Free Internet Chess Server
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Free Internet Chess Server (FICS), a volunteer-run internet chess system organized as a permanent free alternative to the originally free and later commercial Internet Chess Club. In the late 1980s a band of volunteers created the first Internet chess server (ICS) for fun. Players logged in by telnet, the board was displayed as ASCII text Bugs in the server software allowed, for example, rooks to be taken en passant, but the server was popular among a small group of chess enthusiasts excited by the possibility of playing chess at great distances with the new technology.
Over time more and more features were added to ICS, such as ELO ratings and a choice of graphical interfaces. The playing pool grew steadily, many of the server bugs were fixed, and players began to have higher expectations for stability.
In 1992, Daniel Sleator volunteered to take over as head programmer, and began a large overhaul of the server code. 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.
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. ICC distributed several dozen free accounts to volunteers, but not everyone was mollified. Active players on the server who were used to the service being provided without charge were not pleased with the addition of the steep membership fee. Also, students complained that the $49 per year bill was too much for them to pay, but ICC implemented a policy where students could receive a student discout rate at $29 per year. Further, 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.
A handful of programmers who had worked on the original ICS and were not happy with what they saw as the commodification of their project, organized by Chris Petroff, formed the Free Internet Chess Server (FICS), and continued to allow everyone to have access to all features for free. The server remains operational today.
See the Internet Chess Club entry for more history.
External links
- Free Internet Chess Server (http://www.freechess.org)
- The Free FICS Forum (http://s6.invisionfree.com/Free_FICS_Forum/)
- http://www.faqs.org/faqs/games/chess/computer/part1/
- http://www.edcollins.com/chess/yahoo-vs-servers.htm
- http://www.edcollins.com/chess/fics-icc.htm