Metaphone3

[yomguithereal]

Metaphone3

[domkm]

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]

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]

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]

There is a discussion on HackerNews about this exact issue.

[Yomguithereal]

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