Which chess engine?

CoderMan · 05-29-2009, 03:21 PM

Hi. I want to work with a FOSS chess engine as part of a research project. However, I want to work with a chess engine that is under a license I am comfortable with, preferably either BSD or GPL, as the project would likely involve a lot of code modification. I have been frustrated lately because searches for "linux chess engines" and "open-source chess engines" often produces results where the chess engines are either proprietary or have license restrictions more severe than the GPL (like Crafty, for example).

On the other hand, I'd don't want to work with a weak chess engine just because it was the first I came across with a GPL or BSD license.

Any recommendations/insights/suggestions?

farslayer · 05-29-2009, 03:31 PM

Code:

it-lenny:~$ apt-cache policy dreamchess
dreamchess:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 0.2.0-1
  Version table:
     0.2.0-1 0
        500 http://ftp.uwsg.indiana.edu lenny/main Packages

it-lenny:~$ apt-cache policy gnuchess
gnuchess:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 5.07-4.1
  Version table:
     5.07-4.1 0
        500 http://ftp.uwsg.indiana.edu lenny/main Packages

it-lenny:~$ apt-cache policy hoichess
hoichess:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 0.10.3-1
  Version table:
     0.10.3-1 0
        500 http://ftp.uwsg.indiana.edu lenny/main Packages

it-lenny:~$ apt-cache policy brutalchess
brutalchess:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 0.5.2+dfsg-3
  Version table:
     0.5.2+dfsg-3 0
        500 http://ftp.uwsg.indiana.edu lenny/main Packages

well those four chess programs are all in the Debian main branch which would indicate they are all under a license like the GPL.. if they were licensed otherwise they would not be in the main branch.

http://developer.berlios.de/projects/dreamchess
http://www.gnu.org/software/chess/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/brutalchess/

KindOfNeutral · 06-02-2009, 09:27 AM

Maybe Fruit?

KindOfNeutral · 06-02-2009, 09:50 AM

An older version of Sjeng. It is not so strong as Fruit (see my previous post for link).

Glaurung is really strong, see for example the rating list from WBEC Ridderkirk. The author of Glaurung do not seem to have a binary for Linux but there is in Ubuntu repositories - so it is possible to compile it to Linux.

All of these are GPL licenced - not the newer versions of Sjeng and apparently not the newest version of Fruit. There is a fork of Fruit called Toga that might be slightly stronger than Fruit 2.1.

jlinkels · 06-02-2009, 07:00 PM

I use toga for josé-chess. However, googling for "open source chess engine" lists more than 10. That is how I found toga.

jlinkels