Hi, Paul, I think there should be no issue with that as scikit-learn is distributed under a BSD v3 license as long as you uphold the terms of that license. It's a bit tricky to find that license note as it's not called "LICENSE" in the GitHub repo like it is usually done for open source projects, but it is there in a file called "COPYING" (https://github.com/scikit-learn/scikit-learn/blob/master/COPYING):
> New BSD License > > Copyright (c) 2007–2017 The scikit-learn developers. > All rights reserved. > > > Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without > modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: > > a. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, > this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. > b. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright > notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the > documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. > c. Neither the name of the Scikit-learn Developers nor the names of > its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products > derived from this software without specific prior written > permission. > > > THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" > AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE > IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE > ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR > ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL > DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR > SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER > CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT > LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY > OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH > DAMAGE. > In a nutshell, it would mean that you can do anything with scikit-learn except that can't use the names of sklearn devs or sklearn itself to promote your products, and you have to include the license if you redistribute any parts of sklearn. However, I'd still suggest to consult someone in your legal department regarding the license to make sure that you don't run into any troubles later on. Best, Sebastian > On Oct 1, 2017, at 12:58 AM, Paul Smith <ps1988.191...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Dear Scikit-learn users: > > My name is Paul and I am working on a large electronics company. Sorry that I > cannot reveal the name of company. > > My boss asked me to improve our business using ML algorithms. However I > recently found many of ML algorithms are patented. > > Are there any legal problems if I use ML algorithms like SVM, decision trees, > clustering methods, and feature extractions for my company without > permissions? > > If there are no problems, can I use scikit-learn for implementation? > > Could anyone advise me on this issue please? > > Thank you a lot and have a nice weekend. > > Best regards, > Paul > _______________________________________________ > scikit-learn mailing list > scikit-learn@python.org > https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/scikit-learn _______________________________________________ scikit-learn mailing list scikit-learn@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/scikit-learn
