Stockfish chess license8/18/2023 ![]() ![]() Therefore, there may be some argument as to whether the termination provisions of section 8 are effective, and if not, whether they are severable from the rest of the license. While the GPL (either version) does not actually contain an express severability clause, it also does not contain an express inseverability clause (although some of the language in section 12, version 3, might have that effect with respect to the most important terms of the license). At least in common law jurisdictions,* the usual rule is that validity has to be litigated term-by-term. We would like to thank our fans for their support, and encourage them to download and use the official version of Stockfish that we enjoy developing and sharing freely.The "validity" of a license (or contract) is not an all-or-nothing affair. We will provide an update to this statement once significant progress has been made. We believe we have the evidence, the financial means and the determination to bring this lawsuit to a successful end. This lawsuit is broadly supported by the team of maintainers and developers of Stockfish. 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. 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. This has been posted on numerous other websites, but I felt it was worth putting on also. Instead, I've copied the announcement from the Stockfish Blog. Unfortunately I'm too lazy to write a decent post explaining the details. As usual, I was wrong! Today the Stockfish team announced they have filed a lawsuit against ChessBase, claiming a violation of the GPL. I covered that controversy in a previous blog post, predicting that nothing would result other than a lot of shouting. A few months ago ChessBase released Fat Fritz II, setting off a firestorm of criticism from the open-source chess community.
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