[Savannah-hackers] submission of Cofi: A Java-Based Collaborative Filtering Library - savannah.nongnu.org

[lemire]

A package was submitted to savannah.nongnu.org
This mail was sent to address@hidden, address@hidden


Daniel Lemire <address@hidden> described the package as follows:
License: gpl
Other License: 
Package: Cofi: A Java-Based Collaborative Filtering Library
System name: cofi
Type: non-GNU

Description:
Cofi: A Java-Based Collaborative Filtering Filtering Library

http://www.daniel-lemire.com/COFI/



Goals





Collaborative filtering is the process of predicting ratings based on a 
database of ratings from various users. It is widely applicable to e-Commerce, 
e-Learning, and so on.





Currently, programmers who want to use collaborative filtering have to read the 
literature and implement their own algorithms. More often than not, programmers 
probably design their own algorithms and they will generally produce suboptimal 
algorithms. We want to build a foundation of already tested algorithms and 
documented that can be used in a wide range of contexts from research to 
applications.





The guiding principle is that the design should be thin. Cofi doesn\\\'t want 
to be all things for all people. So the focus is on delivering very few lines 
of code, and to rely on the programmer for providing the necessary glue.





There is one open source Java-based collaborative filtering library available 
called CFEngine written by professor Jon Herlocker. CFEngine is somewhat more 
extensive than Cofi and aims to be the Apache of collaborative filtering. 
CFEngine is probably going to be licensed under a BSD-like license though this 
is not explicit. The design goals are different since CFEngine wants to provide 
a complete solution to collaborative filtering needs which Cofi doesn\\\'t. We 
also expect the algorithms to differ.





Licensing





GPL, of course.





Who are we?





The project is lead by Daniel Lemire, researcher at the National Research 
Council of Canada.





Where\\\'s the source?





You can download our Java source package. It requires gnu.trove (LGPL) and 
junit (CPL) libraries. Some code expects JSci (LGPL) though it isn\\\'t 
necessary to use the library.



http://www.daniel-lemire.com/COFI/cofi_code.zip





Suitability





The library is used as part of RACOFI web site which is a live Music 
Recommender site and has been used for research ( COLA and IR). While it 
isn\\\'t a mature library, it is certainly quite usable in many real-world 
applications. 

Other Software Required:
We require the gnu.trove (LGPL) and junit (CPL) libraries. Some code expects 
JSci (LGPL) though it isn't necessary.



We support GCJ (free java environment) under gcc 3.2.2 (and above).



Other Comments:
I think this would be the first and only Java-Based collaborative filtering 
library to be GPL.


_______________________________________________
  Message sent via/by Savannah
  http://savannah.nongnu.org/