Topic: Should you open source all code? Should Google opensourced PageRank? (Read 441 times)
October 30, 2015, 12:35:08 AM
Yes. Not only will your users cry foul when (not if) they find out, but it's a security risk: in the system you describe, an attacker who figures out how the closed-source program works can double his effective mining power.
October 29, 2015, 10:20:11 PM
Sort of could be XY problem.. let's put it this way, I have a method for basically 'mining' in a network, that method relies on something that I would prefer was closed source. Is it an issue to close source a part of your mining algorithm?
I wouldn't but let's face, I could mine from my own account and this closed source part says make that account 2x as likely to mine or something. I guess the question I'm trying to ask is: does a decentralized trustless algorithm have to be open source to remain trustless?
I wouldn't but let's face, I could mine from my own account and this closed source part says make that account 2x as likely to mine or something. I guess the question I'm trying to ask is: does a decentralized trustless algorithm have to be open source to remain trustless?
October 29, 2015, 10:10:02 PM
Is this an X-Y problem? What are you really trying to do? Google's PageRank algorithm is only run on Google's own servers; end users never see the program in any form, closed or not. If you give your users a compiled binary, what's stopping anyone with a decompiler and other debugging tools from seeing how it works? If the program execution is under the user's control, closing the source won't actually keep any part of it secret.
October 29, 2015, 02:36:20 PM
If it is part of a business, you should definitely close source some of it. You should be making the parts that would be considered "company secrets" like perhaps trading strategies in a piece of trading software.
For something like Google's search algorithm, since that is a a big part of their company and is also a company secret, they keep it closed source. It is an integral part of their business and by releasing it as open source does not make good business sense.
For just a project, I would say that you should make everything open source. Since projects are more like hobbies and not actually companies or for a business, then it would not make sense to make it closed source.
For something like Google's search algorithm, since that is a a big part of their company and is also a company secret, they keep it closed source. It is an integral part of their business and by releasing it as open source does not make good business sense.
For just a project, I would say that you should make everything open source. Since projects are more like hobbies and not actually companies or for a business, then it would not make sense to make it closed source.
October 29, 2015, 02:13:50 PM
In a decentralized project, is there ever a need to close source parts of the code?
Imagine if you had a decentralized project with a open sourced algorithm for Google's search result. How would you keep people from studying the algorithm to cheat it? There is a reason they keep it private. Is it an issue in the open source community if you close source only that part in a dll and feed info in, get info out and the rest of the system works with it?
I'm working on something sort of similar in idea.
Imagine if you had a decentralized project with a open sourced algorithm for Google's search result. How would you keep people from studying the algorithm to cheat it? There is a reason they keep it private. Is it an issue in the open source community if you close source only that part in a dll and feed info in, get info out and the rest of the system works with it?
I'm working on something sort of similar in idea.
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