Dear Chess Friends

I have noted with interest various discussions about comparing
different chess software and I would like to make the following two
points:

1) It is impractical to compare a free amateurs chess software with a
commercial software. It would be more apropriate to compare either two
or more of the commercial software programs in terms of efficiency or
two or more free software programs in terms of presented work. You
cannot compare something given to you free of charge with something
you pay for. If you do not like the free software just do not use it.
It's simple.

2) The development of free software if you know is a very hard task
and requires resources that amateur developers usually do not have.
Actually we should be much thankful to those people producing the free
software and encourage them to go further ahead. Since they do not ask
any money from us it would be rather impolite and under certain
circumstances not a word of Chevalier to speak against their programs.
If we do not like their programs we can just ignore them. Is that
right?

The same applies for chess engines. You cannot blame a young student
for presenting a free engine that is not so strong as the known
commercial ones. Just do not use his engine, do not blame his work, it
is not nice. Even to say that we do not like his engine, it would make
no sense.

Thanks for reading
Regards
Anton

Antonio,

With all due respect, I do not think the conversations here are to belittle
or slight any software or engine. We are just trying to see what
experiences others have had to find out if we can get free or cheap engines
and software that meet our gaming needs.
Just like everyone knows that a Hyundai will never match a Jaguar, but not
everyone can afford a Jaguar nor do they need one.

For myself I am only looking for software that is fun to play. (i.e.: one
that I am about evenly matched with on the middle difficulty level leaving
room for improvement but not being way over my head) I also am looking for
software I can play head to head with over bluetooth with 2 PPC's.
-Parley


"Antonio R." wrote in message
om...
Dear Chess Friends

I have noted with interest various discussions about comparing
different chess software and I would like to make the following two
points:

1) It is impractical to compare a free amateurs chess software with a
commercial software. It would be more apropriate to compare either two
or more of the commercial software programs in terms of efficiency or
two or more free software programs in terms of presented work. You
cannot compare something given to you free of charge with something
you pay for. If you do not like the free software just do not use it.
It's simple.

2) The development of free software if you know is a very hard task
and requires resources that amateur developers usually do not have.
Actually we should be much thankful to those people producing the free
software and encourage them to go further ahead. Since they do not ask
any money from us it would be rather impolite and under certain
circumstances not a word of Chevalier to speak against their programs.
If we do not like their programs we can just ignore them. Is that
right?

The same applies for chess engines. You cannot blame a young student
for presenting a free engine that is not so strong as the known
commercial ones. Just do not use his engine, do not blame his work, it
is not nice. Even to say that we do not like his engine, it would make
no sense.

Thanks for reading
Regards
Anton

(Antonio R.) wrote in rec.games.chess.computer:


1) It is impractical to compare a free amateurs chess software with a
commercial software. It would be more apropriate to compare either two
or more of the commercial software programs in terms of efficiency or
two or more free software programs in terms of presented work. You
cannot compare something given to you free of charge with something
you pay for. If you do not like the free software just do not use it.
It's simple.

I fail to see that. If I am looking for a piece of software, I'm not
looking at the price, but at the performance. Most comparisons here are
on performance level. In that case it's very useful to compare freeware,
shareware and commercialware, especially given the outstanding
performance of many freeware titles in comparison with sometimes very
expensive commercialware.


2) The development of free software if you know is a very hard task
and requires resources that amateur developers usually do not have.
Actually we should be much thankful to those people producing the free
software and encourage them to go further ahead. Since they do not ask
any money from us it would be rather impolite and under certain
circumstances not a word of Chevalier to speak against their programs.
If we do not like their programs we can just ignore them. Is that
right?


I fail to see that too. No one gains an inch with that kind of misplaced
politeness. Neither the programmer, nor the user. They share the desire
to have a finished, well working, bug free program. If no one took the
time to critize, report problems, give suggestions and add improvements,
the freeware society would still have been delivering nothing more but
the 100 line BASIC programs of over 20 years ago. The open source
movement is a clear proof of against your statements.


The same applies for chess engines. You cannot blame a young student
for presenting a free engine that is not so strong as the known
commercial ones. Just do not use his engine, do not blame his work, it
is not nice. Even to say that we do not like his engine, it would make
no sense.

What posts have you been reading?


--
CeeBee


"I am not a crook"

(Antonio R.) wrote in message . com...
Dear Chess Friends

I have noted with interest various discussions about comparing
different chess software and I would like to make the following two
points:

1) It is impractical to compare a free amateurs chess software with a
commercial software.

No, that is not true.

I started at least one of these postings, so I know I was at coming
from the performance/usability standpoint, although I'd be a liar if I
said cost was not one issue too.

I was also keen to have something that would not just run under
Windoze - something the commerical chess software seems to ignore.
Commerical software is certainly less portable - that is something
that is easily quantifable. 'scid' runs on Solaris, Linux, Windoze ...
etc. There is to my knowledge no commerical chess database that will
run under Solaris (which I use mainly). I've not seen one for Linux
either, although I guess its only a matter of time before one appears.

It would be more apropriate to compare either two
or more of the commercial software programs in terms of efficiency or
two or more free software programs in terms of presented work. You
cannot compare something given to you free of charge with something
you pay for. If you do not like the free software just do not use it.
It's simple.

You should compare them. The apache web server

http://www.apache.org/

is the most popular web server in the world. There are more users of
Apache than all the other web servers (commerical and free) put
together. I don't think big commerical companies use Apache rather
than a commercial product on cost grounds, but simply because Apache
is better than any other web server. Microsoft bundle a web server
with the 'professional' versions of Windoze, but it never has it been
as popular as Apache.

Apache, which is used by millions, has a large number of people
committing extras to it.

2) The development of free software if you know is a very hard task
and requires resources that amateur developers usually do not have.
Actually we should be much thankful to those people producing the free
software and encourage them to go further ahead.

True. Encouragement though often requires consructive critisism.

Since they do not ask
any money from us it would be rather impolite and under certain
circumstances not a word of Chevalier to speak against their programs.
If we do not like their programs we can just ignore them. Is that
right?

No, I don't think that is true. I have developed an open-source
application 'atlc' for the simulation of electrical transmission
lines:

http://atlc.sourceforge.net/

and are quite happy to have *contructive* critisism. There is no way
this application can compete with the commerical equivalents, although
as someone once remarked, it is the only software of its type that
costs less than an automobile. So I don't claim 'atlc' is better than
similar commerical software, but there is no doubt 'Apache' is better
than any commerical web server.

The same applies for chess engines. You cannot blame a young student
for presenting a free engine that is not so strong as the known
commercial ones. Just do not use his engine, do not blame his work, it
is not nice. Even to say that we do not like his engine, it would make
no sense.

No, if you don't like his engine, tell him so in a constructive
manner. Just to not use it won't achieve much.

Crafty is free, yet I have still told Robert Hyatt that the UNIX
makefile is not that good.

Today I said on the scid forum

http://www.activeboard.com/forum.spa...entI D=138730

that the buttons in scid are hard to see under UNIX, but they are easy
under Windoze. Within a few hours the author posted details of how to
change the colours, so now 'scid' has buttons that are easier to see.

Thanks for reading
Regards
Anton

Dr. David Kirkby.

I was also keen to have something that would not just run under
Windoze - something the commerical chess software seems to ignore.
Commerical software is certainly less portable - that is something
that is easily quantifable. 'scid' runs on Solaris, Linux, Windoze ...
etc. There is to my knowledge no commerical chess database that will
run under Solaris (which I use mainly). I've not seen one for Linux
either, although I guess its only a matter of time before one appears.

yeah, the Solaris market is real hot now. commercial vendors ignore it at
therir peril

what about the problem of distro fragmentation. supporting any commercial linux
software is a freakin nightmare. dependencies, different libraries, bugs, no
company in their right mind would go into this market. especially for customers
that don't want to pay for software in the first place.

apache is certainly great. but don't lump all open source software into the
same category.

i use linux, but dont like scid because it uses the crappy motif widgets and
has other interface oddities. how about something a little nicer like qt?

"Antonio R." wrote in message
om...


1) It is impractical to compare a free amateurs chess software with a
commercial software.

Cost is but one factor in a compare/contrast. What is ultimately more
impractical, having a flawed analysis by ignoring other, potentially more
important factors, or making finer adjustments regarding a program's merit
by including the fact that is has a specific cost. Your point is
intellectually incomplete and therefore logically invalid. Sad but true!


2) The development of free software if you know is a very hard task
and requires resources that amateur developers usually do not have.
Actually we should be much thankful to those people producing the free
software and encourage them to go further ahead. Since they do not ask
any money from us it would be rather impolite and under certain
circumstances not a word of Chevalier to speak against their programs.
If we do not like their programs we can just ignore them. Is that
right?

You suffer the same philospohical inconsistency as those who espouse "Ask me
no questions, I'll tell you no lies".

Your overbroad assertions as to the relationship between author and
audience, giving undue weight to cost, and classifying critisism as
offensive conduct, is almost a preposterous position to seriously put
forward.

Any author who creates wants his creation to thrive, to fill the niche it
was designed for, as best it can, any critisism towards that end is
desireable, including discussions about it's value...to the user and the
author.

The same applies for chess engines. You cannot blame a young student
for presenting a free engine that is not so strong as the known
commercial ones. Just do not use his engine, do not blame his work, it
is not nice. Even to say that we do not like his engine, it would make
no sense.

I sense you are inappropriately empathsizing with the perceived embarassment
over a creation not being perfect, that a piece of code, not being the best
out of the gate, is then inferior and not worth review. I can speak from
personal experience, most authors and creators revel in feedback, reasonably
presented, good and bad, so that they might further refine their creation.
In fact, few are more critical of a piece of work than those who create it.

I challenge you to go forth and criticise and comment those engines you
'like' and 'don't like'. And, if that is not to your liking, rebut comments
that you find do not sit well with you, that others have made, correct their
error, or offer a different perspective. By contributing in such a manner,
you will have added more signal and drowned out more noise than you would
had you just remained silent. If no one offered an opinion, nothing would be
said. Ever!

(Obviusmn) wrote in message ...
I was also keen to have something that would not just run under
Windoze - something the commerical chess software seems to ignore.
Commerical software is certainly less portable - that is something
that is easily quantifable. 'scid' runs on Solaris, Linux, Windoze ...
etc. There is to my knowledge no commerical chess database that will
run under Solaris (which I use mainly). I've not seen one for Linux
either, although I guess its only a matter of time before one appears.

yeah, the Solaris market is real hot now. commercial vendors ignore it at
therir peril


In certain areas, like large databases, they would. For chess
software, it would of course be a waste of their time.

what about the problem of distro fragmentation. supporting any commercial linux
software is a freakin nightmare. dependencies, different libraries, bugs, no
company in their right mind would go into this market. especially for customers
that don't want to pay for software in the first place.

There are numerous commerical applications for Linux.

apache is certainly great. but don't lump all open source software into the
same category.

I did not. Quite the opposite, as I stated one of my own applications
was not as good as commerical alternatives. There is good and bad
software in both commerical and free.

i use linux, but dont like scid because it uses the crappy motif widgets and
has other interface oddities. how about something a little nicer like qt?

There are license issues with Qt I believe, so it would not be my
choice. I'm not saying Tk/Tcl which scid uses is the best or not - I
don't know, as its not an area I know much about.

Dr. David Kirkby.

(Obviusmn) wrote in message ...
i use linux, but dont like scid because it uses the crappy motif widgets and
has other interface oddities. how about something a little nicer like qt?

....or Swing: http://jose-chess.sourceforge.net

SCID has a crappy interface but lots of intelligent features; and it's
pretty fast, too.

"Antonio R." skrev i meddelandet
om...
Dear Chess Friends

I have noted with interest various discussions about comparing
different chess software and I would like to make the following two
points:

1) It is impractical to compare a free amateurs chess software with a
commercial software. It would be more apropriate to compare either two
or more of the commercial software programs in terms of efficiency or
two or more free software programs in terms of presented work. You
cannot compare something given to you free of charge with something
you pay for. If you do not like the free software just do not use it.
It's simple.

Nothing stops you from paying for the free programs. Just put some money in
a plain envelope and mail it to the author!

Would that help?


2) The development of free software if you know is a very hard task
and requires resources that amateur developers usually do not have.

It is not that easy.

Some of the free software is produced by highly qualified professionals, who
also happen to have a day job (or is already retired). A couple of them are
former Computer Chess World Champions...

Some people just want to be nice by giving their program away. Does that
lower the value of the program?


Bo Persson

Obviusmn wrote:

i use linux, but dont like scid because it uses the crappy motif widgets and
has other interface oddities.

Actually it uses Tk.

how about something a little nicer like qt?

Yeah, how about that?

NR