Stockfish - Glaurung

Leo, will you add Stockfish for the next edition ?
Stockfish is the latest Glaurung version from the original author + his team ...

Thanks,
Vincent

Vincent Lejeune wrote:Leo, will you add Stockfish for the next edition ?
Stockfish is the latest Glaurung version from the original author + his team ...

Thanks,
Vincent

Hi Vincent,

I just checked the Glaurung site but it still say "Glaurung and Scatha", nothing about renaming it to Stockfish or whatever!?
And no download link to so there is no reason to replace Glaurung by one of his clones i think?
Ofcourse I have read the discussion at CCC (iirc) but it just seems Tord say thing which fit him at that moment? Why else was stockfish never made available from his owm site, not even announced....
At this moment I dont say no but just wait what happen and decide as soon its announced and or made available from Tord's own site before edition 17 starts.

Best wishes,
Leo

P.S.Sorry for the late reply, I totally missed this message

Hi Leo!

I just checked the Glaurung site but it still say "Glaurung and Scatha", nothing about renaming it to Stockfish or whatever!?
And no download link to so there is no reason to replace Glaurung by one of his clones i think?
Ofcourse I have read the discussion at CCC (iirc) but it just seems Tord say thing which fit him at that moment? Why else was stockfish never made available from his owm site, not even announced....

The simple truth about this is that I'm ridiculously lazy about updating my web site. It is extremely outdated in many ways; for instance it claims that I'll write an iPhone port of Glaurung if and when Apple opens the device for third-party developers (they did more than a year ago, and the iPhone version of Glaurung has been available since a long time). Because of my obvious inability to keep my web site reasonably updated, I should probably consider closing it. It's quite possible (but not entirely sure) that it will disappear next year.

It is not quite precise to say that Glaurung has been renamed to Stockfish. Stockfish is a different branch of the evolutionary tree, originally started by Marco Costalba during a period in which I was not doing computer chess, and had no time to add his suggested improvements to Glaurung. After I got back to programming again, Marco and I exchanged ideas and experiences for a while, and exchanged source code of development versions. Some code and ideas were transfered from one branch to the other, in both directions. Gradually, as the two branches diverged more and more from each other, this became more difficult, and felt more and more pointless. What's the point in maintaining two separate branches, instead of working together on a single one? We therefore decided to join our efforts (together with Joona Kiiski, who is also a very valuable member of the team) and work on a single engine. Because Stockfish was the more advanced engine at the time, it was the obvious branch to use as the starting point for the cooperation. The Glaurung branch is dead. There will never be a Glaurung 2.3, but there will be a Stockfish 1.5 in the near future.

As to which branch you should use in your tournament: Just use the one you like best. These programs are free, and you are free to do whatever you like with them. Of course I recommend using Stockfish, the only actively maintained branch, but if you consider Glaurung more interesting for whatever reason, feel free to use it.

or
Hi Tord,

Tord Romstad wrote:Hi Leo!

The simple truth about this is that I'm ridiculously lazy about updating my web site. It is extremely outdated in many ways; for instance it claims that I'll write an iPhone port of Glaurung if and when Apple opens the device for third-party developers (they did more than a year ago, and the iPhone version of Glaurung has been available since a long time). Because of my obvious inability to keep my web site reasonably updated, I should probably consider closing it. It's quite possible (but not entirely sure) that it will disappear next year.

I think it should be a good idea to create a 'homepage' for Stockfish by one of the team members, even a simple downloadpage with a explanation of what Stokfish is

It is not quite precise to say that Glaurung has been renamed to Stockfish. Stockfish is a different branch of the evolutionary tree, originally started by Marco Costalba during a period in which I was not doing computer chess, and had no time to add his suggested improvements to Glaurung. After I got back to programming again, Marco and I exchanged ideas and experiences for a while, and exchanged source code of development versions. Some code and ideas were transfered from one branch to the other, in both directions. Gradually, as the two branches diverged more and more from each other, this became more difficult, and felt more and more pointless. What's the point in maintaining two separate branches, instead of working together on a single one? We therefore decided to join our efforts (together with Joona Kiiski, who is also a very valuable member of the team) and work on a single engine. Because Stockfish was the more advanced engine at the time, it was the obvious branch to use as the starting point for the cooperation. The Glaurung branch is dead. There will never be a Glaurung 2.3, but there will be a Stockfish 1.5 in the near future.

As to which branch you should use in your tournament: Just use the one you like best. These programs are free, and you are free to do whatever you like with them. Of course I recommend using Stockfish, the only actively maintained branch, but if you consider Glaurung more interesting for whatever reason, feel free to use it.

If Stockfish is no renamed Glaurung, then what do you call it
Marco Costalba did not write Stockfish from scratch as new engine but started from a Glaurung version (if my information is correct), so its a "renamed" (continuation of Glaurung under a new name), "based at" or "cloned" Glaurung
Imho it looks most at the first one, "renamed", but since you are a member of the team and the original Glaurung author its your chose ofcourse, so please tell me how I have to call it in the future.

Best wishes,
Leo.

Leo Dijksman wrote:I think it should be a good idea to create a 'homepage' for Stockfish by one of the team members, even a simple downloadpage with a explanation of what Stokfish is

Would be nice, but a badly outdated web page is worse than no page at all. In the short term, it will probably be found on the old Glaurung web site, but probably not before I have finished updated the GUI (hardly anyone is interested in just a chess engine anyway -- the very few people who have any sort of idea how to use a chess engine also know how to find it without a dedicated web site). In the longer term, I am not sure I will bother to keep the web site running, and it is possible that your site or Dann's would be a better home for the program. This remains to be seen; we haven't really discussed it yet.

If Stockfish is no renamed Glaurung, then what do you call it

I call it "Stockfish", of course.

Marco Costalba did not write Stockfish from scratch as new engine but started from a Glaurung version (if my information is correct),

Correct. Version 2.1, to be even more precise.

so its a "renamed" (continuation of Glaurung under a new name),

The correct term is "a fork". In the free software community, when you have some improvements to contribute to somebody else's program, the recommended thing to do is to send your patches to the original author and ask him to include it in the next version, if at all possible. In practice, it often isn't possible, because the original author may have abandoned the project or just be too busy to work on it (which was the case for Glaurung at the time). In this case, it is often to create your own version (often called "to fork" in technical jargon). When you do this, it is strongly recommended to choose a different name, in order to protect the original author's reputation from being harmed by problems introduced in the derivative program.

Forking is generally considered undesirable, for obvious reasons. It's painful both for the authors and for the users. That's why we've let one branch of the fork die and work together on the other.

"based at" or "cloned" Glaurung
Imho it looks most at the first one, "renamed", but since you are a member of the team and the original Glaurung author its your chose ofcourse, so please tell me how I have to call it in the future.

Calling it "Glaurung" would be highly misleading, because it obscures the history of the program. For a while, the two programs developed side by side. Now, only one of them is alive, and it would be very artificial to change the name of the living program to the name of its dead cousin.

Tord Romstad wrote:The correct term is "a fork".

The Wikipedia article on the topic might be of interest to some readers.

Hi Tord,

Thanks for the info!
I will replace Glaurung by Stockfish in the tournaments, besides that, its never a problem to add last Glaurung/Scata at my site if you decide to close the Glaurung site.

Best wishes,
Leo.