ChessBase GmbH is a German company that makes and sells chess software, maintains a chess news site and operates an internet server for online chess.
The company allegedly used a modified version of the free Stockfish engine to market their engines without giving credit and earlier this month they were sued by Stockfish who has claimed that ChessBase violated Stockfish's GNU General Public License.
Stockfish states they license their software using the GNU General Public License with the intent of guaranteeing all chess enthusiasts the freedom to use, share and change all versions of the program.
Their contention is that ChessBase concealed from their customers that Stockfish was the origin of key parts of their products and most of ChessBase's customers didn't know that all they were buying when they bought Fat Fritz 2 and Houdini 6 was a modified version of Stockfish.
One of the obligations of the license is that the user of the software must be informed of their rights which includes access to the sources and the right to reproduce, modify and distribute GPL programs royalty free.
Stockfish states that during the past four months they had a copyright and media law attorney in Germany enforce their license. Initial success lead to a recall of the Fat Fritz 2 DVD and the termination of the sales of Houdini 6.
On the ChessBase web site a search for "Houdini" comes up blank. A search for "Fat Fritz" yields Fat Fritz 2 SE which they acknowledge is based on Stockfish. It sells for a little over $118 which seems preposterous. You can get Komodo Dragon Two for $75.
On the CCLR 40/40 rating list Stockfish 13 is still ranked number one and it is followed by Fat Fritz 2 and Komodo Dragon. Currently Stockfish's record against Fat Fritz 2 is +0 -0 =52 and against Komodo Dragon its score is +8 -0 =42. Against Houdini 6 Stockfish has piled up a +27 -0 =25 score.
I guess my point is, why would you want to pay $75 to $118 when you can get a better engine absolutely free? And, if you want to use Komodo as a check on Stockfish you can download Komodo 12 off their site for free.
Stockfish developers claim that due to ChessBase’s repeated license violations, they have terminated their GPL license with ChessBase permanently, but ChessBase is ignoring the fact that they no longer have the right to distribute Stockfish, modified or unmodified, as part of their products. Thus, to enforce the license termination, Stockfish filed a lawsuit.
As with most legal cases things are murky and it will be interesting to see how this plays out. You can read all the details of the whole mess on HackerNews HERE.
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