough »

deeeeplearning wrote: post #3

> 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…

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.

Re: Open source chess developers warn about a commercial engine based on Stockfish

#12

Post by themodelplumber »

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.

Re: Open source chess developers warn about a commercial engine based on Stockfish

#13

Post by beermonster »

deeeeplearning wrote: post #3

> 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…

“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.”

These seem to be their main gripes

Re: Open source chess developers warn about a commercial engine based on Stockfish

#14

Post by cbroadcast »

wobblyasp wrote: post #2

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.

"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).

Re: Open source chess developers warn about a commercial engine based on Stockfish

#15

Post by tudelo »

wobblyasp wrote: post #2

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.

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.

[1]https://stockfishchess.org/download/

Re: Open source chess developers warn about a commercial engine based on Stockfish

#18

Post by enneff »

deeeeplearning wrote: post #3

> 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…

They’re just letting the community know that they shouldn’t fall for the scam.

Re: Open source chess developers warn about a commercial engine based on Stockfish

#20

Post by mhh__ »

im3w1l wrote: post #17
mhh__ wrote: post #5

Stockfish is under the GPL (IIRC) so I wouldn't be that worried.

GPL means you can put a version with proprietary modifications in the cloud and sell api access, without contributing anything back.

Right. I thought it was an app so my bad.
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