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Falcon Chess. Play Falcon Chess on Game Courier![All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]In light of the inventor's recent request that H. G. Muller not support Falcon Chess in Winboard or any other program, I no longer feel comfortable with allowing Falcon Chess to remain on Game Courier. As a general rule, games that are barred from any non-commercial computer program by its inventor or patent-holder shall also be banned from Game Courier. I will attend to the programming details of banning Falcon Chess this evening.
Joe Joyce wrote on Thu, Nov 6, 2008 07:32 PM UTC:Gentlemen: I request a cooling-off period for everyone. This is not necessary. It will impose a hardship on a number of people, and will cause problems with the current Potluck Tournament, where carlos carlos and I are playing a game of Falcon in the final round. This situation can and should be resolved amicably. Falcon Chess is a fine game, and should be available to the public. For maximum exposure and best sales, it should be available freely at CV also. Baen Books has demonstrated with their free books policy that this is the case; books freely available online only increase hardcopy sales. Go to their website and check. So everyone involved has reason to compromise here. As a certain unnamed problem seems to be dying a natural death, do we really want to start another such problem? I submit that the proper resolution is to leave Falcon chess both on the CV site and on the freeware that HG Muller has already released. I urge all parties now involved to do absolutely nothing. Nobody's best interests are served by this; everyone is hurt. Please reconsider. Joe
H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Nov 6, 2008 08:48 PM UTC:Well, I am not seeking conflict on this. The engine I wrote has helped me to conclude that the Falcon is a very interesting piece, in a value range that makes it combine very well with orthodox Chess pieces. It would be a a pity if it would go to waste due to personality conflicts. I just want to point out that I have acted in good faith from the very start, to help creating a situation that is a win/win/win for everyone, and that I don't like to be accused of stealing intellectual property, and even less to get covert threats of lawsuits. Censorship on what I could say on this site was never a part of the deal.
[I only read Muller's last comment first for following. I did not know of earlier ongoing discussion by Joyce, Duniho, Muller on trivial non-commercial matter, no one is actually going to act on, til minutes later now. My comments this morning already had left the subject. The only addition I have now is: ''Whatever.'' The following, outside the brackets, was written first//] Right. Good comment. You know it is possible to edit comments and ratings, and conflicting ratings are not unheard of, for example, Michael Nelson rated Falcon excellent, then poor in 2003 within 5 minutes. I thought, great, excellent from MN, then came the usual dump. The issue then was patenting at all, never mind that I did the whole thing essentially before CVP existed and certainly before its mindless proliferation. Now I don't care what any of them think, except those who have already left, more or less: Bodlaender, Aronson, Quintanilla, Lavieri, Fourriere, Sibahi, Good, Good, all their best.
The issue of banning Falcon Chess from Game Courier did come up a few years ago. Back then, the issue was that the game was patented. At that time, George assured me that he would not be emulating the behavior of a certain other CV patent-holder. So I allowed Falcon Chess to remain on Game Courier. Those circumstances have now changed. Until George Duke works things out with H. G. Muller and gives me his assurance that he will never forbid the non-commercial development and distribution of programs that let people play Falcon Chess, no new games of Falcon Chess may be started on Game Courier. For the sake of those playing ongoing games, these will not be affected.
I must confess my own 'mis-use' of Falcon Chess. I innocently wrote a Zillions implementation to try this game out. Fortunately(or unfortunately), this was for my own personal use and I never considered distributing it. But I now realize that even this was exceeding my rights with this game. So I began by deleting this implementation and all references to Falcon Chess from my hard drive, and destroying all handwritten notes. But since this did not guarantee its full eradication, I took a sledgehammer to my computer, burned it, stirred the ashes and burned it again. I've also made an appointment with my neurologist to have excised those brain cells which continue to store data about this game. This will be followed up by intense adversion therapy, the word 'falcon' should prove sufficient. Please accept my pitiful apologies. I know that nothing I do will make up for my presumption. I will now go and bang my head against the wall.
If you're looking for pieces that fits well in the Western context, please make use of my new pieces, there are several types of cannons, etc. http://hem.passagen.se/melki9/chessvar.htm /Mats
Game Courier is welcome to use or reinstate Falcon presets, which I have not played over a year now. Whatever anyone may want in the future. Ed Trice saw Falcon patent and then quickly got one of his own in response. That is the true unknown history. He just patented anything handy to patent for its own sake. The patent expired after several years and no longer exists. Gothic's pointless patent was always for that one little CV, whereas Falcon, whose idea of patenting he was jealous, stretches to millions of alternatives 8x10 and larger. So many alternatives is to protect from copycats. Tony Quintanilla or David Howe may be interested in fulfilling others' interests in Falcon Presets some day, and I take no offense at present action. Besides Quintanilla, Abdul-Rahman Sibahi and Jeremy Good did the work on them. If the lesser calibre of the remaining active CVPage long-termers is in question, the pathetic attempt at humour with no style whatsoever by Zillions man Smith stands for itself. Strangely, I never have bad will to Duniho. He is knowledgeable about CVs, intelligent with good vocabulary showing interests other than CVs, and a solid but unimaginative designer, recycling known quantities in above average designs. Duniho has maintained constant hostility toward Falcon, badgering me out of one tournament, for which I got up to 10 automatic timed losses, and revoking my Comment privilege without review. Hence the gap in my Comments from April 2005 to June 2007(scroll back 600-700 Comments), at which time I responded to Charles Gilman's use of Falcon in Armies of Faith -- after Quintanilla set up normal standard commenting again. Yet smart Duniho may eventually see the light.
Cross purposes. As of 8.November.2008 the only program of Muller I have seen so far is the computer-computer one early August. The fact that I have not viewed newer ones is only called to my attention by Joe Joyce now. So some earlier talk may be at cross purposes. It means misunderstanding from what basis points were being made. Joyce says freeware is already released, and I expect it is quite good, based on the computer-computer. I ignore comments of shop talk and may have missed something related to Falcon implementation. So, Muller may have expected back in August/September reaction upon earlier release, but I have never seen anything. It does not appear in What's New, so I thought of him as referring to the brief computer-computer. In computer-computer, I was puzzled that there seemed to be Castling only in the latter 100-200 scores, not the early ones. However, that may be incorrect. As a result, Falcon versus Rook was near equality at the end, but Rook > Falcon in early games. Is it possible some code was being inserted ongoing during trials? This is just recollection and puzzlement, not criticism. But I think the data was gone before I studied it; or maybe I am not looking in the right place where they still exist. //[ I do not see Falcon Preset or engine in Fairy Max? ] Finally, my comment, over criticism of Falcon articles and theory, mentions ''late-2009,'' even before Joyce's intervention, to put it off indefinitely. Fine, just call in a grey area until 31.December.2010. Don't worry about the Falcon team's reservation over criticism. There is no action for noncommercial exploration 2008-2010 by Muller or Sharnagl, who was present. The original agreement only stands as a practical matter. Hopefully a ''win/win/win'' will be set up through intermediary, like IAGO. Let's see what happens.
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