Internet Chess Server: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 12:09, 6 June 2006

Revision as of 22:55, 16 June 2006

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In late [[1992]], [[Daniel Sleator]], professor of [[computer science]] at Carnegie Mellon University, took over management of the ICS. He addressed, among other issues, the frequent complaint that players would lose blitz games on time due to Internet lag. In 1994, he copyrighted the code, and began receiving purchase offers from companies wanting to commercialize the server. There were questions about whether Sleator was right to claim that the ICS was his intellectual property, since he did not code the original server, although he had made substantial improvements to its code.

On [[March 1]], [[1995]], Sleator announced his intentions to commercialize ICS himself, renaming it the [[Internet Chess Club]], or ICC, and charging a yearly membership fee of $49. This announcement was highly controversial among existing members. Many volunteers who had contributed in various ways to the flourishing of ICS were upset that anyone would attempt to profit from their efforts. Active players on the server who were used to the service being provided without charge were not pleased with the addition of the membership fee.

A handful of programmers who had worked on the original ICS became unhappy with what they saw as the commoditization of their project. They formed the Free Internet Chess Server (FICS), and continued to allow everyone to have access to all features for free. In 1996, John Fanning, uncle of [[Napster]] founder [[Shawn Fanning]], started [http://chess.net chess.net], a commercial Internet chess server to rival ICC. Both services remain operational today.

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== Available servers ==

Over the years, several Internet chess servers have been created. The Internet Chess Club, with over 30,000 members, is by far the largest server. The second largest server is [[Playchess.com]], the third largest is [[Free Internet Chess Server]]. Other servers include [[World Chess Network]], [[Chess Live]], [[Chess.net]], and [[ChessAnyTime]], [[FICGS]], as well as various local servers. However, these servers have significantly less membership than the ICC and FICS.

== See also ==

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== External links ==

*[http://members.cox.net/cpetroff/FICS/ History of the Internet Chess Server], 1992-1995 by Chris Petroff

*[http://www.tim-mann.org/ics.html A brief overview of Internet chess servers] by Tim Mann

*[http://members.cox.net/cpetroff/FICS/ History of the Internet Chess Server], 1992-1995covers 1992–1995, by Chris Petroff

*[http://chessd.sourceforge.net/index-en.php ChessD], an [[Open source|open-source]] ICS implementation

*[http://chess.samba.org/ Lasker Chess Server], another ICS implementation, based on ChessD

[[Category:Chess]]