Should you open source all code? Should Google opensourced PageRank?

[mczarnek]

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.

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[achow101]

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.

[Foxpup]

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.

[mczarnek]

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?

[Foxpup]

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.