
“I am not authorizing you to release a Ruby port of Metaphone 3” - matthewmacleod
https://github.com/threedaymonk/text/issues/21#issuecomment-67752327
======
dewitt
Before anyone mocks this guy (sadly, partly too late), please try to keep in
mind that he (a) does have a reasonable right to what he says he wants (to
have some say in what he believes are his inventions), and (b) it's an
illustration that the rules of intellectual property and open source are not
always clear, even to those following well-established patterns.

While he's inarguably incorrect about quite a number of things, it's always
better practice to assume the best of a fellow engineer and treat this as a
teaching opportunity, not a cause for pitchforks and belittlement.

The package maintainer, threedaymonk, handled it perfectly, imo, by respecting
the desires of the individual and _not_ porting it, and closing the issue out
quickly without further escalation. While it may have been technically "right"
to copy the code, it wouldn't have been worth the damage it would have caused
to the person behind it. Credit for handling a unfortunate situation with
grace.

~~~
nlksnclds
>assume the best of a fellow _engineer_

Quit calling yourselves that: you're all web developers, not engineers. At the
end of the day, 95% of what people on HN do revolves around making pretty
websites for the internet.

You have not taken the FE exam, you did not study engineering, you are not
certified as an engineer. This is just the latest way that CS graduates are
trying to self aggrandize and de-trivialize their profession.

~~~
mynameisvlad
Unless you are in some specific locations such as Canada, where the term
"engineer" is tightly controlled, then you can call yourself whatever the fuck
you want. "Software engineer" does not imply any of the things you said in the
United States.

I can call myself a software ninja if I wanted to. That doesn't mean I
practiced the art of ninjas. I can call myself a code monkey. That doesn't
mean I'm actually a monkey. It's just a fucking title, so get over it. If
that's my actual title at a company then I'm going to use it publicly too.

~~~
mcmancini
Or Texas. Or, as I have heard, Florida. Now that there is a proper software
engineering PE exam, maybe more states will follow.

It makes sense for safety critical areas to hold people to professional
standards and legal liability.

Edit: speling

~~~
mynameisvlad
Updated to be more general, I thought Canada was unique due to some of the
ceremonies engineers go through (eg. Iron ring)

~~~
mcmancini
No, and the US has an "Order of the Engineer" modeled after that. It always
seemed silly to me to wear a ring on your working hand when the first thing
you do when working with your hands is to take of jewelry.

"Engineer" is a protected job title in the US, but most are able to operate
under an industrial exemption and so legally use the title.

The reason why some are picky about the title is that it is a licensed
profession, and has some expectations associated with it. If someone tells me
they're an engineer, I assume they know how to use a Laplace transform,
because that's common across disciplines at the undergraduate level. Same as
applying perturbation theory at the graduate level. Same as having a common
corpus of basic science knowledge. Same as with professional code of ethics.
Etc.

To use your own logic above, calling yourself a software ninja doesn't make
you a ninja, and calling yourself a software engineer doesn't make you an
engineer. It might be legal, but it's crass.

~~~
mynameisvlad
> Laplace transform, because that's common across disciplines at the
> undergraduate level

At your specific institution. Every school has different curriculum, both
within the engineering programs themselves, and when compared to other
schools. There is no unified curriculum nor is there one unified thing that
all engineers, regardless of their schooling, would know because I'm sure, at
one school or another, that one thing would not be taught.

And what, exactly, is so crass about it? As I said, it's just a goddamn title.
A made up word used to describe yourself. There's nothing inherently
disrespectful about using a title. It doesn't instantly diminish the title of
every other engineer on the planet just because someone decided to call
themselves an engineer without getting a B.AS. I could call myself the Queen
of Rotunda, my made up domain. That doesn't suddenly mean that I'm
disrespecting Queen Elizabeth, or any other queen in the world.

~~~
mcmancini
I'm not sure you're informed on this topic.

The whole point of having ABET accredit programs is to standardize a basic
body of knowledge. Curricula in mechanical, chemical, electrical, and
biomedical all include solving DEQ and PDE systems. Solving those without
Laplace transforms is cruel, once the basic principles are understood of
course.

If it's just a goddamn title, then you wouldn't be so insistent on using it.
You want to use it because it implies a level of education and
professionalism. It's crass to use the title because there is such a thing as
software engineering, and the people most strongly insisting to use the title
don't practice it. Like I said, you can legally use it, but licensed engineers
are rolling their eyes when your back is turned.

~~~
mynameisvlad
The very fact that you have a body accrediting programs means that there will
be many schools serving up engineering degrees that are not accredited by ABET
or one of its member societies, especially internationally. Are these people
suddenly not engineers just because a licensing body has not bestowed their
program the honour of accreditation? Just because there's an accreditation
board does not suddenly make it the only ruling body on who can use the title
"engineer". Unless it's actually illegal to be an engineer without being
accredited by ABET, then their word really means jack shit.

> there is such a thing as software engineering

Which differs from place to place, yes. Not every program has been accredited
but still provide software engineering degrees, perhaps with elements that
would not be found in another's curriculum.

> and the people most strongly insisting to use the title don't practice it

Just because you don't have an accreditation does not mean you "don't practice
it".

> Like I said, you can legally use it, but licensed engineers are rolling
> their eyes when your back is turned.

Good for them. They can roll their eyes all they want, it doesn't make them
more right to do it.

~~~
mcmancini
Sort of; they were likely never engineers in the first place. Engineer is a
licensed profession, like physician or lawyer. You can graduate law school,
but that doesn't make you a lawyer; passing the bar does. In the US, it
depends on the state, but the easiest path towards licensure is to graduate
from an ABET-accredited undergraduate program. Some allow you to proceed to
licensure without that, but it requires extra experience to compensate.

ABET does accredit international programs.

~~~
mynameisvlad
> ABET does accredit international programs.

Some international programs. They don't have nearly enough capacity to
accredit every single international engineering program all over the world.
I'm sure they have the major ones down, but there's plenty that are probably
not which still teach engineering.

> Engineer is a licensed profession, like physician or lawyer.

The license only gives you the right to call yourself a _Professional_
Engineer. Like I said before, unless it is illegal to call yourself an
engineer without being a PEng and being licensed, then the "licensed
profession" part of it really does not matter. A company can require you to be
a PEng in order to receive an "engineer" title in your role, but there is
still nothing, short of law that prevents you from using it yourself.

> like physician or lawyer.

And they're both different from engineer, because those licensed professions
are actually legally enforced, whereas "engineer" is not legally enforced
everywhere.

~~~
mcmancini
No, the license allows one to offer engineering services to the public and the
PE title is granted in recognition of that right. It is generally illegal to
call yourself an engineer, but most people are able to use the industrial
exemption. Nevertheless, in using the industrial exemption one is not offering
engineering services to the general public. I don't know what happens if you
tried to use the industrial exemption but offered services to the public, but
I think it's prohibited.

This all varies between states, but in general, if you for example started a
software consulting firm called Vlad Engineering and the principals were not
licensed, your local licensing board would likely have beef with you. If you
were a software engineer at Vlad Consulting you would probably be okay.

The bottom line is that it's tricky to navigate, and so it was recommended at
my school we avoid using engineering anywhere unless we had our PE license.

~~~
jacalata
[http://www.growthengineering.co.uk/](http://www.growthengineering.co.uk/)

------
SwellJoe
It's always surprising how little people understand the licenses they publish
their code under. BSD does not make something public domain, but it _does_
allow derivative works and inclusion in completely unrelated projects, without
permission of the author. Rewriting it, from scratch, in another language
generally completely bypasses even the requirement to reproduce the copyright
notice (unless there are data structures being copied over, or similar, that
copyright would apply to).

Algorithms are sometimes subject to patents, though I believe they shouldn't
be, and if the author wanted this sort of control over the algorithm a patent
is the path he should have taken, but as far as I can tell the author has not
patented this particular algorithm (and I doubt it is novel, as it sounds
similar to quite a few pre-existing tools in related fields).

This is just a sort of weird conversation. Why Open Source something if you
don't want people to use it in interesting ways?

~~~
bhouston
Re-writing the code using the original source as a guide means it is a
derivative work if you want to get picky. Changing the programming language
doesn't make it non-derivative.

If you want a non-derivative work you need to do something like a clean room
implementation where the one writing the code doesn't have access to the code
of the existing implementation:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design)

BTW this guy can not stop derivative works once he has released it as BSD.

~~~
learnstats2
> BTW this guy can not stop derivative works once he has released it as BSD.

Aside: Isn't is possible to revoke a license?

~~~
rwmj
The other answers to your question are not correct. In some countries,
authors' "moral rights" can include the right to withdraw the software, saying
"I don't want you to continue distributing the software", which is similar to
retroactively revoking the license. For the situation in France, see:

[http://ifosslawbook.org/france/](http://ifosslawbook.org/france/) ("Moral
Rights" heading)

~~~
jordigh
The GPL actually has a clause agaisnt revocation in section 2:

    
    
        All rights granted under this License are granted for the
        term of copyright on the Program, and are irrevocable 
        provided the stated conditions are met.
    

How does France work against this?

~~~
Tomte
France doesn't need to "work against this".

If that's the law in France, it trumps the license text.

Just as the law trumps any clause requiring the sacrifice of the licensee's
firstborn on an altar.

~~~
Moyamo
Doesn't this make it illegal to distribute GPL software in France under clause
12?

    
    
        If conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or
        otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not
        excuse you from the conditions of this License.  If you cannot convey a
        covered work so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this
        License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may
        not convey it at all.
    

Since allowing the licensor to revoke the licence would be an extra condition.

~~~
masklinn
It doesn't make the distribution illegal per-se, but it does make the license
invalid and thus the software unlicensed. Same as "public domain" licensing.

~~~
Matheus28
No it doesn't. If you don't have a license for the software, you cannot use
it.

------
sysk
For others wondering what Metaphone is, here's the Wikipedia description:

"Metaphone is a phonetic algorithm, published by Lawrence Philips in 1990, for
indexing words by their English pronunciation. It fundamentally improves on
the Soundex algorithm by using information about variations and
inconsistencies in English spelling and pronunciation to produce a more
accurate encoding, which does a better job of matching words and names which
sound similar. As with Soundex, similar sounding words should share the same
keys. Metaphone is available as a built-in operator in a number of systems,
including later versions of PHP."

Metaphone 3:

"A professional version was released in October 2009, developed by the same
author, Lawrence Philips. It is a commercial product but is sold as source
code. Metaphone 3 further improves phonetic encoding of words in the English
language, non-English words familiar to Americans, and first names and family
names commonly found in the United States."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphone](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphone)

------
chrisacky
Unfortunately, the author of the Metaphone code (lphillips) keeps talking
about public domain as if that is what is the point of contention. When you
license something as BSD you aren't putting the work into the "public domain"
(as in the legal meaning) but you are giving a very permissive license to the
subject of the license.

My guess is that Google requested use of the Metaphone 3 package, Lawrence
perhaps didn't understand the what BSD meant, but was willing for Google to
use it in their Google-Refine (now Open Refine) codebase so willfully let them
pick the most permissive license.

I'm having a real difficult understanding him from his GitHub comments. It's
clear that he never intended his algorithm to be re-useable or modifiable in
any way, but if he intends to restrict the future use of his Metaphone 3 code
or even prevent a port, he's going to find it impossible....

Lesson learnt... it's clear that a work of this magnitude would have taken
thousand plus hours... if you don't intend it to be re-usable, then you
shouldn't pick a permissive, open source license such as BSD.

~~~
HackinOut
It seems to me that lphilips54 is trying to achieve with a license what we
would need a patent for. (He speaks of his algorithm)

~~~
masklinn
Note that he has a patent on metaphone3.

~~~
bchociej
Can you link to that? I've only been able to find rejected applications so
far.

------
anu_gupta
IMO, @threedaymonk has handled this maturely and well.

[https://github.com/threedaymonk/text/issues/21#issuecomment-...](https://github.com/threedaymonk/text/issues/21#issuecomment-67771515)

> "I'm not going to port Metaphone 3 to Ruby, nor am I going to accept or
> merge any such ports at this time.

> Whilst the licensing of the Java code in question clearly and unambiguously
> permits such a port, @lphilips54's stated intentions for reuse of the code
> are unclear and contradictory. I can't see that any benefit would come from
> integrating something that is surrounded by such confusion."

~~~
dragontamer
What is legal to do, and what is moral to do doesn't always match up.

I'm sure they're within their legal right to copy the code if they wanted to.
But that wouldn't be the moral thing to do.

~~~
TillE
I don't think there's a clear _moral_ component here, unless someone can
demonstrate that the author would suffer actual damage from such a port. It
would certainly be a little rude, though.

~~~
nknighthb
What's rude is granting a license and then trying to take it back after people
have relied on it.

------
thegeomaster
I think it would be interesting to point out a somehow similar exchange
between Richard Stallman and Bruno Haible, the original author of CLISP[1].
Bruno wanted to integrate GNU Readline into the then-proprietary CLISP, but
RMS informed him that doing so would be a violation of GPL. After a minor
flamewar-of-a-kind, Bruno concurred, because he wanted very much to use
Readline, and today the world is richer for another free software Common Lisp
implementation. I think it very clearly illustrates how often people don't
understand the implications of free software licenses, an issue that, even now
when there are loads of FAQs and websites dedicated to just that, remains
present.

[1]:
[http://clisp.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/clisp/clisp/doc/Why-...](http://clisp.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/clisp/clisp/doc/Why-
CLISP-is-under-GPL)

------
logfromblammo
This sounds like a call for the FOSS community to produce a phonetic
similarity algorithm that is not encumbered by patents. Metaphone 3 is patent-
pending, and the author obviously intends to profit from it.

Porting the code released with BSD license would effectively just be donating
the work to a private individual. Be glad that the guy was good enough to warn
people ahead of time, instead of submerging a patent submarine and surfacing
after someone creates a big payday for him.

The idea itself, to determine phonetic rules from spelling quirks in English,
is non-patentable, but the specific rules he formulated may be. Anyone else
could spend "thousands of hours" creating their own rules. We already have a
few in the public domain, such as the "i before e" rule, where the "ei" in
"neighbor and weigh" is phonetically an "a", which implies that "-eigh-" is
the spelling pattern, which also holds in "eight" and "neigh".

See? Free head start for FOSS.

~~~
bchociej
The patent application linked numerous times in this thread is listed as
abandoned after being rejected for non-patentability. Type the application or
publication number into [1] for details.

[1]
[http://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair](http://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair)

~~~
logfromblammo
Mea culpa for not reading it carefully, then. I jumped right into the claims,
to see how involved a non-copyright-infringing implementation would be.

If there's no patent, the poor guy doesn't have a legal leg to stand on.

------
lukeredpath
I don't have the time to read it and verify but could this be a patent for the
algorithm? If so, does it make any difference anyway?

[http://www.google.com/patents/US20090043584](http://www.google.com/patents/US20090043584)

~~~
rwmj
Interesting that the patent was filed 17 years after initial publication of
the algorithm.

~~~
networked
The patent is for Metaphone 3, a new version of the algorithm that was
released in October 2009 and improves on the previous ones. The differences
are why the Ruby gem, which already has Metaphone and Double Metaphone
implemented, got a discussion going about porting Metaphone 3 from Java.

Edit: wording.

~~~
charlesdm
If he's the holder of that patent, "Lawrence Brooke Frank Philips", then he
can enforce it no? At least in the United States.

------
blcknight
I don't see how his argument holds water, the BSD license is quite permissive,
and porting software to another language sounds like a modification to me,
assuming you keep all the copyright info intact. He still holds the copyright,
but he's granted everyone a worldwide right to use the software with or
without modification...

And apparently he doesn't know what the common meaning of "FOSS" even is.

"Metaphone3.java was released as part of the Open Refine Package under the BSD
license" and then "It does not, contrary to popular belief, automatically
declare the algorithm to be public domain, or the software to be FOSS. "

~~~
new299
If he really does own a patent
([http://www.google.com/patents/US20090043584](http://www.google.com/patents/US20090043584)
referenced above). Then I can kind of see the argument. He's provided a BSD
licensed implementation, but you don't have a license to use the patent.
Perhaps that means you can share it, compile it, but if you use it you're in
violation of the patent?

It seems rather odd but not totally inconsistent.

------
Kiro
I expect to see a Ruby port by the end of this day.

~~~
viraptor
Yeah, he pretty much screams for the Streisand effect to take place there. I
expect a number of ports this week just because he says they can't be done.

~~~
gear54rus
Rightfully so, IMO. Would hate to see another idea getting lost and forgotten
because of copyright BS.

------
jacques_chester
This is why, in matters of law, you should consult a lawyer.

Stuff you remember from TV is not the law.

Half-remembered Slashdot debates are not the law.

The _law_ is the law. It varies from place to place and from year to year. It
is large, complicated and subtle because it covers everything humans do, which
is a large, complicated and subtle problem domain.

Seriously. If you have a legal question: see a freaking lawyer. A few hundred
bucks to change the entire course of your life is a bargain. It's less than
some plumbers.

------
kerkeslager
I'm not a lawyer, so I won't comment on who is right here, but I will say that
if your business model relies on the law, you should have a lawyer on speed-
dial.

------
CrLf
Oh, the endless arguments of copyright vs. patents.

From my understanding of this, the author has no right to block any
reimplementation of the algorithm in another language because he has released
the code under a license that explicitly allows for modification (which says
nothing that forces modification to be restricted to a single language). The
reimplementation just has to keep the same license and copyright notice.

However, there seems to be a patent pending for the algorithm. If there is an
actual patent, he has not actually given anyone the right to _use_ the code or
any modifications.

You can reimplement it, but you can't run it without the author's permission
(i.e. patent grant).

EDIT: On second thought, one might argue that since the code was licensed
under BSD (which says "use in source or binary form") by the patent holder
himself, he has given an implicit patent grant to everyone that uses it or
modifies it in any way.

~~~
cbr
The patent was abandoned after being rejected:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8780445](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8780445)

~~~
Animats
The patent application is worth reading. First, he gets a 101 rejection as
unpatentable subject matter, because it's not a "machine or transformation".
You can argue against that for things which a computer can do and which could
not practically be done by humans. (Even though you can in theory do video
compression by hand, at one frame per century or so, it's just not practical.
Patents are about utility.) But here, the examiner points out that this
algorithm could effectively be done with "paper and pencil". Soundex, its'
predecessor, was.

Then the examiner points out prior art - a patent application by Ralston, (App
#20040054679, Ralston, James, March 18, 2004, "Remotely invoked metaphonic
database searching capability") The original Soundex algorithm dates from
1919, the Metaphone algorithm dates from 1990, and Ralston's improvement is on
record. Philips' improvement of 2009 just wasn't enough of an advance over the
old stuff.

He might have modified the claims to overcome those objections; this was a
non-final rejection, and you're allowed another revision cycle with no
additional fees. But, for whatever reason, he abandoned the application.

A rejected patent application puts the algorithm into the public domain.
Philips has no rights in the algorithm now.

~~~
lphilips54
"Philips' improvement of 2009 just wasn't enough of an advance over the old
stuff."

Not so. Metaphone 3 is not a derivative work. Ralston's patent merely uses
(original 1990) metaphone as part of its design, and does nothing to improve
it.

The patent was abandoned because the U.S. Patent office informed me that it is
no longer patenting algorithms.

------
facorreia
The license literally states that redistribution in source form with
modification is permitted, provided a few conditions are met.

[https://code.google.com/p/google-
refine/source/browse/trunk/...](https://code.google.com/p/google-
refine/source/browse/trunk/main/src/com/google/refine/clustering/binning/Metaphone3.java)

------
mariuolo
I think the author has no clue about copyright law.

If he wanted to legally protect his algorithm he should have patented it and
given a licence to use it only with his BSD-licensed implementation.

Still, IANAL.

~~~
bjornsing
Well, for all we know that's exactly what he has done [1]. ;)

1\.
[http://www.google.com/patents/US20090043584](http://www.google.com/patents/US20090043584)

~~~
mariuolo
The name seems to match, but then why not mention it?

~~~
poizan42
Considering that he used the word "copywrite" I think there's a good chance
that he hired a lawyer to secure the IP, but didn't understand any of it
himself.

~~~
bchociej
USPTO's PAIR website indicates that he filed the patent application himself.
(It was rejected on non-patentability.)

------
ris
Nope. Can't copyright an algorithm. Would have to use patents and software
patents are on highly shaky ground.

------
gburt
He is wrong [0] in his interpretation of copyright and the BSD, but I think
his wishes for his code should exceed his misunderstanding of the relevant
law. Further, I think this is a patent (application?) on M3, which is what he
is wanting to say with the "Public Domain" stuff [1].

[0] Though, IANAL.

[1]
[http://www.google.com/patents/US20090043584](http://www.google.com/patents/US20090043584)

------
ddoolin
The file in question, for anyone curious:

[https://github.com/OpenRefine/OpenRefine/blob/master/main/sr...](https://github.com/OpenRefine/OpenRefine/blob/master/main/src/com/google/refine/clustering/binning/Metaphone3.java)

------
matheweis
It's too bad groklaw isn't still around, it would have been fun to try and get
thier take on this.

~~~
davorak
Indeed! I miss groklaw tremendously.

~~~
_JamesA_
Thirded. Especially with the recent activity.

[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/19/judge_spanks_sco_in_...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/19/judge_spanks_sco_in_ancient_ownership_of_unix_lawsuit/)

~~~
sbuk
Is there a better source of that particular news item?

~~~
_JamesA_
Unfortunately it did not receive much coverage.

Groklaw[1] did post the ruling as linked in The Register article and cited on
the Wikipedia page[2].

[1]:
[http://groklaw.net/pdf4/IBM-1132.pdf](http://groklaw.net/pdf4/IBM-1132.pdf)

[2]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO_v._IBM#cite_note-
ibm1132-4](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO_v._IBM#cite_note-ibm1132-4)

------
lphilips54
By the way, I might add that I am deeply appreciative of the people here who
have reviewed this situation with a friendly and understanding response to my
attitude.

------
Morphling
Am I missing something obvious here? What would change if this piece of
software/algorithm was ported to Ruby? I mean Rubyists would get to use it,
but what else would change? This whole thing seems very strange, like if
someone would create a cure for a disease and give it out for free and tell
everyone how it was made but insit that he be the one who injects every single
patient personally.

~~~
Mahn
It seems he didn't mean to make it open source, but was asked by the
Google/Open Refine team and complied without understanding the implications.

------
plesner
IANAL but I don't see how using a BSD license automatically makes code FOSS.
According to Lawrence Rosen[1] (who IS a lawyer),

"Since courts are likely to construe implied grants of license narrowly, a
licensee should consider obtaining separately from the licensor an explicit
grant of patent rights that might be needed for modified versions of BSD-
licensed software."

This seems to go against the FOSS[2] freedom 2, the right to distribute
modified copies without asking anyone for permission. Now, whether that can be
applied in this particular case I don't know, I guess that depends on whether
there are patents involved. But in general, BSD does not imply FOSS.

[1]:
[http://www.rosenlaw.com/oslbook.htm](http://www.rosenlaw.com/oslbook.htm),
chapter 5, p. 79

[2]: [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-
sw.html](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html)

------
meric
I think the author of the algorithm implementation would have benefited more
from a patent than a BSD copyright notice.

~~~
JetSpiegel
Considering the last comment on github, the patent office would probably deny
the application.

~~~
lukeredpath
Is this the patent for the algorithm in question?

[http://www.google.com/patents/US20090043584](http://www.google.com/patents/US20090043584)

~~~
xorcist
Certainly looks like it, or at least closely related. Can someone who is not
served a localized copy of Google see if it is in fact a patent? (I see
"status: application", loosely translated, but that's not something I can
check the juridical meaning of.)

~~~
euid
If you are able to view this, it is a "United States Patent Application
Publication" that is found by following the `view pdf` button on the above
link:

[https://drive.google.com/viewerng/viewer?url=patentimages.st...](https://drive.google.com/viewerng/viewer?url=patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/pdfs/US20090043584.pdf)

Searching on the USPTO website returns no related patents:

[http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/search-
bool.html](http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html)

The indication, to me, is that the patent has not made it past the application
process.

~~~
bchociej
USPTO's PAIR website indicates that the application was rejected for non-
patentability. I'd link it but PAIR doesn't do permanent links. Go to the main
page at [1] and type in the application or publication number.

[1]
[http://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair](http://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair)

------
lotyrin
He also, some months ago, opened an issue on a Python project to implement the
algorithm... but with no text or comments. Just a title: "M3"

[https://github.com/coolbutuseless/metaphone3/issues/1](https://github.com/coolbutuseless/metaphone3/issues/1)

------
mbillie1
All I can think of is this: [http://steve-
yegge.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/wikileaks-to-leak-...](http://steve-
yegge.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/wikileaks-to-leak-5000-open-source-java.html)

"They have no right to do this. Open Source does not mean the source is
somehow 'open'. That's my code, not theirs. If I make something private, it
means that no matter how desperately you need to call it, I should be able to
prevent you from doing so, even long after I've gone to the grave."

------
directionless
I'm a little disappointed to see the original PR locked due to lphilips54's
inconsistent statements.

While I think the OSS community should be polite and inclusive, I also think
that we are all poorer if we ignore contributions due to author behavior. I'm
confident that many authors have abhorrent political views and actions. While
we should not elevate them as role models, there are times it's reasonable to
just use the code.

------
payne92
The legal issues here relatively straightforward and were touched on by one
comment in the github issue thread.

The Java implementation is protected by copyright.

The algorithm itself would be protected by a patent, which he (generally)
could file for within a year of publishing.

And the odds of getting that patent (in the US) would be fairly low, given
recent Supreme Court rulings.

------
tripzilch
"Public Domain", he keeps using that term, I don't think it means what he
thinks it means. It only _sort of_ applies here. Something _actually_ being
Public Domain has extremely wide repercussions. A Public Domain work exists
without _any_ copyright or intellectual property laws applying to it, none.

For a work to be _really_ Public Domain, only happens under a bunch of
specific circumstances that really do not apply here (such as the copyright
holder having been dead for a number of years).

You can't really slap a license on something and have it be Public Domain,
because that means relinquishing any and all intellectual property rights
related to the work. Including personal and moral rights. From Wikipedia:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain#Dedicating_works...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain#Dedicating_works_to_the_public_domain)

> ## Dedicating works to the public domain

> Few if any legal systems have a process for reliably donating works to the
> public domain. They may even prohibit any attempt by copyright owners to
> surrender rights automatically conferred by law, particularly moral rights.
> An alternative is for copyright holders to issue a licence which irrevocably
> grants as many rights as possible to the general public, e.g., the CC0
> licence from Creative Commons.

Note the last remark about Creative Commons' CC0 license. It's about the
closest you can get to actually releasing your work to the Public Domain,
worldwide (check the Creative Commons website for info about some legal
hurdles why you can't "just release something to the Public Domain"). It's not
something that happens by accident.

Now obviously the author doesn't have this particular specific meaning in
mind, instead rather something else. Except, it would probably help the
discussion a lot of he'd use the proper term and accurately defines what he is
trying to say.

It seems to be some kind of confusion or collision between the (obviously and
pretty straightforwardly copyrighted/licensed) actual written code he released
under the BSD License, and his intellectual property rights over the (more
nebulous concept of) the _algorithm_ that is described in this code. I'm not
at all sure if you can even obtain copyright over the latter. Actually no, I
am pretty sure that you cannot. Copyright is very explicitly defined over a
_work_ , not an _idea_ , and the _work_ is the actual written code that was
released under the BSD License.

------
XorNot
At this point he's daring someone to do it at which point the only question
will be who can afford to fight it. But seeing as how algorithms aren't
subject to copyright in the first place...

------
faragon
Clean room design, anyone?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design)

~~~
mistercow
Since it's BSD licensed, you could make a port as a derivative work, and then
license that under BSD just fine.

That is, if it weren't for the patent issue. And clean room design doesn't
help against patents.

~~~
faragon
Yes. That's the point.

------
slapresta
I'm pretty sure the algorithm for Metaphone is not theirs, just this
particular implementation. Which means there's nothing they can do here.

