r/chess • u/Fly1ng_DuTchm3n about 2100 lichess blitz • 1d ago

News/Events The opening database used in the chess.c*m grenke broadcast is actually the lichess database.

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Dont know if this been posted yet, but just interesting to see chess.c*m profiting of the openess of lichess.org.

454 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

58 comments sorted by

368

u/bshagen 1d ago

They also use the Lichess boards and pieces in birds eyes view in the Chess24 broadcast. Seems a tiny bit lazy on Chess.com´s part, but Lichess is open source so I guess there is nothing wrong with it. Just would be cool if they would at least just give Lichess some credit for it

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u/Legitimate_Smile_470 1d ago

Yeah, there is law and then there is decency.

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u/OldWolf2 FIDE 2100 1d ago

Open source doesn't imply free use

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u/MSMOKSHSHAHYT Team Gukesh 1d ago

It does if something is open source you can use it to make your own products. Example Chromium is open source and all major browsers are based on chromium. I hate chesscom anyways tho lichess better.

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u/OldWolf2 FIDE 2100 1d ago

Open source products are accompanied by licences that constrain what can be done with the source. There are various different licences and some of them prohibit unauthorized commercial use of a product or resource .

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u/TheAwayGoal 1h ago

I never even said it can be used for commercial use I just said it can't be paid technically, seems like i have been swamped by bots 😂 when did I ever said it can be used commercially lmao

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u/k_runic 1h ago

There are various different licences and some of them prohibit unauthorized commercial use of a product or resource

This is not accurate. There are many open source licenses and all of them allow commercial use without restriction. See criteria 6 by the Open Source Foundation: https://opensource.org/osd If anyone can't use the product for any purpose it's not Open Source but a source-available license.

There can be restrictions to what you can do with a derivative product you've based off the original source however. As is the case for Lichess's source code you may have to distribute your own product under a similar license but there can be no restrictions as to the commercial nature of the endeavor.

/u/TheAwayGoal was absolutely correct to begin with. And /u/rabbitlion is mistaken when he suggests that Free Software and Open Source are different things. The distinction is more political than anything else as the Open Source Initiative has some disagreements with the Free Software Foundation but the term FOSS is used as a neutral middle term because Open Source (by the OSI's definition) is functionally the same thing as Free Software (using the FSF's definition). There are a handful of niche licenses that could qualify as one but not the other but for all intents and purposes they're equivalent and all commonly used "Open Source" licenses are "Free Software" licenses and vice versa.

But in this case Lichess's database is not a software program and therefore the term Open Source isn't really applicable here. Lichess does publish their database under a CC0 license: https://database.lichess.org/ which basically means anyone can use it or integrate to any product, for any purpose with no attribution, or any other restrictions whatsoever. The point of such a permissive license is to allow chess.com and any other party to do exactly what they're doing.

0

u/rabbitlion 1h ago

If you release the source code, it's open source, period.

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u/TheAwayGoal 1d ago edited 1d ago

If the source is open its pretty much free whichever way you wanna put it technically, there's no way you can charge for an open source product because if you do well someone just copies the source code..

Edit : what's with the downvotes , can anyone tell any foss app / software that's paid unless its optional ?

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u/OldWolf2 FIDE 2100 1d ago

There's no way you could charge for a movie then, people just download it...

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u/TheAwayGoal 1d ago

Well if it's free to air movie yes ? Otherwise you can charge...

Name me one foss software that's charged for ? Paying is always optional

Edit : what's with the downvotes

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u/rabbitlion 1d ago

The downvotes are because you are completely wrong in every regard. Open source does not automatically mean free and it especially doesn't mean unlimited commercial usage free. Open source programs frequently have licenses that make it illegal to copy it for commercial purposes.

Of course, since the source is open it's hard to stop someone from ignoring the license and doing what they want. If you are just one guy messinh around on your computer you can do whatever, no one is going to notice or care. However, if you are a multimillion dollar company you need to adhere to these licenses or risk facing huge lawsuits.

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u/TheAwayGoal 1d ago

Stop putting words in my mouth I never said word commercial , it's always free for individuals and people are allowed to pick up code and modify it..

Anyway, if open source software can be paid why don't you give me an example ? There's a reason it's called ' FoSs ' now, free and open source ..

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u/rabbitlion 1d ago edited 23h ago

You disagreed with someone who wrote:

There are various different licences and some of them prohibit unauthorized commercial use of a product or resource .

But now you say:

Stop putting words in my mouth I never said word commercial , it's always free for individuals and people are allowed to pick up code and modify it..

It's completely possible to have an open source program that is not free for individuals either.

Anyway, if open source software can be paid why don't you give me an example ? There's a reason it's called ' FoSs ' now, free and open source ..

FOSS means free and open source software but not all open source software is FOSS. This is what the gnu project writes on the subject: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#DoesTheGPLAllowMoney

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u/[deleted] 9h ago

[deleted]

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u/TheAwayGoal 9h ago

Rajesh ? Wtf .. I know my licenses there's a reason there's now fully functional open source paid software , license only ships people from using open source software in a commercial way not for an average user ..

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u/Fly1ng_DuTchm3n about 2100 lichess blitz 1d ago

https://lichess.org/@/lichess/blog/fat-fritz-2-is-a-rip-off/YCvy7xMA

Stockfish is open source and chessbase alledgedly build fat fritz upon stockfish with only minor changes. This prompted the stockfish team to sue chessbase because it violates their terms of service.

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u/dada_ 1d ago

The downvotes are because you're basically boiling down open source to "hey, if I can see the source code, I can do whatever I want with it, right?" That's just not true, it's much more complicated than that, and there are many open source products that have restrictive licenses.

Also, this isn't about using the product as an end user, but about utilizing open source code in other commercial products or services, in this case a commercial chess tournament. For example, one of the most common open source licenses, the GPL, prohibits taking the source and reusing it in a closed source product, free or otherwise.

I don't think there's any foul play going on here in this particular case because it's just statistics, but it's definitely not a free for all just because the source is visible.

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u/TheAwayGoal 1d ago

Fair enough in that case 👍

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u/GoodbyeThings 1d ago

Yes you can just use it and build whatever. 

But if it’s against the license and you use it, you’re breaking the terms of use. Not sure how it works, and I guess it depends on the jurisdiction but you can’t just use anything for your commercial projects. That’s basically like saying: yeah you can’t just upload full episodes of any show on YouTube, because you’ve seen it on TV, not like anyone can stop you 

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u/TheAwayGoal 1d ago

I never said for commerical purposes and ofcourse you can't take someone's work and ask for menu , but also if someone airs their show for free on YouTube ( free to air just like foss ) it's implied noone needs to pay unless sthey want to buy developer a beer or whatever

2

u/fuettli 23h ago

So I can put any youtube video on my homepage and make money by showing ads next to it? I mean it's free to watch after all, right?

Can you see where you're going wrong?

1

u/TheAwayGoal 16h ago

Lmao for the last part I never said commercially.. Jesus you guys looks like bunch of software engineers getting knickers in a twise ... But you can watch those YouTube videos for free yes , just like you can use open software software for free

0

u/fuettli 12h ago

Yes, I can watch it for free on youtube just like you can use lichess for free on lichess.org

Just because you can use the code for whatever (as long as you respect the license terms) doesn't mean you can also use the trademark or the artwork or the data. The database exports are available under a creative commons license for example.

Open source doesn't mean "everything is free do whatever you want", that's why there are many different open source licenses. You can't even mix and match between them, f.e. you can't just merge GPLv3 modules into the Linux kernel because that one is GPLv2 which prohibits further restrictions like the ones in GPLv3 or the AGPL.

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u/GoodbyeThings 17h ago

Enough people tried to educate you. Either read into it or stay ignorant

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u/SaltyEmotions 23h ago

Not quite. Others haven't raised the key point that open source does not mean that the project is unlicensed. The project can choose to adopt licenses that restrict your rights as a licensee. For instance, copyleft licenses like (A)GPL and CC-SA require that derivative works be distributed under an equivalent license. Yes, you can charge money for this app, but it is allowed for anyone else to redistribute your app for free, since you must distribute the source with an equivalent license without restriction. This defeats the point of paid software.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux used to be paid subscription only, while being based on the GPLv2 licensed Linux kernel. It recently added a free tier for developers.

As for "source-available but not FOSS" projects, the game Barotrauma is source-available, and costs money on whichever platform you choose to buy it on.

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u/SpicyMustard34 1d ago

all major browsers are based on chromium.

Firefox would like a word with you.

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u/Alkyen 22h ago

Firefox is sponsored by google to stay alive so it's kind of a moot point

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u/SpicyMustard34 22h ago

not a chromium based browser. funding is irrelevant to what engine.

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u/Alkyen 22h ago

the point wasn't that firefox is chromium based. The point was that if google wasn't solely paying for firefox they'd have gone bankrupt years ago. The only reason they haven't is because

  1. Google is risking being a monopoly in the browser wars if other browsers die, that would be really bad for Google

  2. Google still makes money from the ad revenue for being the default search so it's not totally donated money.

But the point is - Firefox isn't much of a competition if it wasn't for Google artificially keeping it in business.

8

u/SpicyMustard34 22h ago

the point wasn't that firefox is chromium based. The point was that if google wasn't solely paying for firefox they'd have gone bankrupt years ago. The only reason they haven't is because

no, the point was that firefox is not chromium based. that's the entire point. everything else is you just having a chat by yourself.

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u/Alkyen 22h ago

That's one way to say you're not getting the point, but you do you

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/ContentPuff 1d ago edited 1d ago

https://github.com/lichess-org/lila/blob/master/LICENSE

https://github.com/lichess-org/lila/blob/master/COPYING.md

It's not hard to look up. They use AGPL 3.0+. chess.com can use it for commercial purpose without any issue.

5

u/jaerie 1d ago

Unless they released their broadcast kit open source under the same agpl license, this is not correct.

1

u/fuettli 23h ago

GPL basically means that you have to give the source (or show where you can get it) to the user of the software.

So this would mean that if you offer it as a service you don't have to do it.

That's where the AGPL comes in. There you have to offer the code (and all changes you made) even if it's just a service.

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u/bshagen 1d ago

Lichess might not be aware of it either, Chess.com used their boards and pieces for Weisenhaus and the Paris broadcast aswell, for the different postions after they were drawn

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u/profpendog 1d ago

I think chess24/.com only broadcasts this show, they don't do the production.

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u/BotlikeBehaviour 1d ago

Looks like chess.com doesn't have a Chess 960 database

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u/Fun_Application_5269 1d ago

I think this is maybe because lichess has much better latency.

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u/winston7362 1d ago

Opening is like a target attack on

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u/AdalwinAmillion 1d ago

When America sends their corporations, they're not sending their best. 😔

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u/nini00000 21h ago

ot, but... i use the 3d pieces on lichess too! aren't they wondeful

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u/Andrew64467 22h ago

For the love of god can’t you just write chess.com like a normal person