Thank you for your explanations. Actually, I understand the difference between copyright and patent very well thank you, and i also understand what public domain means. Unfortunately a number of people have misunderstood me to think that i asserted that copyrights protect algorithms.
"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.
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.
Well, I am sorry to have misunderstood the fact that a BSD license swears away any rights of control. In practice it turns out to be nearly indistinguishable from Public Domain, so what's the point? Let's just call it Public Domain and quit pussyfooting around.
Why the outpouring of hostility and contempt? I'm sure I sounded 'arrogant' - perhaps I was not too pleased with the tone of voice of many of the commenters here either.
Yes, I am perfectly aware of the difference between copyright and patent. What I was not aware of is that the copyright notice required by BSD is useful only in asserting the right of the copyright owner to swear away virtually all of the protections normally granted by a copyright notice. It is a legally castrated copyright.
"then he basically forbids other people from using the efficient algorithm" Did I ever say that I was trying to place any restrictions on the use of Metaphone3.java as is or however you might want to privately re-implement it? I donated the my work in the open refine project and it is there for all to see. I had a notion that by allowing the source code to be made available I was doing something good that would make Open Source advocates happy!
I'm glad you find my work useful enough to make a fuss about. Metaphone 3 is the product of my work alone - all the research and resulting 'rules' and logic were developed by myself from primary source data. Metaphone, Double Metaphone, and Metaphone 3 are not derivative works.
Again, my apologies if I misunderstood your "right" to do whatever you want with my work without restriction. Your method of asserting your rights, however, has certainly done nothing to make me feel welcome in your "community".