A published mathematical formula is not protected by any form of IP. You can't copyright the math, it's not a patented invention, and it's not a secret. So long as you implement it in code yourself, you do not need permission or a license to use the same score calculation.

Maybe math from a larger site is more insightful too. Just because the HN algorithm is wrapped in parens doesn't make it overly special.

https://github.com/reddit/reddit/blob/master/r2/r2/lib/db/_s...