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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

#71

Post by autocorr »

cven714 wrote: post #52

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. Related Article on Lichess (which is also open source) about Fat Fritz 2: https://lichess.org/blog/YCvy7xMAACIA8007/fat-fritz-2-is-a-r...

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!

[1] https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/compare/550f...

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

#72

Post by dang »

cven714 wrote: post #52

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. Related Article on Lichess (which is also open source) about Fat Fritz 2: https://lichess.org/blog/YCvy7xMAACIA8007/fat-fritz-2-is-a-r...

This comment was originally posted to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26188485, which points to https://blog.stockfishchess.org/post/643239805544792064/stat..., a related article. We merged the threads.

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

#73

Post by kragen »

mappu wrote: post #68
kragen wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

#74

Post by siilats »

cambalache wrote: post #58
cven714 wrote: post #52

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. Related Article on Lichess (which is also open source) about Fat Fritz 2: https://lichess.org/blog/YCvy7xMAACIA8007/fat-fritz-2-is-a-r...

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.

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

#75

Post by captn3m0 »

enneff wrote: post #19
garrtt wrote: post #8

Clicking the link with lichess installed just opens the app. Long-press to open in a new tab.

FYI the lichess mobile apps have been abandoned in favour of the web view, if I recall correctly.

I was hoping for this (the app doesn't work on my old iPad, and I wanted Over-the-board play, but its an app-only feature).

Hope that comes to the website soon.

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

#76

Post by bonzini »

Someone wrote: post #51
bonzini wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The neural network is just data, but if it's part of the executable you need to provide the raw data that is then linked into the executable.

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.

I don't think it is always feasible to make the learning process entirely deterministic, especially for distributed reinforcement learning.

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

#77

Post by nullc »

bonzini wrote: post #76
Someone wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think it is always feasible to make the learning process entirely deterministic, especially for distributed reinforcement learning.

Binaries weren't historically deterministic either. This isn't a problem.

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

#78

Post by yesenadam »

zucker42 wrote: post #70
Bakary wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 na…

Chessbase still has the most popular database software, which is used by many (most?) good players. That's not really an expanding market though.

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.

https://en.chessbase.com/post/new-mega-database-2021

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

#79

Post by im3w1l »

PeterisP wrote: post #27
im3w1l wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is available both for download and in cloud. So they would have to pull the download if they dont want to release source.

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.

Yeah if they pull it they need to release current modifications, but not future ones.

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

#80

Post by moron4hire »

rbobby wrote: post #67

Are neural net weights code or configuration settings? Are email connectivity parameters code or configuration settings? How would a judge distinguish the two?

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.

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