Thus, to enforce the consequences of the license termination, we have filed a lawsuit. However, ChessBase is ignoring the fact that they no longer have the right to distribute Stockfish, modified or unmodified, as part of their products. Due to Chessbase’s repeated license violations, leading developers of Stockfish have terminated their GPL license with ChessBase permanently. Even though we had our first successes, leading to a recall of the Fat Fritz 2 DVD and the termination of the sales of Houdini 6, we were unable to finalize our dispute out of court. In the past four months, we, supported by a certified copyright and media law attorney in Germany, went through a long process to enforce our license. These rights are explicit in the license and include access to the corresponding sources, and the right to reproduce, modify and distribute GPLed programs royalty-free.
#STOCKFISH CHESS ENGINE ONLINE SOFTWARE#
ChessBase repeatedly violated central obligations of the GPL, which ensures that the user of the software is informed of their rights. Indeed, few customers know they obtained a modified version of Stockfish when they paid for Fat Fritz 2 or Houdini 6 - both Stockfish derivatives - and they thus have good reason to be upset. We have come to realize that ChessBase concealed from their customers Stockfish as the true origin of key parts of their products (see also earlier blog posts by us and the joint Lichess, Leela Chess Zero, and Stockfish teams). Unfortunately, not everybody shares this vision of openness.
We license our software using the GNU General Public License, Version 3 (GPL) with the intent to guarantee all chess enthusiasts the freedom to use, share and change all versions of the program. Collaboration is what made this engine the strongest chess engine in the world. The Stockfish project strongly believes in free and open-source software and data.
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