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Why Lichess will always be free

lichess.org

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Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#451

Post by _pfxa »

andrepd wrote: post #424
eloisant wrote: post #236

Thibault Duplessis is actually an ex co-worker of mine, and this guy is truly impressive. Not only he is a very talented developer, he really sticks to his beliefs and made what Lichess is today. He used to take up a job for a year or so, save money, and travel the world for a year or so until money runs out. Then he would come back to France and take up a new job. All working on Lichess during his free time. For a f…

> We need more people like Thibault. What we need is a system that incenctivises people like Thibault , rather than incentivise people to develop nastier ways to make people click on ads :)

Enable, not incentivise. Incentives are there, curiosity, community, gratification, etc. What people lack is the financial security to do nice things untainted with commercial interest, even in modern countries with proper welfare.

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#452

Post by Scarblac »

greedo wrote: post #319
Scarblac wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And chess.com has more money to spend, so they can have things like paid grandmasters streaming, video courses, offical tournaments with large prizes. It's not all ad based, they also have a subscription model that opens more features. It's good that both exist. I spend 99% of my online chess playing time on Lichess but there are also lots of people for who it is the other way around.

You do realize that the world champion regularly plays on lichess, right? As do a huge number of GMs?

Yes but they don't pay GMs to produce content.

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#453

Post by S4M »

cableshaft wrote: post #450
S4M wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can make it! There is already lishogi.org for shogi (Japanese chess) and lidraughts.org for draughts. They took the code for lichess and tweaked it for their respective games.

Thank you for pointing out this out and making it click in my head that what they're doing could be done for other games. I've got one or two game designs of my own that I could probably make something like this with, but it didn't really click I could use this code as a reference until then.

Well, good luck for your endeavors and please let me know (email in my profile) if you need a beta tester or early user.

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#454

Post by johnsimer »

hellbannedguy wrote: post #420
beebmam wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A way to have more people like Thibault is to make it so the cost of living is extremely cheap, if not totally guaranteed. A society creates its people.

I do agree, but most people want a lot of money. They might say they just want some protein in their noodles, but deep down they are a Zuck. It seems like every financially successful developer out there came from a middle/upper class enviornment. Once they smell money, it's always more, more, and more. If the get big enough they blame it on their shareholders? Guys like Thibault are a different breed. They are rare.…

Zuck'd have a shot at running if he had more than three facial expressions.

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#455

Post by codethief »

sixstringtheory wrote: post #379
codethief wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but in practice just creates legal uncertainty for everyone involved. Citation needed. Both civil law and common law seem to have their respective pros and cons. At least my understanding of common law is that in common law you need to be familiar with all past related cases dating back to who knows when, which doesn't exactly make interpreting and understanding the terms of a contract any easier.

It seems common sense enough that no citation is required. Get a judge having a bad day in France and your case could go belly up regardless of merits, customs or precedent. “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” So why retread the same legal wheel over and over? Why not study prior similar cases to at least see if they thought of something you didn’t?

> Get a judge having a bad day in France and your case could go belly up regardless of merits, customs or precedent.

You're spreading FUD. 1) Few civil actions are decided in a day. 2) You can almost always appeal a decision. 3) Statutory law in Civil Law countries tends to be much more detailed and comprehensive (compared to statutory law in Common Law countries), precisely because no one likes to "retread the same legal wheel over and over", so law makers at some point decided to codify what already was (or was supposed to become) common practice. So judges have much less wiggle room in their decision than you and OP are implying.

This is also the reason why "commercial agreements drafted in civil law countries tend to be rather brief […] since there is no reason to restate codified law"[0].

[0]: https://www.vistra.com/de/node/905

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#456

Post by facesonflags »

yesenadam wrote: post #419
krisgenre wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. I mostly played 2 12. The place felt like IRC for chess, you had to type commands like 'seek 2 12' for a new game and you needed some desktop client like winboard/xboard to play. Edit: Just played a game, my ID was still active and my last game was in 2012!

hehe nice. Yes, FICS is for life. Oh, you didn't use a client?! Mainly I used BabasChess (Windows), which was awesome, I've still never had such a good chess game seeking and playing experience on any site.

pychess has done pretty well for me, recently updated

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#457

Post by fredros »

ineedasername wrote: post #416

They'll never get to unicorn status with that attitude. Heck, they have no moat! Anyone can just walk in, use their source code, and set up their own free chess site! I'm sure this is all great for chess lovers and the game of chess as a whole, but what about all of the investors who will never have the thrill of a 10% IPO pop? It just seems kind of selfish to make such an amazing site and then not try to cash in on…

They should switch license to sspl or bsl!

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#458

Post by exikyut »

cdelsolar wrote: post #343
tux1968 wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My sister plays a lot of scrabble so I am happy to be able to share your site with her. If I can be so bold as to offer one criticism of your site though, it was a bit confusing when I first clicked to look at it. The first page is a barrage of information none of which seemed relevant for my first visit. I clicked the links at the top of the page and ended up on completely different web sites with equally confusing…

Appreciate the thoughts - thank you! We will pass your comments on to our designers :)

I just had a look at the site myself having read the GP comment. The layout felt reasonably unambiguous and accessible to me personally, although everyone's different - but then when I clicked a game and wanted to go back to look at another one, I noticed that my browser's back button was disabled!

Sure enough, a global search showed that you're using history.replace() to change the URL path. I can totally appreciate the likely trepidation about the work required to correctly juggle the JS history stack, but... it's very disorientating to see the back button greyed out :)

I know it'll get fixed eventually, but I crashed into it within 6 seconds. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Also, it would be kind of cool to be able to watch active games, but the current UI doesn't really surface activity in any way. Adding this would naturally attract ebb and flow and interesting oscillatory behavior (with lots of people randomly joining and leaving) and whatnot, but it would also allow for actual large-scale spectation, and the general appearance of a site that's a Destination™ and a flurry of activity.

(While probably obvious, I've just thought that recency (what's being played right now), activity (what's attracting the most chat and the most frequent/periodic/consistent movement), and volume (what has the most eyes on it) would all play a role in ranking.)

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#459

Post by feanaro »

hellbannedguy wrote: post #420
beebmam wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A way to have more people like Thibault is to make it so the cost of living is extremely cheap, if not totally guaranteed. A society creates its people.

I do agree, but most people want a lot of money. They might say they just want some protein in their noodles, but deep down they are a Zuck. It seems like every financially successful developer out there came from a middle/upper class enviornment. Once they smell money, it's always more, more, and more. If the get big enough they blame it on their shareholders? Guys like Thibault are a different breed. They are rare.…

I truly cannot fathom why anyone would Zuckerberg as their president.

Re: Why Lichess will always be free

#460

Post by matkoniecz »

hinkley wrote: post #56
matkoniecz wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or Microsoft could make you an offer you can’t refuse like they did with Minecraft. [citation needed] for Microsoft blackmailing Minecraft owner(s).

They didn’t blackmail anybody, they bought it for $2.5 billion with a B. That is a titanically difficult number to turn down. It’s so much money that you can avoid having to look at people you told your former plans to.

"offer you can’t refuse" is not "really good offer", it is for cases of 'offer' coupled with blackmail or credible threats.

See https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AnOfferYouCantRe... (tvtropes of all things)

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