Re: re-writing algorithms in Guile

[Vivien Kraus]

Hello,

Le mardi 29 juin 2021 à 04:09 +0000, Nate Rosenbloom a écrit :
> since the algorithm itself
> stays the same.

This reason is not stated in the Stack Exchange post, and I believe
it’s inaccurate (although, I am not a lawyer either). I think the
reason is that you are reading the original implementation to write
your own, so you are some kind of a compiler, or translator (as for
human spoken languages). As such, what you write is mostly the other
person’s work, so you should not claim copyright about it.

However, if you are writing a computer program based on the description
of the algorithm that you would find in a peer-reviewed scientific
paper (that’s what you should be doing, because the paper will prove to
you that the algorithm is correct and efficient at solving the
problem), then it’s a different story, because copying mathematical
expressions is OK (it is proven that it’s the only correct outcome, so
there’s no copyright to claim here).