

Ask HN: Best practices for "citing" research papers used in a startup? - kliao

Suppose you implement an algorithm published in a research paper and use it in your startup. Is it necessary to somehow "cite" the paper? Is it as informal as dropping the author(s) an e-mail and saying, "Hey, cool algorithm. Just wanted to let you know I used it..." or is there some formal legal process?
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sunir
You don't need to cite the paper. You only need to cite your sources if you
are publishing further academic literature. The whole point of publishing
literature is to enable other people to actually use the findings in practical
life.

If it so moves you, you can write a nice blog post about the algorithm and
send an email thanking the author.

You should also be careful. The original author or their institution may have
patented the algorithm.

