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. We inform interested parties that the public is permitted to attend and will update on the progress made.A few months ago ChessBase released Fat Fritz II, setting off a firestorm of criticism from the open-source chess community. The hearing is scheduled to take place on Monday, July 4th, 2022, 11am in Munich (Germany): We have applied to the court to order ChessBase to cease distributing Stockfish in all forms, including Fat Fritz 2 and Houdini 6, as the GPLv3 license has been terminated permanently according to section 8, and to cover our legal expenses. GPLv3 requires that the user is informed of their rights, has access to the corresponding sources, and has the right to reproduce, modify and distribute GPLed programs royalty-free. In recent months, we have presented to the court detailed evidence that the ChessBase products Houdini 6 and Fat Fritz 2 have copied extensive parts of the Stockfish code base authored by the plaintiffs and that ChessBase repeatedly violated central obligations of the GPLv3 license. The court hearing in the case Tord Romstad and Stéphane Nicolet vs. As announced nearly one year ago, leading Stockfish developers have filed suit against ChessBase to enforce their license termination after repeated copyright violation by ChessBase.
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