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Topic: Are Windows or Mac OS programmers welcomed? (Read 3598 times) |
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ChessBox
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Are Windows or Mac OS programmers welcomed?
« on: May 12th, 2009, 11:08am » |
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Maybe I am wrong, but I have got the impression, that Arimaa® engine development here is a Linux only story. Are there chances for such strange people like me to also participate?
Until now I have written an 8x8 and 10x8 chess program SMIRF including its own GUI playing about amateur level. Now I am thinking it over to make a complete rewrite of it, but there might be also the possibility for me to start alternativly with Arimaa®.
But anything I read makes me hesitate from starting an Arimaa@ project. Arimaa@ announces itself to be a patented game, so I am very unsure about publishing any program playing Arimaa®.
Is there any library of documents showing how communication / protocol has to be done enabling communication even between different OS based engines?
Thank you in advance for answering!
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Janzert
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Re: Are Windows or Mac OS programmers welcomed?
« Reply #1 on: May 13th, 2009, 8:39am » |
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I do all development of OpFor under Windows, so it is certainly not a problem. The standard interface to the server is a perl script and I use an alternate interface that is written as a python script. Both have been used under Linux and Windows. I don't know of anyone that has used either under OS-X, but the chances are good they would both work fine or with minor adjustments there as well.
In order to participate in the computer championship and challenge though, the engine has to run under Linux since all the programs for those tournaments are run on Omar's server.
Questions about publishing Arimaa software would need to be answered by Omar but the Arimaa Public License may already answer some of them. In looking up the license I actually just noticed that my recent release of old OpFor source code is probably in violation.
Janzert
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| « Last Edit: May 13th, 2009, 8:39am by Janzert » |
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lightvector
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Re: Are Windows or Mac OS programmers welcomed?
« Reply #2 on: May 13th, 2009, 8:51am » |
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I've been working on an Arimaa bot for a while, and my computer runs windows as well. The basic bot interface works fine (see the downloads page). There's no problem with different OS interfaces, as far as I know - the bot interface (in Perl) handles networking and connecting to the game room just fine. All you need to do is write a program that prints its move to standard output to use it.
For uploading my bot to compete in the the online CC each year, I just upload the code and compile on the unix account provided, instead of my local machine, and that's it.
Maybe someone else can comment on the legal aspects of the game. Anyways, it would be great to have another developer around. The active community here is very small, but anyone interested in the game is quite welcome!
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| « Last Edit: May 13th, 2009, 8:53am by lightvector » |
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ChessBox
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Re: Are Windows or Mac OS programmers welcomed?
« Reply #3 on: May 13th, 2009, 10:42am » |
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on May 13th, 2009, 8:51am, lightvector wrote:| ... All you need to do is write a program that prints its move to standard output to use it. ... |
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Well, using stdout and stdin will be an idea, but I have no experiences with pearl. Is there any chance to simulate an engine communication to an Arimaa® GUI on Windows or MAC OS ?
Thank you all for your answer!
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clauchau
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Re: Are Windows or Mac OS programmers welcomed?
« Reply #4 on: May 15th, 2009, 6:42am » |
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I also come from Windows (and MSDOS) as far as game engines with GUI are concerned and don't know Perl. I easily managed to have my Arimaa "Quantum Leap Frog" bot play in the game room without any trouble using an old C++ Borland compiler, thanks to Omar's interface scripts and the free Perl install he suggests for Windows.
To have it then compile with the Gnu C Compiler gcc on Windows or Linux requires a few tricks then and that part is certainly easier if you already know and follow the C/C++ standard OS-independant specifications and library. I managed a few years later when I tried (I only had to change the path of a few standard includes, be more careful about integer size if I remember well, and change the way time was measured).
In other words, keep the engine part as standard as possible.
Think also of David Fotland who sells his bot_bomb with a Windows GUI while it has also been playing in the Arimaa gameroom and tournament a whole lot.
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| « Last Edit: May 15th, 2009, 6:43am by clauchau » |
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ChessBox
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Re: Are Windows or Mac OS programmers welcomed?
« Reply #5 on: May 15th, 2009, 1:46pm » |
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on May 15th, 2009, 6:42am, clauchau wrote:| ... play in the game room ... |
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Hmm, I doubt that I want to start my attempts immediately in the game room. The idea has been to develop and improve an engine first by having some local games at home. Is'nt there any GUI for that?
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| « Last Edit: May 15th, 2009, 1:47pm by ChessBox » |
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Janzert
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Re: Are Windows or Mac OS programmers welcomed?
« Reply #6 on: May 15th, 2009, 2:27pm » |
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on May 15th, 2009, 1:46pm, ChessBox wrote:
Hmm, I doubt that I want to start my attempts immediately in the game room. The idea has been to develop and improve an engine first by having some local games at home. Is'nt there any GUI for that? |
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No publicly available GUI has been released for sure and the only one I know of is Fotland's for Bomb. I think everyone else is using the gameroom and/or custom console interfaces. I've made a small start on a GUI but as I really detest GUI programming it's still nowhere near usable.
Janzert
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ChessBox
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Re: Are Windows or Mac OS programmers welcomed?
« Reply #7 on: May 15th, 2009, 9:49pm » |
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on May 15th, 2009, 2:27pm, Janzert wrote:| ... No publicly available GUI has been released for sure ... |
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Then maybe it would be best to write one first. Using wxWidgets might be an approach resulting in a solution, which might be targeting several OSs.
But that would establish the need for an accepted protocol. I saw you proposing a UCI related protocol for Arimaa®. If that would be a stable solution and was accepted also for Arimaa® tournaments, a GUI based on that should be written.
But legal restrictions on Arimaa@ let me hesitate starting with such a project, when there is no chance to publish and use that GUI without the risk of being sued.
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| « Last Edit: May 15th, 2009, 9:50pm by ChessBox » |
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doublep
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Re: Are Windows or Mac OS programmers welcomed?
« Reply #8 on: May 18th, 2009, 1:47pm » |
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Woah, that license is quite draconic. Janzert: do you know that your making OpFor source code available is a breach of the license?
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Janzert
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Re: Are Windows or Mac OS programmers welcomed?
« Reply #9 on: May 18th, 2009, 2:35pm » |
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on May 18th, 2009, 1:47pm, doublep wrote:| Woah, that license is quite draconic. Janzert: do you know that your making OpFor source code available is a breach of the license? |
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To quote myself from the second post in this thread: 
Quote:| Questions about publishing Arimaa software would need to be answered by Omar but the Arimaa Public License may already answer some of them. In looking up the license I actually just noticed that my recent release of old OpFor source code is probably in violation. |
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Since then I realized that the AEI release is also probably technically a breach of the license. Beyond that I'm into my busier work season right now and haven't had time to ask Omar about either of them yet.
Janzert
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doublep
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Re: Are Windows or Mac OS programmers welcomed?
« Reply #10 on: May 19th, 2009, 9:23am » |
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Ah, sorry, I'm not really following the discussion, just saw the link.
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nbarriga
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Re: Are Windows or Mac OS programmers welcomed?
« Reply #11 on: May 19th, 2009, 9:50pm » |
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I think it is not in violation, according to section 3. Non-commercial, non-ERP use or distribution:
* I want to publicly distribute software that incorporates Arimaa. Such as
open source software that plays Arimaa.
There are some restrictions but it is not in violation I think. The license is not very clear.
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ChessBox
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Re: Are Windows or Mac OS programmers welcomed?
« Reply #12 on: May 20th, 2009, 5:07am » |
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on May 19th, 2009, 9:50pm, nbarriga wrote:| ... The license is not very clear. |
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Maybe I am an average programmer, but I am a zero-level amateur lawyer additionally living in Germany, that way not being a native English language speaker.
This still lets me hesitate from focussing on Arimaa® programming after some doubtfull experiences made when targeting GothicChess® (concerning mostly other people), as long as there are any restrictions for Arimaa® software developers, especially if not working on an open source project.
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| « Last Edit: May 20th, 2009, 5:11am by ChessBox » |
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doublep
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Re: Are Windows or Mac OS programmers welcomed?
« Reply #13 on: May 20th, 2009, 9:48am » |
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on May 19th, 2009, 9:50pm, nbarriga wrote:I think it is not in violation, according to section 3. Non-commercial, non-ERP use or distribution:
* I want to publicly distribute software that incorporates Arimaa. Such as
open source software that plays Arimaa. |
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Well, for one thing the published OpFor sources don't include any license at all, and so don't mention 'that any derivitates of the product/service must also comply with the "Arimaa Public License".'. They also don't conform to other "Must"s.
ChessBox: if you really want to distribute anything for commercial purposes, phrase "Commercial usage or distribution of Arimaa related products or services require obtaining a licensing agreement from Arimaa.com" says it all. I.e. that public license cannot be used for anything commercial, in that aspect it is quite clear.
Alternatively, you may wait until the patent expires and then only trademark will pose any (non-crucial) restrictions. Copyright doesn't really apply here, only maybe to verbatim rules text and to board/pieces artwork (which is not that great anyway).
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nbarriga
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Re: Are Windows or Mac OS programmers welcomed?
« Reply #14 on: May 20th, 2009, 9:57am » |
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I think your best solution now is to talk directly to Omar for him to clarify what you can and can't do. Because so far we have seen one commercial bot(fotland's) and one open source(opFor) and as far as I know Omar approves both.
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