I said this in a reddit thread[1], but I really just have a philosophical aversion to this. The industry has moved forward because of open source code. If I come up with a great algorithm, it is in my best interest to share it with others, have it improved upon, and contribute to the community. What if something like quick sort were only available if I paid someone for the snippet/service?

I might pay to use a service that allowed an implementation not in my projects language (and it's faster, I can't be bothered to write it, etc), but close sourcing or licensing of algorithms seems to go against the entire ethos of the community.

Especially in the wake of Oracle v Google and the implications that it could have on APIs, I really think to purposefully close off algorithms is just another step in a really bad direction.

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/ruby/comments/4k4fpr/algorithmia_no...