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

285 points by 1337shadow 6y ago

wobblyasp 6y ago
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.
- gameswithgo 6y ago
  The issue is it is fraud
- AntonyGarand 6y ago
  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. [0] https://shop.chessbase.com/en/ https://shop.chessbase.com/en/
- cbroadcast 6y ago
  "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).
- tudelo 6y ago
  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/ https://stockfishchess.org/download/
  - 1337shadow 6y ago
    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.
  - lokischild 6y ago
    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.
- 1337shadow 6y ago
  > 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. https://blog.stockfishchess.org/post/643239805544792064/statement-on-fat-fritz-2 https://blog.stockfishchess.org/post/643239805544792064/stat...
- lokischild 6y ago
  You completely missed the point. If people buying this KNEW it was just a free engine with minor tinkering (that apparently even makes it weaker), they would most definitely reconsider. It is the false advertising (https://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/fat_fritz_2 https://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/fat_fritz_2, https://en.chessbase.com/post/interview-with-albert-silver-his-journey-to-fat-fritz-2-0 https://en.chessbase.com/post/interview-with-albert-silver-h...) and pretending that is morally bankrupt.
- arnaudsm 6y ago
  Just like dropshipping, it may be legal but is amoral to many people. And informing the general public is important.
deeeeplearning 6y ago
> 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.
- MaxBarraclough 6y ago
  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.
  - deeeeplearning 6y ago
    Sounds like SOP for American business to me.
- beermonster 6y ago
  “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
  - runningmike 6y ago
    Sounds like a standard software company...
- enneff 6y ago
  They’re just letting the community know that they shouldn’t fall for the scam.
- cycomanic 6y ago
  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.
xchaotic 6y ago
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.
- mhh__ 6y ago
  It's closer to releasing a genetically engineered racing driver for that car. Anyone else is free to use said driver, but in this case if they make him faster they have to make their changes public because of the GPL
  - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
    > 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. [0] https://www.fsf.org/bulletin/2020/fall/why-providing-source-code-for-unmodified-works-is-important https://www.fsf.org/bulletin/2020/fall/why-providing-source-...
mhh__ 6y ago
Stockfish is under the GPL (IIRC) so I wouldn't be that worried.
- im3w1l 6y ago
  GPL means you can put a version with proprietary modifications in the cloud and sell api access, without contributing anything back.
  - mhh__ 6y ago
    Right. I thought it was an app so my bad.
    - im3w1l 6y ago
      It is available both for download and in cloud. So they would have to pull the download if they dont want to release source.
      - PeterisP 6y ago
        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.
        im3w1l 6y ago
        Yeah if they pull it they need to release current modifications, but not future ones.
        jraph 6y ago
        And they only need to provide the modifications to people who downloaded it I think.
garrtt 6y ago
Clicking the link with lichess installed just opens the app. Long-press to open in a new tab.
- enneff 6y ago
  FYI the lichess mobile apps have been abandoned in favour of the web view, if I recall correctly.
  - myle 6y ago
    Website is perhaps recommended, but the app still works great and is updated from time to time.
    - enneff 6y ago
      Oh that’s good to know. I just be running on outdated information.
  - captn3m0 6y ago
    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.
  - 6581 6y ago
    The iOS app got an update just a week ago.
    - enneff 6y ago
      I didn’t realise! My info is obviously outdated. Good to know.
enjeyw 6y ago
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.
- dmurray 6y ago
  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.
themodelplumber 6y ago
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.
vdddv 6y ago
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.
- aaron695 6y ago
  > 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.
  - orwin 6y ago
    It's GPL: its not attributed and the binary is available for download while the code isn't open sourced.
    - aaron695 6y ago
      Code is open source (given when requested as per GPL [1]) but not the net weights. I don't think under GPL the net weights have to be open sourced. [1] https://blog.stockfishchess.org/post/643239805544792064/statement-on-fat-fritz-2 https://blog.stockfishchess.org/post/643239805544792064/stat... There seems to be confusion on what the issue is.
      - gus_massa 6y ago
        IANAL, but I don't think it's clear that the net weight can be keep secret. From https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html > “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.
  - 6y ago
ufo 6y ago
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.
- bonzini 6y ago
  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.
  - tutfbhuf 6y ago
    https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/Copying.txt https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/... 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.
    - bonzini 6y ago
      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.
      - Someone 6y ago
        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.
        bonzini 6y ago
        I don't think it is always feasible to make the learning process entirely deterministic, especially for distributed reinforcement learning.
pk_kinetic 6y ago
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).
yesenadam 6y ago
Some stories from ChessBase Chess News describing these products, roughly reverse chronological order: https://en.chessbase.com/post/chess-and-artificial-intelligence-1 https://en.chessbase.com/post/chess-and-artificial-intellige... ChessBase founder Frederic Friedel talks about Fat Fritz https://en.chessbase.com/post/interview-with-albert-silver-his-journey-to-fat-fritz-2-0 https://en.chessbase.com/post/interview-with-albert-silver-h... 1 hr video interview with Silver about his "path to inventing the [Fat Fritz] 2.0 engine" https://en.chessbase.com/post/fat-fritz-2-0-the-new-number-1 https://en.chessbase.com/post/fat-fritz-2-0-the-new-number-1 "Fat Fritz has revolutionised the world of chess engines." https://en.chessbase.com/post/fat-fritz-2-best-of-both-worlds https://en.chessbase.com/post/fat-fritz-2-best-of-both-world... https://en.chessbase.com/post/fat-fritz-ingenious-without-stereotypes https://en.chessbase.com/post/fat-fritz-ingenious-without-st... https://en.chessbase.com/post/fat-fritz-and-the-1200 https://en.chessbase.com/post/fat-fritz-and-the-1200 has a section "What differentiates Fat Fritz from Leela?" https://en.chessbase.com/post/fat-fritz-defeats-stockfish-match-2 https://en.chessbase.com/post/fat-fritz-defeats-stockfish-ma... https://en.chessbase.com/post/fat-fritz-what-on-earth-is-that https://en.chessbase.com/post/fat-fritz-what-on-earth-is-tha... 2019 - Albert Silver describes in detail how he made his "AlphaZero clone" Fat Fritz
cven714 6y ago
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-rip-off https://lichess.org/blog/YCvy7xMAACIA8007/fat-fritz-2-is-a-r...
- cambalache 6y ago
  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.
  - siilats 6y ago
    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.
    - kevinwang 6y ago
      Yes but read the article. It's the way the "author" presented the work as novel that's indefensibly hucksterish
  - mosselman 6y ago
    Do you have any links for these things?
  - user-the-name 6y ago
    People are never just ONE type of awful. It's almost always a package deal. See also https://blog.valerieaurora.org/2017/07/18/the-al-capone-theory-of-sexual-harassment/ https://blog.valerieaurora.org/2017/07/18/the-al-capone-theo....
  - thom 6y ago
jojobas 6y ago
Would it finally be the case where a GPL violator is taken to court?
- chongli 6y ago
  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.
  - dimitrios1 6y ago
    > 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, Or Amazon Web Services
  - Bakary 6y ago
    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.
    - zucker42 6y ago
      Chessbase still has the most popular database software, which is used by many (most?) good players. That's not really an expanding market though.
thom 6y ago
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.
zucker42 6y ago
Have there been any court cases about whether neural net weights can be included under software licenses?
- xiphias2 6y ago
  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.
  - kragen 6y ago
    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.
    - mappu 6y ago
      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.
      - kragen 6y ago
        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.
xiaodai 6y ago
so sad. I will not use chessbase for anything lichess it is
sergiotapia 6y ago
Meh, it's within the guidelines of the license. If you don't want companies taking your work and selling it, please use a different license.
- Karunamon 6y ago
  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.
  - sergiotapia 6y ago
    That's up for debate, let the lawyers duke it out. To me, it's like suing for an xml file with different values. It'll be who has the bigger lawyers. To stockfish dev, you should change your license.
rbobby 6y ago
Are neural net weights code or configuration settings? Are email connectivity parameters code or configuration settings? How would a judge distinguish the two?
- moron4hire 6y ago
  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.
  - Brian_K_White 6y ago
    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!
boarquantile 6y ago
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.
- zelphirkalt 6y ago
  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.
  - piva00 6y ago
    AGPL?
    - zelphirkalt 6y ago
      Ah, you mean _free_ software. Why not be more specific and say that in the first place?
      - detaro 6y ago
        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.
        zelphirkalt 6y ago
        Would you please read exactly what I wrote, and not go and interpret things and then make claims? About (a): I wrote "usually equates", not "is by definition the same as BSD and MIT". Do you not understand, that this means "most people think of MIT or BSD licenses, when they hear open source"? So your point (a) is does not tell me anything I do not know, nor does it somehow "disprove" anything I wrote. You misunderstand what I wrote and make a failed rebuttal. About (b): Read the other comment for the parts of the OP, that associate open source with source code linking. No matter, how much open source fans claim, that free software is part of open source, it does not make it true. 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. You can go on claiming, that the free software movement is part of your open source movement as much as you want, but that does not make it true. Open source ideology is different from free software ideology and it will not be annexed by open source fans, who claim otherwise. 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. Please go and watch a video of Stallman explaining the difference.
antirez 6y ago
Please read till the end: 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.
krick 6y ago
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?
- bitshiftfaced 6y ago
  There's an explanation here: https://www.chessprogramming.org/Stockfish_NNUE https://www.chessprogramming.org/Stockfish_NNUE 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.
  - krick 6y ago
    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.
tromp 6y ago
ChessBase just posted a new article by A. Silver at https://en.chessbase.com/post/how-a-neural-network-is-made https://en.chessbase.com/post/how-a-neural-network-is-made 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/ 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. Public comments are once again blocked.

285 points by 1337shadow 6y ago

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.

gameswithgo 6y ago
The issue is it is fraud
AntonyGarand 6y ago
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. [0] https://shop.chessbase.com/en/ https://shop.chessbase.com/en/
cbroadcast 6y ago
"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).
tudelo 6y ago
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/ https://stockfishchess.org/download/
- 1337shadow 6y ago
  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.
- lokischild 6y ago
  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.
1337shadow 6y ago
> 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. https://blog.stockfishchess.org/post/643239805544792064/statement-on-fat-fritz-2 https://blog.stockfishchess.org/post/643239805544792064/stat...
lokischild 6y ago
You completely missed the point. If people buying this KNEW it was just a free engine with minor tinkering (that apparently even makes it weaker), they would most definitely reconsider. It is the false advertising (https://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/fat_fritz_2 https://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/fat_fritz_2, https://en.chessbase.com/post/interview-with-albert-silver-his-journey-to-fat-fritz-2-0 https://en.chessbase.com/post/interview-with-albert-silver-h...) and pretending that is morally bankrupt.
arnaudsm 6y ago
Just like dropshipping, it may be legal but is amoral to many people. And informing the general public is important.

deeeeplearning 6y ago

> 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.

MaxBarraclough 6y ago
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.
- deeeeplearning 6y ago
  Sounds like SOP for American business to me.
beermonster 6y ago
“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
- runningmike 6y ago
  Sounds like a standard software company...
enneff 6y ago
They’re just letting the community know that they shouldn’t fall for the scam.
cycomanic 6y ago
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.

xchaotic 6y ago

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.

mhh__ 6y ago
It's closer to releasing a genetically engineered racing driver for that car. Anyone else is free to use said driver, but in this case if they make him faster they have to make their changes public because of the GPL
- MaxBarraclough 6y ago
  > 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. [0] https://www.fsf.org/bulletin/2020/fall/why-providing-source-code-for-unmodified-works-is-important https://www.fsf.org/bulletin/2020/fall/why-providing-source-...

mhh__ 6y ago

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

im3w1l 6y ago
GPL means you can put a version with proprietary modifications in the cloud and sell api access, without contributing anything back.
- mhh__ 6y ago
  Right. I thought it was an app so my bad.
  - im3w1l 6y ago
    It is available both for download and in cloud. So they would have to pull the download if they dont want to release source.
    - PeterisP 6y ago
      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.
      - im3w1l 6y ago
        Yeah if they pull it they need to release current modifications, but not future ones.
        jraph 6y ago
        And they only need to provide the modifications to people who downloaded it I think.

garrtt 6y ago

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

enneff 6y ago
FYI the lichess mobile apps have been abandoned in favour of the web view, if I recall correctly.
- myle 6y ago
  Website is perhaps recommended, but the app still works great and is updated from time to time.
  - enneff 6y ago
    Oh that’s good to know. I just be running on outdated information.
- captn3m0 6y ago
  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.
- 6581 6y ago
  The iOS app got an update just a week ago.
  - enneff 6y ago
    I didn’t realise! My info is obviously outdated. Good to know.

enjeyw 6y ago

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.

dmurray 6y ago
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.

themodelplumber 6y ago

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.

vdddv 6y ago

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.

aaron695 6y ago
> 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.
- orwin 6y ago
  It's GPL: its not attributed and the binary is available for download while the code isn't open sourced.
  - aaron695 6y ago
    Code is open source (given when requested as per GPL [1]) but not the net weights. I don't think under GPL the net weights have to be open sourced. [1] https://blog.stockfishchess.org/post/643239805544792064/statement-on-fat-fritz-2 https://blog.stockfishchess.org/post/643239805544792064/stat... There seems to be confusion on what the issue is.
    - gus_massa 6y ago
      IANAL, but I don't think it's clear that the net weight can be keep secret. From https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html > “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.
- 6y ago

ufo 6y ago

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.

bonzini 6y ago
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.
- tutfbhuf 6y ago
  https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/Copying.txt https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/blob/master/... 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.
  - bonzini 6y ago
    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.
    - Someone 6y ago
      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.
      - bonzini 6y ago
        I don't think it is always feasible to make the learning process entirely deterministic, especially for distributed reinforcement learning.

pk_kinetic 6y ago

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).

yesenadam 6y ago

Some stories from ChessBase Chess News describing these products, roughly reverse chronological order: https://en.chessbase.com/post/chess-and-artificial-intelligence-1 https://en.chessbase.com/post/chess-and-artificial-intellige... ChessBase founder Frederic Friedel talks about Fat Fritz https://en.chessbase.com/post/interview-with-albert-silver-his-journey-to-fat-fritz-2-0 https://en.chessbase.com/post/interview-with-albert-silver-h... 1 hr video interview with Silver about his "path to inventing the [Fat Fritz] 2.0 engine" https://en.chessbase.com/post/fat-fritz-2-0-the-new-number-1 https://en.chessbase.com/post/fat-fritz-2-0-the-new-number-1 "Fat Fritz has revolutionised the world of chess engines." https://en.chessbase.com/post/fat-fritz-2-best-of-both-worlds https://en.chessbase.com/post/fat-fritz-2-best-of-both-world... https://en.chessbase.com/post/fat-fritz-ingenious-without-stereotypes https://en.chessbase.com/post/fat-fritz-ingenious-without-st... https://en.chessbase.com/post/fat-fritz-and-the-1200 https://en.chessbase.com/post/fat-fritz-and-the-1200 has a section "What differentiates Fat Fritz from Leela?" https://en.chessbase.com/post/fat-fritz-defeats-stockfish-match-2 https://en.chessbase.com/post/fat-fritz-defeats-stockfish-ma... https://en.chessbase.com/post/fat-fritz-what-on-earth-is-that https://en.chessbase.com/post/fat-fritz-what-on-earth-is-tha... 2019 - Albert Silver describes in detail how he made his "AlphaZero clone" Fat Fritz

cven714 6y ago

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-rip-off https://lichess.org/blog/YCvy7xMAACIA8007/fat-fritz-2-is-a-r...

cambalache 6y ago
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.
- siilats 6y ago
  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.
  - kevinwang 6y ago
    Yes but read the article. It's the way the "author" presented the work as novel that's indefensibly hucksterish
- mosselman 6y ago
  Do you have any links for these things?
- user-the-name 6y ago
  People are never just ONE type of awful. It's almost always a package deal. See also https://blog.valerieaurora.org/2017/07/18/the-al-capone-theory-of-sexual-harassment/ https://blog.valerieaurora.org/2017/07/18/the-al-capone-theo....
- thom 6y ago

jojobas 6y ago

Would it finally be the case where a GPL violator is taken to court?

chongli 6y ago
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.
- dimitrios1 6y ago
  > 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, Or Amazon Web Services
- Bakary 6y ago
  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.
  - zucker42 6y ago
    Chessbase still has the most popular database software, which is used by many (most?) good players. That's not really an expanding market though.

thom 6y ago

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.

zucker42 6y ago

Have there been any court cases about whether neural net weights can be included under software licenses?

xiphias2 6y ago
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.
- kragen 6y ago
  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.
  - mappu 6y ago
    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.
    - kragen 6y ago
      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.

xiaodai 6y ago

so sad. I will not use chessbase for anything lichess it is

sergiotapia 6y ago

Meh, it's within the guidelines of the license. If you don't want companies taking your work and selling it, please use a different license.

Karunamon 6y ago
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.
- sergiotapia 6y ago
  That's up for debate, let the lawyers duke it out. To me, it's like suing for an xml file with different values. It'll be who has the bigger lawyers. To stockfish dev, you should change your license.

rbobby 6y ago

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

moron4hire 6y ago
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.
- Brian_K_White 6y ago
  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!

boarquantile 6y ago

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.

zelphirkalt 6y ago
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.
- piva00 6y ago
  AGPL?
  - zelphirkalt 6y ago
    Ah, you mean _free_ software. Why not be more specific and say that in the first place?
    - detaro 6y ago
      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.
      - zelphirkalt 6y ago
        Would you please read exactly what I wrote, and not go and interpret things and then make claims? About (a): I wrote "usually equates", not "is by definition the same as BSD and MIT". Do you not understand, that this means "most people think of MIT or BSD licenses, when they hear open source"? So your point (a) is does not tell me anything I do not know, nor does it somehow "disprove" anything I wrote. You misunderstand what I wrote and make a failed rebuttal. About (b): Read the other comment for the parts of the OP, that associate open source with source code linking. No matter, how much open source fans claim, that free software is part of open source, it does not make it true. 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. You can go on claiming, that the free software movement is part of your open source movement as much as you want, but that does not make it true. Open source ideology is different from free software ideology and it will not be annexed by open source fans, who claim otherwise. 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. Please go and watch a video of Stallman explaining the difference.

antirez 6y ago

Please read till the end: 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.

krick 6y ago

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?

bitshiftfaced 6y ago
There's an explanation here: https://www.chessprogramming.org/Stockfish_NNUE https://www.chessprogramming.org/Stockfish_NNUE 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.
- krick 6y ago
  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.

tromp 6y ago

ChessBase just posted a new article by A. Silver at https://en.chessbase.com/post/how-a-neural-network-is-made https://en.chessbase.com/post/how-a-neural-network-is-made 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/ 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. Public comments are once again blocked.