Home * Engines * Open Source Engines

Small and Easy

Just getting started? These engines are quite small, making them easy to understand.

• FCP by Ian Osgood - a derivation of TSCP written in the Forth programming language
• Micro-Max by Harm Geert Muller - just 100 lines of code with 34+ web pages of explanation!
• p4wn by Douglas Bagnall - A smallish public domain chess engine.
• pChess ^[1] by John Roland Penner - Original pedagogical engine written in FutureBasic with source code for Mac OSX
• Pulse by Phokham Nonava - a didactic engine written in Java
• SCP - Stanback Chess Program - base of GNU Chess 2-4
• Sunfish by Thomas Dybdahl Ahle - a didactic engine written in Python
• TSCP - Tom Kerrigan's Simple Chess Program » TSCP - Tom Kerrigan's Home Page

Middle tier

These are engines which are not necessarily strong, but they show implementation details of things like null move or transposition table :

• CPW-Engine by Pawel Koziol and Edmund Moshammer
• Faile by Adrien Regimbald (very clean search code)
• Gerbil by Bruce Moreland
• NG-play by George Georgopoulos - A small, open source engine (small memory usage), written in C
• Vice - the Video Instructional Chess Engine by BlueFeverSoft, written in C

More advanced

More advanced? There are many stronger engines available which include the source. These include:

• ChessV by Gregory Strong - plays over 50 chess variants as well as Orthodox Chess ^[2]
• Crafty by Robert Hyatt
• Daydreamer by Aaron Becker
• Fruit by Fabien Letouzey
• Glaurung by Tord Romstad ^[3]
• GNU Chess
• Scorpio by Daniel Shawul
• Senpai by Fabien Letouzey
• Stockfish by Tord Romstad, Marco Costalba, and Joona Kiiski

Dynamic portion

To expand this list, create a new engine page with the tag "opensourceengines".

• 1. Abulafia
  2. AdaChess
  3. Alfil
  4. AliBaba
  5. Alice
  6. Amoeba
  7. Amundsen
  8. Amy
  9. Android-Chess
  10. APIL chess
  11. Arasan
  12. asmFish
  13. Bagatur
  14. Barbarossa
  15. BBChess (SI)
  16. Beaches
  17. Belofte
  18. Belzebub
  19. Beowulf
  20. Betsabe
  21. Bills Bare Bones Chess
  22. Bismark
  23. Bison
  24. Bitfoot
  25. Bobcat
  26. Booot
  27. Brainless
  28. Brainless (Forth)
  29. Brutus NL
  30. Buzz
  31. Calculon
  32. Carballo
  33. Cassandre
  34. CFish
  35. Chenard
  36. Cheng
  37. Cheops (Miller)
  38. Chesley
  39. Chess 0.5
  40. Chess At Nite
  41. chess22k
  42. chess4j
  43. ChessBin.com
  44. ChessBrainVB
  45. Chessterfield
  46. Chest
  47. Cinnamon
  48. Claudia
  49. Clubfoot
  50. Cluster Toga
  51. CMU Chess Program
  52. Conqueror
  53. CookieCat
  54. Counter
  55. CPW-Engine
  56. Crafty
  57. CrazyWa
  58. Critter
  59. CuckooChess
  60. Cupcake
  61. Cyclone
  62. DanaSah
  63. DayDreamer
  64. Deep Pink
  65. Delfi
  66. Demolito
  67. Diablo
  68. DiscoCheck
  69. Dolphin
  70. DON
  71. Donna
  72. Dorpsgek
  73. Dreamer
  74. DroidFish
  75. Dumb
  76. Embla
  77. Ethereal
  78. Exacto
  79. EXchess
  80. Faile
  81. FCP
  82. Firenzina
  83. Firstchess
  84. Floyd
  85. Flux
  86. Freyr
  87. Fridolin
  88. Fruit
  89. Fruit Reloaded
  90. FUSCsharp
  91. Galjoen
  92. Gambit Fruit
  93. GambitVB
  94. Garbochess
  95. Garbochess-JS
  96. Gerbil
  97. Gibbon
  98. Giraffe
  99. GiuChess
  100. Gk
  101. Glaurung
  102. GNU Chess
  103. GoChess
  104. Godot
  105. GopherCheck
  106. Greko
  107. GullChess
  108. Gullydeckel
  109. Gupta
  110. Hakkapeliitta
  111. HAL
  112. HeavyChess
  113. Ifrit
  114. Igorrit
  115. iota
  116. Ippolit
  117. Ivanhoe
  118. Jabba
  119. Jazz
  120. Jester US
  121. JFresh
  122. Joanna
  123. Joker IT
  124. KC Chess
  125. Kholin
  126. KingSlayer
  127. Kiwi
  128. KnightCap
  129. Kurt
  130. LarsenVB
  131. Laser
  132. LCZero
  133. Lime
  134. Little Rook Chess
  135. Little Wing
  136. Lozza
  137. LTChess
  138. MadChess
  139. Madlenka
  140. Marvin
  141. Matilde
  142. Maverick
  143. McBrain
  144. Micro-Max
  145. Minimax (program)
  146. MinkoChess
  147. MLChess
  148. MSCP
  149. Murka
  150. Myopic
  151. Napoleon
  152. Natwarlal
  153. Nemeton
  154. Nemorino
  155. NG-play
  156. NoraGrace
  157. Numpty chess
  158. Obender
  159. Octochess
  160. OliThink
  161. p4wn
  162. Paladin
  163. Parrot
  164. Pawny
  165. Pepito
  166. Phalanx
  167. Phoenix (Rahul)
  168. Pigeon
  169. PolarChess
  170. Popeye
  171. Portfish
  172. Porucznik
  173. ProChess IT
  174. Prophet
  175. Protector
  176. PsycoChess
  177. Pulse
  178. Purple Haze
  179. PyChess
  180. QuTeChess
  181. Ramjet
  182. RattateChess
  183. RDChess
  184. RedQueen
  185. Rival
  186. Robbolito
  187. Robocide
  188. Rocinante
  189. Rodent
  190. RomiChess
  191. RumbleMinze
  192. RuyDos
  193. SAL
  194. Sayuri
  195. Scidlet
  196. Scorpio
  197. SCP
  198. Senpai
  199. Sharp Chess
  200. SharpChess
  201. Shatranj (toolkit)
  202. Simon
  203. Simplex
  204. Sjaak (Glebbeek)
  205. Sjeng
  206. Sloppy
  207. Slow Chess
  208. Small Potato
  209. Smash
  210. Smaug
  211. Soldat
  212. Spector
  213. Sting
  214. Stockfish
  215. Stockfish-js
  216. Strelka
  217. SugaR
  218. Sunfish
  219. Sungorus
  220. Sunsetter
  221. Superpawn
  222. Supra
  223. Teki
  224. Texel
  225. The Turk (TR)
  226. Thor's Hammer
  227. Toga
  228. Toledo
  229. tomitankChess
  230. TSCP
  231. Tucano
  232. Tunguska
  233. Turbo Chess
  234. Typhoon
  235. Vajolet
  236. Vanilla Chess
  237. Vice
  238. Viper
  239. Wing
  240. Winglet
  241. Winter
  242. Witz
  243. Woodpecker
  244. WyldChess
  245. Xadreco
  246. Xiphos
  247. Xpdnt
  248. ZCT
  249. Zeta Dva
  250. Zevra
  251. Ziggy IS
  252. Zochova
  253. Zurichess
  254. Zzzzzz

See also

• Fabio Cavicchio on Open Source
• Rémi Coulom on Open Source
• Alexander Naumov on Open Source
• Free Software Foundation

Publications

• Krzysztof Siewicz (2005). Legal issues of Open Source Software. Background of the Research Proposal, pdf
• Krzysztof Siewicz (2010). Towards an improved regulatory framework of free software : protecting user freedoms in a world of software communities and eGovernments. Doctoral thesis, Leiden University, Promoters: Jaap van den Herik, A.H.J. Schmidt
• Jaap van den Herik, Krzysztof Siewicz (2011). Open Source has a Price. ICGA Journal, Vol. 34, No. 2

Forum Posts

• which programs have opened their source? by Alejandro Dubrovsky, Winboard Forum, June 13, 2002
• Dilemma with completely free sources at certain level by Günther Simon, Winboard Forum, January 29, 2005
• Most Basic Open Source Chess Engine For Beginner Engine Devs by netiad, Winboard Forum, September 18, 2010
• Licensing by Shawn Chidester, CCC, April 03, 2015

External Links

• Copyright from Wikipedia
• Copyright infringement from Wikipedia
• Free software from Wikipedia
• Free software movemen from Wikipedia
• GNU General Public License from Wikipedia (GPL)
• GNU Lesser General Public License from Wikipedia
• Intellectual property from Wikipedia
• MIT License from Wikipedia
• Open source from Wikipedia
• Open source software from Wikipedia
• Shareware from Wikipedia
• Hans Koller Free Sound - Freddy, Berliner Jazztage, Philharmonie, Berlin, November 01, 1974, YouTube Video
  Hans Koller, Zbigniew Seifert, Wolfgang Dauner, Adelhard Roidinger, Janusz Stefanski
  

References

1. ^ Storm's Nest - Creative Work
2. ^ ChessV from Wikipedia
3. ^ Glaurung 0.1.5 source code by Tord Romstad, Winboard Forum, November 30, 2004

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