In July of 2021 we reported that authorized proceedings had begun between the builders of Stockfish, the world’s strongest chess engine, and Chessbase GmbH, builders of varied in style chess software program. After greater than a yr of wrangling, that lawsuit has now come to an finish with the events agreeing to a settlement.
Per the settlement, Chessbase concedes they used Stockfish in violation of its license in two of their merchandise, Fats Fritz 2 and Houdini 6. That they had beforehand asserted for years that Houdini was an authentic creation. They are going to be prevented from distributing Stockfish in modified or unmodified kind for a interval of 1 yr, except re-downloads of already bought merchandise. This would appear to imply that their large holiday-season product ChessBase 17, which might be launched in on November twenty third, is not going to come packaged with the strongest chess engine accessible, nor will it include any of the Stockfish-derived engines that ChessBase has offered previously.
Moreover, ChessBase agrees that any future public comparisons they make between their engines and Stockfish might be truthful and use the strongest model of Stockfish. Chessbase had beforehand printed comparisons between Fats Fritz 2, utilizing the most recent model of Stockfish, towards an older model of Stockfish to try to reveal that Fats Fritz was stronger.
Chessbase may even be required to put up notices on all net pages related to Fats Fritz 2 or Houdini 6 making clear that these merchandise come from Stockfish. The YouTube interview the place Fats Fritz 2 “head coach” Albert Silver talks about creating Fats Fritz “nearly from scratch” now awkwardly accommodates a discover mentioning the usage of Stockfish and its license with the feedback part closed. A ChessBase weblog selling that video has now apparently been deleted.
The settlement additionally consists of the need to rent a Free Software program Compliance Officer to guarantee that additional violations don’t happen. Critically, the settlement consists of no monetary compensation for the Stockfish crew, not even authorized charges. There are fines for violating the settlement, however they’d be paid to the Free Software program Basis Europe and never the Stockfish crew.
