GNU Chess

GNU Chess is a chess-playing program. It can be used to play chess against the computer on a terminal or, more commonly, as a chess engine for graphical chess frontends such as XBoard.

The current version is 6.2.9. The 6.2.x series includes the following features with respect to previous 6.1.x:

"Tighter connection" with XBoard by means of an engine file and a logo, as expected by XBoard (>= 4.6.0).
A simple man page based on help2man.
Additional translations.
Bug fixes.
New commands.
Command history enabled by readline.

Downloading GNU Chess

GNU Chess can be found on the main GNU ftp server: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/chess/ (via HTTP) and ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/chess/ (via FTP). It can also be found on the GNU mirrors; please use a mirror if possible.

Documentation

Documentation for GNU Chess is available online, as is documentation for most GNU software. You may also find more information about GNU Chess by running info chess or man chess, or by looking at /usr/share/doc/chess/, /usr/local/doc/chess/, or similar directories on your system. A brief summary is available by running gnuchess --help.

Mailing lists

GNU Chess has the following mailing lists:

bug-gnu-chess is used to discuss most aspects of GNU Chess, including development and enhancement requests, as well as bug reports.
info-gnu-chess is for general user help and discussion.

Announcements about GNU Chess and most other GNU software are made on info-gnu (archive).

Security reports that should not be made immediately public can be sent directly to the maintainer. If there is no response to an urgent issue, you can escalate to the general security mailing list for advice.

Getting involved

Development of GNU Chess, and GNU in general, is a volunteer effort, and you can contribute. For information, please read How to help GNU. If you'd like to get involved, it's a good idea to join the discussion mailing list (see above).

Test releases: Trying the latest test release (when available) is always appreciated. Test releases of GNU Chess can be found at http://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/chess/ (via HTTP) and ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/chess/ (via FTP).
Development: For development sources, issue trackers, and other information, please see the GNU Chess project page at savannah.gnu.org.
Translating GNU Chess: To translate GNU Chess's messages into other languages, please see the Translation Project page for GNU Chess. If you have a new translation of the message strings, or updates to the existing strings, please have the changes made in this repository. Only translations from this site will be incorporated into GNU Chess. For more information, see the Translation Project.
Maintainer: GNU Chess is currently being maintained by Antonio Ceballos. Please use the mailing lists for contact.

Licensing

GNU Chess is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.