Fat Fritz is not the Only Ripoff and now ChessBase is Getting Sued

I'm in lockdown and bored. This reply isn't necessary but I've got nothing better to do.

@Shazyes 'The problem is making a ctrl c + ctrl v at stockfish and selling it as BRAND NEW engine, which is clearly not.'

Initially they didn't inform their users of the rights under the GPL but they corrected it, they recalled sold DVDs and in their eyes complied with the GPL

'Secondly, any modifications done to stockfish SHOULD BE avaible to the stockfish team'

that's not worded quite right but in a round about way is what would happen. chessbase has to inform the people they distribute fat fritz to of their rights under the GPL and give them the source code if they request it. Anyone of those people can give it to stockfish, but chessbase doesn't have to give it to stockfish directly unless stockfish buys fat fritz themselves and asks for a copy of the source code.

@h2b2

I believe that an open source code can only be avaible for free, and modified under those conditions - that all new versions would be also open source. Clearly the intention of Stockfish is to benefit the chess community as a whole, therefore not being licensed for selling or making profit of it, in any conditions.

Isn't that the main matter?

@Samaevsky 'I believe that an open source code can only be avaible for free...'

it's a little nuanced and I don't think I full understand it all. But you can sell open source and free software, that part is easy. Red Hat is very expensive linux which is free software.

The source code for Red Hat is available for $0, but you can't directly run source code. The DVD with the Red Hat binaries, I believe, and I'm happy for someone to correctly me with citations, isn't $0 (or at least it wasn't, things might have changed), for one the DVD has Red Hat trademarks which are protected under a different law to copyright.

Because Red Hat binaries weren't free, years ago someone took all of Red Hat's source code that was Free Software/Open Source, removed all the trademarks, compiled it and redistributed it as Centos. Later Red Hat acquired Centos and then recently change what Centos was, so Rocky Linux plus others were born to replace the old Centos.

ie Rocky Linux is a free $0 version of expensive $$$ Red Hat.

'therefore not being licensed for selling or making profit of it, in any conditions.'

That's not correct and isn't why chessbase is being sued. Here's a quote directly from gnu.org

'When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for them if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs, and that you know you can do these things."

See "(and charge for them if you wish)"

also see "that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs, " atm fat fritz users can't make changes to the software because some pieces are missing.

@h2b2

Yeah, i think i dont understand it well enough to comment kkkk

But thank you for taking time to reply ;)

Fat Fritz – What on Earth is that?
by Albert Silver
8/13/2019 – It's a semi-secret development, an AlphaZero clone, engineered over the past nine months for ChessBase. Fat Fritz was tested by some of the best players in the world, who expressed unmitigated delight over the ideas and improvements it came up with. Now the program is publicly available on the ChessBase Engine Cloud. And it is running on awesome hardware. ALBERT SILVER explains(https://en.chessbase.com/post/fat-fritz-what-on-earth-is-that)

what a scam still haven't deleted that

I Think ChessBase Should Put it upon clear on the table about what are codes they are using on stockfishes and their license & code authorities as one cannot take over someone else idea and hard work so easily

Chessbase is a really annoying company, they try to squeeze every single penny out their customers.
But now they are going down... well deserved.

wow stockfish's clone like superman's clone doomsday

@h2b2 Red Hat Enterprise Edition isn't just an operating system but also a tech support deal. The money you pay is mostly for support.
Some people felt the support wasn't anything great. I used Centos at an old employer, and got outstanding support through the Centos public forum. Also the Red Hat online documentation was available FoC, which helped. Sad to hear Centos has gone down.

@h2b2 I guess you have covered all the bases.

Stockfish came before AlphaZero? I thought AlphaZero actually came up with NNE way before everybody and because of their papers all new modern engines are using this technology.

But all am saying is. Lichess need to stop taking sides in an unsettle issue. If a company takes action against Lichess, then it will be paid out of patron's money. We want that money towards improving the interface and services not defending against legal actions.

The article by Lichess was very inflammatory and biased.

ChessBase used to be the only company who really provided insights of Chess when no one else paid attention. I refuse to public shame(against lichess ToS, yet lichess does it) a company just because allegedly they did something wrong. If they did, then correction needs to be made but that doesn't erase everything they have done. Stockfish engine is nothing to the regular users if we don't have a nice interface like chessbases products or lichess web interface, chess.com etc. So I say yes, Chessbase has improve the value.

If this is officially allowed in Lichess, then I see no reason why other people here would not create blogs/forum entries public shaming cheaters. LETS BE CONSISTENT.