[postgis-devel] How does copyright work and how to credit.

[Paul Ramsey]

Nik,

They can't copyright their idea, but they can patent it. Probably the
algorithm you are following is not patented, but if that kind of thing
worries you, you could do a patent search. I'd include the URL
reference as you suggest, and continue the work under your own
copyright.

P.

On Sat, Dec 4, 2010 at 12:00 PM, Nicklas Avén
<nicklas.aven at jordogskog.no> wrote:
>
> Hallo
>
> The code for line to line distance-calculations that is not yet
> comitted is mostly taken from here:
> http://softsurfer.com/Archive/algorithm_0106/algorithm_0106.htm
>
> As you can see in the attachment I have not done any big rewriting.
>
> It says on the page with the algorithms that it can be used, but then
> they want their copyright to be included.
>
> I don't know how things like this works. I mean I have definitely used
> their idea. Is it their idea that is copyrighted or is it their exactly
> way of writing it. I mean, I hope it isn't the idea.
>
> And it feels quite silly to rewrite it more than necessarily just to
> make it look different.
>
> What I would like to do is to just write a note in a comment that the
> algorithm comes from softsurfer.com and can be found at page :
> http://softsurfer.com/Archive/algorithm_0106/algorithm_0106.htm
>
> Would that be ok?
>
>
> Thanks
> Nicklas
>
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