Except for the relation between not finding 9x9 games which is *not* real go, you can find as many 19x19 games as you want, I agree with Chrilly.
Let's accept it. We are amateurs, all except those who are paid by some University to research on go. And even some of them are, because a serious go project takes many years and some have one semester. We have other jobs and (at least myself) try to work less for the money and dedicate 20 hours per week to go programming. We would be very happy to work 60 hours a week on go programming if someone else paid the bills, but that's not the case. I my opinion, the most important software project of the decade, i.e. writing a non-Microsoft _compatible_ operating system, is called wine http://www.winehq.org/ and also looks amateurish. (I don't really know who works there.) 3D studio and other successful projects started as amateur job, so there is nothing wrong in being amateurs. There is no program today which is so much better than free programs that is worth paying for it, so we can't blame the users. We should blame ourselves for not being able to write a program that is worth its price. Also, I don't even doubt that the day computer go can challenge the strongest pro player, the media will understand the importance of the event. (In fact, computer go is already in the media: The Economist, The Times, Scientific American, Abcnews, Reuters, have all written articles in 2007.) And companies will understand that if they want their names related to a historical event like that with no possible repetition in the future, something like the first man on the moon, they will have to pay for it. The money payed for deep blue will be like comparing 1950s with 2007s football contracts. "Go is played only by a small freak community." That's not true. Like chess players were admired in the previous century as superintelligent human beings and today no one is interested in chess except the chess community. Go still keeps the "supreme form of intelligence" myth. And after go, there is void. Of course, you can always invent new games, but you cannot invent millenary games with millions of players. Someone is going to make millions with this. Don't know when, don't know how. I wish I knew ;-) Jacques. _______________________________________________ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
