17 ms·
Our lawsuit against ChessBase
- apetresc 5y agoIf this goes to trial, I think this might be the cleanest and most straightforward test of the GPL in court we've had up to this point?
- reedciccio 5y agoIIRC the GPL has been tested in German courts before. Would this be any different from other GPL violation in court like this one https://gpl-violations.org/news/20060922-dlink-judgement_frankfurt/ https://gpl-violations.org/news/20060922-dlink-judgement_fra...?
- sbx320 5y agoMost of the prior GPL cases ruled on (including the one you linked) were about redistribution of modified works without providing source and about who actually has standing to sue regarding GPL violations. This case however brings two new (as far as I'm aware) questions to the table: - Whether the permanent license revocation clause holds up - Whether the neural networks is considered a part of the covered work (and must therefore be provided in "source" form, rather than just a trained network) The second one is especially interesting, since the court will likely have to go into how far the GPLs coverage extends into other parts of a covered work.
- dsiegel2275 5y agoI agree. Likely a quick checkmate in court.
- wiz21c 5y agoStockfish has an opportunity to make money here. No?
- alexfromapex 5y agoIt will be interesting, depends where jurisdiction falls and how that jurisdiction interprets any alleged damages since GPL content is normally released free of charge.
- indymike 5y agoCopyright infringement can have large statutory damages that have nothing to do with the actual financial damage from the infringement.
- yladiz 5y agoCase in point, the awards given against people who pirate something like a movie which are completely detached from the actual damage caused by the piracy.
- DaiPlusPlus 5y ago"Deterrent value", apparently.
- rhizome 5y agoYeah, that's what "statutory damages" means. In the US, if you have registered your copyright (distinct from the automatic copyright that attaches at creation), you are entitled to damages up to $150,000 per infringement. If 1,000 people can be proven to have downloaded that movie from you, that would be an unwelcome bill indeed. If 10,000, well then now you're starting to talk about real money.
- tzs 5y agoStatutory damages are per work infringed, not per infringement. They are normally from $750-30000 per work infringed. The lower limit can be lowered to $200 if the defendant can prove that they were an innocent infringer (they were not aware and had no reason to believe they were infringing). The defendant has the burden of proof for this. The upper limit can be raised to $150000 if the infringement is "willful". The statute does not define "willful". Courts have taken it to mean reckless disregard. The defendant knew they were infringing and did it anyway. The jury decides where in the range you end up, and they certainly might take into account the magnitude of your infringement so 10000 downloads might cost you more than 1000 by convincing the jury to choose somewhere high from the range, but the cap on the total will be $30k (or $150k if it was willful). Note that this means that willfully distributing 10000000 copies of one movies is going to be a lot better for the defendant than distributing a single copy each of 300 different movies, if the plaintiff elects to ask for statutory damages. The 10000000 copies of one movie is just one work infringed, so you are looking at $150000 worst case. The single copy each of 300 movies is 300 works infringed, so best case (assuming you are not an innocent infringer) is the minimal amount of statutory damages per work, $750, times 300 works = $225000. (But remember that the plaintiff gets to choose between statutory damages and actual damages. If you've distribute 10000000 copies of their movie, they'll probably go for actual damages which could be considerably more than $150000!)
- dheera 5y agoHard to say, very often the sour-cream-and-onion-tiff* cannot afford the same quality of lawyers that the plain-tiff can. * I don't know what the opposite of a plain-tiff is
- Gaelan 5y agoDefendant, for the record, but your term is way better.
- alisonkisk 5y agoPlaintiff and Defendant. Complainant and Respondent
- qwertox 5y agoThis will be easily won against ChessBase. They F'd up. German court does care way too much for the "Urheberrecht" -- copyright -- and this is clearly a violation of it. If they would let this go through, nobody would take the German court serious again, and there is too much interest in not letting that happen. In any case, they also sell a music software called "Ludwig 3" [1]. I now wouldn't be surprised if it also makes improper use of OSS libraries. [1] http://www.komponieren.de/arrangieren.html http://www.komponieren.de/arrangieren.html
- MikeDelta 5y agoSounds like a business model.
- MikeDelta 5y agoNot my business model guys, but a business model used by parties out there that decide to misuse open source licenses and charge for basically a layer on top of the open source. If this company has two products that under the hood seem to rely heavily on open source but they don't mention it, then it sounds this is their business model.
- sillysaurusx 5y agoI don’t think it will be so easily won: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27900683 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27900683 Note that it’s legal to sell stockfish as long as you’re compliant with GPLv3. ChessBase seems to be compliant. Stockfish argues that ChessBase isn’t compliant because they refuse to release the weights. But this makes no sense; the weights are distributed with every copy of Fat Fritz 2. (Otherwise, how would the program run? It’s not cloud-based, as far as I can tell.) Stockfish may be trying to say “you must open source any training code used to make the weights.” But this claim falls flat; you could use this same argument to say that any GPLv3 codebase must be fully open source in order to sell it, including all DLLs used by the program. Stockfish seems to be saying that they have grounds for lawsuit because they have terminated ChessBase’s license. But GPLv3 doesn’t give you the ability to terminate a license arbitrarily; it requires you meet some specific criteria, and it’s unclear that ChessBase meets it. I think it’s lame that ChessBase sold stockfish for $80. But that’s different than being illegal, and we should worry about the precedents set here.
- JJMcJ 5y agoA number of companies have been nailed over OSS licenses, especially GPL. The losers probably thought the license terms were just some of Stallman's psychodrama and not actual enforceable obligations.
- thom 5y agoWhile I think it’s a shame that nobody has been able to sue ChessBase for their software being utter garbage, I will cheer on this equally worthy endeavour.
- orwin 5y agoIf company could be sued because their software are garbage, you won't have a lot of company left.
- sildur 5y agoThat wouldn't be necessarily bad, though.
- xondono 5y agoExcept then the courts would have to decide what constitutes “bad software”…
- ngngngng 5y agoAll of it?
- rataata_jr 5y agoExcept for lisp code approved by Stallman himself.
- omega3 5y agoHow is it utter garbage, it has a good library, works reasonably quickly and does analysis.
- thom 5y agoThe database is good. It's large, well curated and annotated. The UI is terrible, a sad relic from the MDI era. It's absolutely _not_ quick (you can constantly see it repainting, for example), search is extremely clunky, tools for match prep are awful, and it doesn't really have any good learning features. There's some vaguely interesting recent stuff like novelty mining but it's very limited (and why charge so much for database subscriptions only to make people do so much local eval?) I dunno, I still pay for it because the database is nice to have, but I'm always astonished by its success. YMMV.
- Rd6n6 5y agoIn an online course recently, one module involved an API with an attribution requirement that neither the instructor nor any student was aware of - they specifically described it as free use, no attribution required, because they were unaware. Despite there having been more than 20k previous students, I was the first person to mention mention this and link to the clause, and the instructor was surprised. Almost everybody skips reading the terms and licenses of things In the chess case, the team probably assumed that open source meant “do whatever you want,” and nobody dug any deeper than that, and now they’re getting sued Edit: the comments below say that they knew about the license issue for years
- dkural 5y agoThis is entirely inaccurate. Chessbase is a company, and has been well aware of these licensing issues. They've purposefully renamed and scrubbed OS code to sell it for profit and pass it on as their own.
- molticrystal 5y agoJust look in the about/credits link in just about any studio's game or software product and you will see it is standard practice to look over and include licenses as needed of all 3rd party libraries and code bases used in development and credit them as appropriate. While the end user might be sloppy on checking the license aspect, developers certainly are aware at some stage, especially commercial developers by the time they create or modify their about dialog.
- apetresc 5y agoThis is a possibility in general, but not here. Chessbase has a long history with this sort of thing, and they've been called out repeatedly. They've even settled before, if I recall correctly.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ghshephard 5y agoAny company past circa 2002sh or so, and definitely by 2005, is intimately aware of their intellectual property responsibilities, and, it's the opposite problem that I've run into - in which tons of strawmen are thrown up as to the danger of infecting products with open source licenses makes it dangerous to touch the code. One of the reasons why BSD licenses are so attractive to corporations, is that they run the lowest risk. GPLv3 is obviously a non-starter for most companies, with GPLv2 falling somewhere in the middle.
- nichch 5y ago> Due to Chessbase’s repeated license violations, leading developers of Stockfish have terminated their GPL license with ChessBase permanently. What do they mean by this?
- mehrdada 5y agoFrom GNU GPL v3: 8. Termination. You may not propagate or modify a covered work except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to propagate or modify it is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License (including any patent licenses granted under the third paragraph of section 11). However, if you cease all violation of this License, then your license from a particular copyright holder is reinstated (a) provisionally, unless and until the copyright holder explicitly and finally terminates your license, and (b) permanently, if the copyright holder fails to notify you of the violation by some reasonable means prior to 60 days after the cessation. Moreover, your license from a particular copyright holder is reinstated permanently if the copyright holder notifies you of the violation by some reasonable means, this is the first time you have received notice of violation of this License (for any work) from that copyright holder, and you cure the violation prior to 30 days after your receipt of the notice. Termination of your rights under this section does not terminate the licenses of parties who have received copies or rights from you under this License. If your rights have been terminated and not permanently reinstated, you do not qualify to receive new licenses for the same material under section 10.
- deleted 5y ago
- spywaregorilla 5y agoDemand trial by combat. Opening move, e4.
- tequila_shot 5y agoBest by Test - Fischer.
- fourseventy 5y agoc5
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- spiantino 5y agoKe2
- jeremyjh 5y agoNf3
- camjohnson26 5y agog6
- rataata_jr 5y ago
- MattGaiser 5y ago>Due to Chessbase’s repeated license violations, leading developers of Stockfish have terminated their GPL license with ChessBase permanently. However, ChessBase is ignoring the fact that they no longer have the right to distribute Stockfish, modified or unmodified, as part of their products. Can they just do that? How can software really be considered free if the maker can later take away your permission to use it?
- httpsterio 5y agoI don't think they can do that for already-released code unless there's some clause in the licensing. For future code, they can opt to change the licensing as long as it follows the existing licensing and their possible code contribution agreements.
- heavenlyblue 5y agoWell, but the other party already violated the clause of the licensing.
- metiscus 5y agoThe GPL has a termination provision. See this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27897105 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27897105
- lolbrels 5y ago>right to distribute
- progman32 5y agoSee Section 8 of the GPLv3, "termination". https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html
- kyrra 5y agoReading that, I don't see anything about the copyright holder being able to manually terminate a license. Rather the copyright holder can notify a party that is violating other sections of the GPL3, and then the party can either remedy those violations or lose their license to use the software. Is ChessBase violating the GPL3? EDIT: oh, I should read the article. They are saying ChessBase modified the GPL software then redistributed it without the original attribution or copyright.
- 29athrowaway 5y agoThey may be able to use a MuZero derivative now.
- anonymousiam 5y agoHmmm. GPL cases in German courts don't always produce the expected outcome. https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-developer-abandons-vmware-lawsuit/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-developer-abandons-vmwar...
- ahmedalsudani 5y agoNothing always produces the expected outcome :) Lower courts are usually not where you get good decisions in novel cases like GPL enforcement.
- Tomte 5y agoIf the court tells you to prove that you're holding copyright, and you just say "go on GitHub and see for yourself" (yes, really!) and the court even gives you another chance with another deadline and you don't reply, then yes, I fully expect the court to say "if you don't want to show central prerequisites of the case (standing), then you do you." Former comment at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12254911 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12254911
- jonnycomputer 5y agoHow often does this happen, and closed source actually gets away with it?
- SloopJon 5y agoThe current title is "Our lawsuit against ChessBase – Stockfish – open-source Chess Engine", which I found confusing. Is Stockfish being sued? Does it belong to ChessBase? I suggest sticking with the simpler title from the blog, "Our lawsuit against ChessBase".
- parsecs 5y agoLooks like OP didn't clean up the url while submitting, it defaulted to page title.
- SloopJon 5y agoYou're right. I didn't see that text anywhere on the page, but it indeed comes from the title element. It doesn't fit in the tab, but I see it now in the tooltip when I hover over the tab in Firefox.
- shadeslayer_ 5y agoOr maybe they didn't editorialize it because HN frowns upon that sort of thing.
- variaga 5y agoI'd suggest: "Our (Stockfish) lawsuit against Chessbase"
- nefitty 5y agoStockfish’s lawsuit against Chessbase
- dang 5y agoFixed now.
- FlyingAvatar 5y agoThe GPL's Termination clause allows Stockfish to terminate ChessBase's use of the license, but does anything prevent someone from forking the code and licensing it to Stockfish as an end around? It seems like it would be very difficult to enforce.
- ahmedalsudani 5y agoStockfish still holds the copyright. You’re using their code with their license, and so does everybody you share that code with.
- admax88q 5y agoForking the code doesn't fork the copyright ownership. Stockfish still owns the code under their copyright regardless of whether it lives in their repository or in some fork of their codebase. A forked project doesn't have the right to grant people licenses to code which they don't own.
- rob_c 5y agoThanks for making me stop and think twice about this. Very good point.
- joshuaissac 5y agoLicences can give the right to sublicense under the same terms. But the GPL does not, and each licensor gets the licence directly from the copyright holder.
- snow_mac 5y agoHow can we contribute to a Stockfish go fundme?
- bluesign 5y agoFrom older blog post: "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."
- subroutine 5y agoSay I use GNU licensed software to train a neural net, using data I collected and labeled. I am completely transparent about the code I used, and cite/share any ad hoc code modifications... Should I be legally compelled to share the net weights of my trained NN?
- komon 5y agoPrograms compiled with GCC are not GPL by extension. Arguably the net weights are a kind of program themselves. If you have a non-GPL license to use and redistribute the data you use to train the neural net, I would imagine not.
- DannyBee 5y agoThere are long running disagreements about what this means under GPLv2 in various cases. Under GPLv3, the answer is explicitly clear: "The output from running a covered work is covered by this License only if the output, given its content, constitutes a covered work."
- subroutine 5y agoSorry, but could you clarify whether the NN weights constitute a covered work? If so, why? If not, what sort of output would constitute a covered work?
- komon 5y agoAn example of an output constituting a covered work might be that if you use a GPLv3-licensed library to output a timezone database shipped with the library in a JSON format, because the content of the JSON output is itself a derivative of a GPLv3 work, not only an output, it would be covered by the GPLv3. In order for NN weights to be covered, the weights would need to be in themselves a derivative of a GPLv3-licensed work. Training a NN on GPLv3 licensed training sets would (IMHO) make it a derivative work, that's what a lot of the Copilot uproar is about.
- whocares2345 5y agoI bet it’s next to impossible to prove copyright in this case. You would need to track down every last contributor and create a legally valid authorship evidence that is recognized under German legal doctrine. I would bet that having a email or even full name in a git repository is certainly not enough. This is exactly why for serious open-source projects that big companies depend on, they always creat a legal body, usually consortium and formally establish legal ownership of rights
- lights0123 5y agoOther way around. Just a single contributor who licensed their changes under the GPL can sue. The fact that it's a larger work doesn't matter, because each contributor's rights were infringed, so they have the right to sue.
- whocares2345 5y agoCome to think of it - I agree. Anyone whose rights where violated can sue. The challenge of proving authorship and copyright still remains. Honestly not sure what if any available options (git commits, file headers) are really recognized. Basically I can claim that it is I that committed the code under a pseudonym that matches someones real name. Also you can find someone’s namesake etc.
- kadoban 5y agoIt's more of a technicality than a challenge in the vast majority of cases. > Basically I can claim that it is I that committed the code under a pseudonym that matches someones real name. Also you can find someone’s namesake etc. I mean, you can claim obvious falsehoods if you want, but especially doing so in court isn't going to be a good idea.
- tzs 5y ago> I bet it’s next to impossible to prove copyright in this case. You would need to track down every last contributor and create a legally valid authorship evidence that is recognized under German legal doctrine. I don't see why they would need every last contributor. They only would need the contributors of the specific code that they allege was copied. That Stockfish contains other code by other contributors that may or may not have been copied would not be relevant.
- rocketcity 5y agoIf you are looking for more details on this Chris Callahan of Lichess.org provided some commentary on this issue in Episode 221 of the Perpetual Chess Podcast (https://www.perpetualchesspod.com/new-blog/2021/4/6/episode-221-chris-callahan-of-lichessorg https://www.perpetualchesspod.com/new-blog/2021/4/6/episode-...)
- camjohnson26 5y agoFYI if anybody’s looking for a chessbase alternative I use a combination of SCID vs. PC, Caissabase, and Stockfish to roughly clone it. I’m sure chessbase has a lot more features but these alternatives are good enough for an amateur like me. https://sourceforge.net/projects/scidvspc/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/scidvspc/ http://caissabase.co.uk/ http://caissabase.co.uk/
- jeremyjh 5y agoI have desperately been looking for software where I can: Build an opening repertoire from PGNs. Drill that using spaced repetition (like Chessable) Import all my games from Lichess and Chess.com Tell me when I deviate from my repertoire in those games. Do you know of a software or combo that can achieve that?
- chaosmachine 5y agoI really like Listudy for drills, it imports from Lichess studies (which you can create from PGNs): https://listudy.org/ https://listudy.org/ Also Opening Tree for bulk analysis: https://www.openingtree.com/ https://www.openingtree.com/ They're both free and open source.
- jeremyjh 5y agoOpening Tree is great and I use it a lot but it does not persist my games - I have to download them every time I use it. But I'd love an app with that interface that could persist the data and cross-check it with my repertoire. I guess it would not have to be same tool as the repertoire trainer, it just seems cleaner to have it all in one tool. But you are right Listudy can help with the spaced repetition, it just doesn't know anything about my games :)
- wombosombos 5y agoOpening Tree also is opensource, you could modify it to run on local data and then build and run it on your computer: https://github.com/openingtree/openingtree https://github.com/openingtree/openingtree
- dang 5y agoPast related thread: Open source chess developers warn about a commercial engine based on Stockfish - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26185139 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26185139 - Feb 2021 (130 comments) I thought there were others - maybe someone will find one?
- YeGoblynQueenne 5y agoThere's this, from today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27903787 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27903787
- subroutine 5y agoHappy National Chess Day... you've been served. (n.b. National Chess Day is today)
- nhumrich 5y agoin which country?
- subroutine 5y agooops, "International" chess day.
- gaius_baltar 5y agoFat Fritz 2 is distributed in the Steam Store [1], which is under US jurisdiction. Should not this be a good use for DMCA take down? [1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/1587750/Fat_Fritz_20_SE/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1587750/Fat_Fritz_20_SE/
- mimsee 5y agoIf a game gets DMCA’d, can the players who bought it still continue playing?
- LegitShady 5y agoMaybe but the person they purchased it from wasn’t authorized to distribute it or authorize them playing it.
- Kye 5y agoThey'll probably get a refund like with that unlicensed 1984 ebook incident.
- sellyme 5y agoYes. I have several hundred Steam games that have been removed from the store (dozens due to DMCAs), and the only game I'm aware of having ever been removed from user's libraries was The Culling 2.
- pksebben 5y agoappropriately named, it seems
- ngngngng 5y ago> Fat Fritz 2* engine with a massive new neural network Ah yes, the $80 Stockfish engine.
- TheGoodBarn 5y agoNever heard of ChessBase or the game before, but interesting choice on them to copy the Microsoft Word look and feel for their game haha.
- londons_explore 5y ago> leading developers of Stockfish have terminated their GPL license with ChessBase permanently. Can the developers do this? I was under the impression that when code is published on the web GPL licensed, the developers cannot retroactively withdraw the license... Or perhaps they are withdrawing the license for all new code... To publish some code as "GPL, available for all except this person"? Is that allowed? Even if that were allowed, someone else could use their rights under the GPL to redistribute it to that person...
- LocalPCGuy 5y agoSee the termination clause. V3 provides some ways to get a terminated license reinstated, v2 is a bit different I think. This pull quote is from v3. > 8. Termination. > You may not propagate or modify a covered work except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to propagate or modify it is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License (including any patent licenses granted under the third paragraph of section 11). https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html#section8 https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html#section8
- boarquantile 5y agoAnd from the same section, importantly: > [...] reinstated (a) provisionally, unless and until the copyright holder explicitly and finally terminates your license which is what the Stockfish developers have now done. I.e. if Chessbase starts to comply now, it would be too late.
- bscphil 5y agoI've read through this thread and I haven't seen a simple summary of the situation as it stands with respect to copying and the GPL violation. Here's what I believe to have happened: 1. ChessBase began selling the Fat Fritz 2 chess engine. 2. It came to the attention of Stockfish developers that FF2 is a Stockfish derivative "with a few lines of code modification". [1] 3. Stockfish notified ChessBase of the violation and demanded that they comply with the terms of the GPL. ChessBase responded by releasing the source code of Fat Fritz 2, but not the neural net weights created for use and distributed with FF2. [1] 4. Key Stockfish developers regard the distribution of FF2 without the neural net weights used in creating the work to be a violation of their rights under the GPL. ChessBase (apparently) disagree - I don't see a press release on their website to confirm their take on this. This question appears to hinge on whether the weights constitute part of a derived work under the GPL. This may depend on whether the weights are "output" from running a covered program. Under the GPL 3, the output of a program is only covered only if, given its content, it constitutes a covered work (i.e. a part of a GPL 3 covered program). The exact technical details still aren't clear to me. If ChessBase is willing to release any software that actually ships with FF2 (e.g. the NNUE file) under the GPL, I think that would cure their violation even if they don't release the code used to produce the NNUE file. It's not clear to me whether or not they have been willing to do this (I'm not totally sure what's meant by "weights"). 5. Regardless of this, Stockfish developers likely have the right to invoke the nuclear option (license termination). Even though ChessBase have ceased their license violations, a GPL 3 copyright holder may terminate your license under 2 conditions: * If you have been notified of a GPL 3 license violation by the same copyright holder (for any work) before, and the copyright holder notifies you of the violation within 60 days after you cease to violate the terms of the license. * If you do not cure your violation of the GPL within 30 days of notification, the copyright owner may terminate your license regardless of whether you have previously been notified. 6. There are two ways Stockfish potentially wins this lawsuit. Either (1) they argue that violation of the GPL license is ongoing, and thus ChessBase have not cured their violation of the license within 30 days and therefore they are within their rights to terminate. This would hinge on the licensing status of the neural net weights, as discussed above. (2) They argue that at least one Stockfish copyright holder involved in the lawsuit has notified ChessBase of a violation of the GPL 3 before, and thus has the unconditional right to terminate the license because ChessBase was notified within 60 days. This seems plausible enough given ChessBases's previous use of their code [2] but I haven't found any statement that outright says that they have previously notified ChessBase of a violation of their GPL 3 licensed work. [1] https://stockfishchess.org/blog/2021/statement-on-fat-fritz-2/ https://stockfishchess.org/blog/2021/statement-on-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...
- alisonkisk 5y ago> leading developers of Stockfish have terminated their GPL license with ChessBase permanently. How practical is this, under GPL?
- LegitShady 5y agoSomeone else copied GPL’s termination clause above…it’s practical.
- truthwhisperer 5y agoIf you win it is checkmate right
- trhway 5y ago>leading developers of Stockfish have terminated their GPL license with ChessBase permanently Is it possible with GPL?
- sillysaurusx 5y agoSurprisingly, I find myself slightly skeptical of Stockfish's claims, which is... a disquieting feeling. Could someone help me out by finding the flaw in my logic? 1. ChessBase was in violation of the GPL, but then cured the violation by releasing code (https://stockfishchess.org/blog/2021/statement-on-fat-fritz-2/ https://stockfishchess.org/blog/2021/statement-on-fat-fritz-...). But the post claims they refused to release the weights. 2. But the weights are already being released with the program they're selling. Otherwise, how would the program run? Why would they refuse, when they already distribute the weights with every copy of the program? I thought maybe Fat Fritz 2 was a cloud-hosted solution (weights aren't provided locally), but https://en.chessbase.com/post/running-leela-and-fat-fritz-on-your-notebook https://en.chessbase.com/post/running-leela-and-fat-fritz-on... seems to indicate it can run on a laptop with a GPU. I suspect Stockfish may be trying to argue that whatever code was used to generate the weights is also covered under GPL, and that ChessBase is in violation because they refuse to release this code. I hope they don't try that argument, because it's certainly not true; you're free to train a chess engine however you want, insert the weights into a GPL'd program, and then are under no obligation to release the code to train the weights. 3. Setting aside the question of copyright entirely, it's unclear that Fat Fritz 2 is actually worse. Stockfish references https://www.sp-cc.de/ https://www.sp-cc.de/ as an independent rating system, but if you look at the detail view (https://www.sp-cc.de/files/programs.dat https://www.sp-cc.de/files/programs.dat) Fat Fritz 2 only seems to be compared to Stockfish 13 (210218) and not the latest versions of Stockfish. I'm on Stockfish's side here, because I suspect ChessBase simply duplicated StockFish's training methodology and tried to pass it off as their own. (The engine's performance seems almost identical.) But I hope Stockfish has an airtight case for court. It'd be a bad idea to hinge the GPL violation on "they refused to release the neural net weight training code."
- natrys 5y agoTypically you have stockfish source code, and human readable model file with weights. Build system and compiler bakes them together to produce binary. Inside the binary, the NNUE weights are no more readable than the source code, which is to say none at all (unless you have reverse engineering expertise). If providing the final binary counted, then there would be no such thing as GPL violation?
- yoyoplayer 5y agoFrom the article: "developers of Stockfish have terminated their GPL license with ChessBase permanently" https://www.debian.org/social_contract https://www.debian.org/social_contract states: "The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons." Thus, is Stockfish no longer DSFG?
- detaro 5y agoThat doesn't make any sense, given that they didn't change anything about the license, and the termination clauses are part of it.
- yoyoplayer 5y agoHere's some more on this: https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/7190/gpl-exceptions-that-only-apply-to-certain-individuals https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/7190/gpl-exce... Q14 on https://people.debian.org/~bap/dfsg-faq.html https://people.debian.org/~bap/dfsg-faq.html https://debian-legal.debian.narkive.com/HciZR18l/nmap-licensing-claims https://debian-legal.debian.narkive.com/HciZR18l/nmap-licens... My impression is that enacting the termination clause of GPL makes Stockfish non-DSFG. If the Stockfish developers believe a party has broken the terms of a license, they can do any of: * enact the termination clause, and thus make Stockfish non-DSFG * raise a court case against the party for breach of license The Stockfish developers happen to have done both.
- yoyoplayer 5y agohttp://cardozolawreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/GREENBAUM.37.4.pdf http://cardozolawreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/GREEN... states: "Notwithstanding this literal understanding of the license terms, the harshest constructions of the termination provisions of the GPL have not been enforced in practice." Even if it was tested in one jurisdiction, it might not apply in others.
- aliswe 5y agoThe license itself may not discriminate, but they may issue (and subsequently revoke) the license to whom they will. It's like some companies licensing with AGPL and then issuing LGPL or even proprietary licenses to whoever pays them for it (so they can use it in their projects at their own discretion).
- phendrenad2 5y ago> leading developers of Stockfish have terminated their GPL license with ChessBase permanently. Does this wording seem extremely weird to anyone else? According to the GPL: > You may not propagate or modify a covered work except > as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt > otherwise to propagate or modify it is void, and will > AUTOMATICALLY TERMINATE your rights under this License Capitalization added by me. Maybe it's a nitpick, but it seems to me that the "termination clause" as people are calling it, isn't something you "invoke" or a sword you use to slay people who violate the GPL. It's an automatic process which you, the copyright holder, don't really control in any way. IANAL, obviously.
- cormacrelf 5y agoThere is little practical difference between asking a court to enforce an automatic termination clause and asking a court to enforce the exercise of an option to terminate. One will require showing the automatic termination clause is triggered, the other will require showing the right to terminate arose. In either case they’re trying to get ChessBase to cease any use of the software, and they want a court to order them to stop because the consequences of violating a court order are substantial. In a technical sense yes, the GPL avoided giving rights holders an option to terminate. There’s no such thing as automatic enforcement of these things though (well, not for GPL, music industry is a different story), so it is not a big difference. I’m pretty sure you could just send a violator a fresh copy of the code and establish a new license agreement with them, so it’s still up to the rights holder if they want to continue.
- gmiller123456 5y agoI see lots of claims that there are no damages since Stockfish is free. I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think that argument is the end of the story. Google Vs Oracle was over code that was public and given away for free, and Oracle was asking for $8.8 Billion US. They didn't get anything on account of copyright not applying in the case, but there's no doubt some very significant money would have changed hands if it went the other way.
- Lordarminius 5y ago> Thus, to enforce the consequences of the license termination, we have filed a lawsuit... We believe we have the evidence, the financial means and the determination to bring this lawsuit to a successful end. The part about financial means stood out for me. All societies should work harder to ensure that money is not an impediment to obtaining justice.
- encryptluks2 5y agoI filed a lawsuit against someone who is using the money they stole frome to defend themselves. Basically if I win the money I get will be essentially gone and the Defendant will not have the means to pay anything back.
- daxcurzon 5y agoThis is how it works in Czech Republic. Two brothers defrauded the government by forging signatures of the owners and notaries for the transfer of property deeds and took several hundred thousand Euros worth of land from various people. My friend's family has been in court for 10 years trying to get it back. The brothers mortgaged the properties to pay for litigation. The real shit sandwich is that one brother died, and if the other brother dies, they start the proceedings all over again. If they win, it's purely in the name of justice; the lawyer will keep most of the money as payment for 10 years of litigation. Lose-lose.
- hankman86 5y agoGoes to show that the GPL is a fantastic source of revenue for law firms. I can only hope that they don't settle and we get a court ruling that offers some legal interpretation of the GPL.