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It is what is known to be legally safe. We do it all the time in GNU Octave, and we always tell people to not read Matlab source code when implementing Octave f
by jordigh 12y ago
It is what is known to be legally safe. We do it all the time in GNU Octave, and we always tell people to not read Matlab source code when implementing Octave functions.
Besides, I just don't feel like it's fair to the R copyright authors. They worked hard to produce an implementation and they copylefted it, and I heavily relied on their implementation in order to reimplement it myself.
According to the United States Copyright Office[1], the algorithm itself can't be copyrighted, so that's why I wrote a high-level description of the algorithm.
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[1] "Copyright protection is not available for ideas, program logic, algorithms, systems, methods, concepts, or layouts."
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ61.pdf http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ61.pdf
- shoyer 12y agoI agree -- you shouldn't read sources you don't want to treat as derivative while you're writing an independent implementation. So yes, the code you've already written is GPL. But suppose you decide to reimplement the algorithm now, months later (based only on the notes you wrote on Wikipedia). I'm not a lawyer, but I would say that's almost certainly independent, unless you have extraordinary memory.
- jordigh 12y agoI don't know. Maybe. I don't know how a judge and a jury would interpret that situation. They might agree with you or they might not. The only safe jurisprudence I know of is clean-room design, and it's what the SFLC documents I have received recommend.