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Yomguithereal / clj-fuzzy

A handy collection of algorithms dealing with fuzzy strings and phonetics.
http://yomguithereal.github.io/clj-fuzzy/
MIT License
262 stars 27 forks source link

Metaphone3 #17

Closed Yomguithereal closed 9 years ago

Yomguithereal commented 10 years ago

Is this even authorized?

domkm commented 10 years ago

Lawrence Philips donated his Java implementation of Metaphone3 to OpenRefine. While you would need his permission to use his source code, I don't think you would need his permission to write your own implementation of the algorithm in Clojure.

Yomguithereal commented 10 years ago

I would indeed love to write a Clojure implementation of the algortithm however I really don't know if this is legally permitted since the code is still being sold by Lawrence Philips. I recall having read somewhere in the licenses that it was forbidden to produce another implementation of the Metaphone3.

If you find any information about this particular issue, I'll be glad to hear them.

domkm commented 10 years ago

I am not a lawyer, but:

Algorithms are not protected by copyright though implementations of algorithms are. You could create a new implementation without violating Philips' copyright of his Java implementation.

Are you referring to the license that one accepts when purchasing Philips' Metaphone3 implementation? If so, I wouldn't worry about that since the Java source is openly available under OpenRefine's very permissive license.

domkm commented 9 years ago

There is a discussion on HackerNews about this exact issue.

Yomguithereal commented 9 years ago

Yes, I just stumbled upon this discussion. Thanks for the information.