
Algorithmia Launches with More Than 800 Algorithms on Its Marketplace - ravimik
http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/12/algorithmia-launches-with-more-than-800-algorithms-on-its-marketplace/
======
logn
I'm concerned about the implications of these license terms:

    
    
      [...] you do hereby grant Algorithmia, in its capacity as the provider of the
      Services, a worldwide, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, fully paid-up and
      royalty free license to use and permit others to use the Software (including
      the source code if made viewable) in any manner and without restriction of any
      kind or accounting to you, including, without limitation, the right to make,
      have made, sell, offer for sale, use, rent, lease, import, copy, prepare
      derivative works, publicly display, publicly perform, and distribute all or any
      part of the Software and any modifications, derivatives and combinations
      thereof and to sublicense (directly or indirectly through multiple tiers) or
      transfer any and all such rights; provided, however, that if your Software
      includes any FOSS, in the event of a conflict between the applicable FOSS
      license terms and the license terms set forth in this paragraph, the applicable
      FOSS license terms will control, but only to the extent required by the FOSS
      that you use.
    

[https://algorithmia.com/api_dev_terms](https://algorithmia.com/api_dev_terms)

(edited to add line breaks)

~~~
platypii
The terms here are necessary to provide the services that we offer via
Algorithmia. We need the right to run your code and make it available. It
needs to be in perpetuity so that consumers of the API can put it in
production with the assurance that it will continue to be available in the
future.

That being said, the quoted passage lacks the context of the rest of our terms
-- namely, yes, we get the right to make your work available, but in return
it's OUR obligation to share the profits with the original authors.

(Kenny @ Algorithmia)

~~~
logn
This just seems overly broad for your purposes. Plus you reserve the right to
update the terms, yet you have an irrevocable license to your users' software.

I just don't see this being realistic for anything except thin wrappers around
FOSS projects. That's great in itself, but I'm not sure why you offer the
"closed source" option for projects. Based on your terms, you could turn
around and open source all those since users have given you power to sub-
license. Granted, I doubt you'd do that but it demonstrates how needlessly
broad your terms are.

(I'm not a lawyer; this is just my speculation and not advice)

------
perdunov
I'd better put my code on GitHub and double-license it with GPL and a
commercial license. That way I would probably earn more bucks and keep my
intellectual property.

Another point is that it seems that the concept was devised by somebody with a
non-programming background, as it sounds rather weird to say that they host
"an algorithm". _An algorithm_ is a theoretical concept. You cannot provide a
theoretical concept as a service. You can provide _an implementation_ of an
algorithm. So it would be more correct to say that they just run software
libraries on their servers.

For many "algorithms" going to an external server to process the data would be
way more costly than to just get a software library and run it locally. So for
those cases the idea is not useful. For example, the quicksort thing is purely
a joke.

But hosting automatically scalable software services is generally not a bad
idea at all.

For example, for some proprietary advanced AI services it seems pretty
reasonable. Although I am not sure who's going to just give away intellectual
property like that to Algorithmia.

------
j2kun
I doubt academics will use this service to implement algorithms. The bounties
are currently at ~$100 and the time commitment for a serious implementation of
any nontrivial algorithm is worth far more. Not to mention tenure committees
couldn't care less.

~~~
web007
If you implement one of the bounty algorithms you get the bounty, but you also
get a payment when your algorithm is used. It's not going to make you a
millionaire, but if you work in $FIELD_OF_STUDY and want to make a couple
bucks in your spare time it might be worth it.

It's also likely that someone who wants to enter $FIELD_OF_STUDY might use one
of these as a portfolio piece. You learn-and-implement one of these algorithms
to get an introduction to the field, you get a bullet point for your resume
and you make a few bucks.

~~~
j2kun
You get 1 credit/sec of your algorithm being used, and you need a million
credits to get $100. If someone is continuously running your algorithm all day
every day then you'd make about $300/month. That's fine for students and
hobbyists, but not for someone who spends years devising a single algorithm
worthy of widespread use, and in those cases the usual software libraries
(numpy, R, etc) will implement them for free.

~~~
chris_va
[https://algorithmia.com/docs/marketplace#pricing](https://algorithmia.com/docs/marketplace#pricing)

"Royalty

Algorithm developers may choose to set a cost-per-call royalty associated with
their algorithm"

------
WhitneyLand
Ironically, it seems the biggest opportunity here is implementation rather
than theory.

You could view this as a general marketplace for micro services, which may or
may not utilize complex algorithms. The stuff that's too small or too vertical
to be offered by the mainstream cloud offerings.

The academic slant will become less emphasized and the value add, time
savings, and platform as a service aspect will get promoted.

------
codingdave
The first algorithm I see on the page is Dijkstra's algorithm. The wikipedia
page for that algorithm includes pseduocode to implement it. I'm also seeing
pretty simple examples of day to day programming tasks being marketed as
algorithms. (How to read an RSS feed? Really?)

I do see value in a service that offers me algorithms in areas that are new to
me, and I'm even willing to pay for that. But the current content is not well
curated, and even if it was, the license terms are completely unacceptable, as
mentioned in other comments.

Nevertheless, I like the broad vision here... it just isn't implemented in a
way that makes sense to me.

------
keithwhor
Doesn't this go against the entire concept of open source? Isn't it unethical
to sell access to algorithms if the developers of such have had any access to
any public funding (quite often the case in academia)? Isn't this exactly what
the push for "open access" re: journals is trying to fight against?

~~~
doppenhe
Access is open on Algorithmia and anybody can view the source code of any of
the algorithms. The charge comes at the time of hosting it on our
infrastructure so what you are paying for is compute (a part of which we
donate back to the open source project).

~~~
logn
If you're accepting Affero GPL licenses then please post the source code to
Algorithmia under the Affero GPL license.

Edit: also please collect and post source code of the callers' programs too,
if they're using AGPL algorithms.

~~~
anowell
You have effectively described the AGPL restrictions that explain why we do
not currently accept algorithms licensed under AGPL.

------
therobot24
A few things that irk me:

1) No info of what was done to solve the solution, or do i need to login to
view? (e.g.
[https://algorithmia.com/algorithms/zskurultay/ImageSimilarit...](https://algorithmia.com/algorithms/zskurultay/ImageSimilarity)
\- is this just a simple correlation or something more)

2) Buying your homework solutions, for example,
[https://algorithmia.com/bounties/35](https://algorithmia.com/bounties/35) \-
they want a CRF implemented with Stochastic Gradient Descent for $150, i'm
sure someone more familiar with one of the matlab libraries (such as UGM)
could put something together, but you get the point

3) I'm not sure how this appeals to academics... There's movement for
reproducible research through open sourcing code/simulations and charging for
that privilege just seems wrong (even if they have the _option_ to open
source)

4) Signing up to enable the console is a bit of a pain. I'm not going to sign
up unless i see some value in the service, and since many pages are just empty
or bland descriptions (input x -> output y) it's hard to really get a feel if
the solution is what i'm looking for

~~~
therealwill
Pertaining to academics: I think this would be a wonderful tool to help
students learn algorithms better. A lot of times when I'm working on a
programming challenge the number of example inputs and outputs is too low for
me to understand the problem. A professor could publish the algorithm closed
source so that students can input their test cases to understand the problem
better.

~~~
therobot24
I half agree with you.

I can see why even a black box implementation of the program would help
learning in some instances. However, beyond checking your solution against the
'correct' solution I don't see much value.

Pertaining to Algorithmia - many pages list little to no information (i'm
ignoring the weka/opencv/already open source implementations just put into the
site for shits sake) as to what is being done to compute the output. If I'm
looking to learn, this is not the tool i would use.

------
hasancc
I like the idea of bringing the academia closer to the developers. Let's face
it, with the wave of coding bootcamps etc. there are a lot of developers
without the STEM background needed for sophisticated applications. I think
that this vision can present a lot more opportunities for interesting
products. It may also speed up the pipeline from the academia to the deployed
application.

~~~
therobot24
What incentive do i have as an academic or a developer to use this?

As a developer i'm either going to rapid fire trivial/homework-esque
algorithms or build simple wrappers around already implemented complex
solutions (e.g.,
[https://algorithmia.com/algorithms/kenny/WekaCluster](https://algorithmia.com/algorithms/kenny/WekaCluster))
for minimal time spent per solution.

As an academic there's little to no information per solution that would make
me trust the implementation is going to work for my purposes. I get that this
site has weka and opencv, etc on their servers so i don't have to run it on my
computer...but how does that change the game exactly? Professors that don't
have the interest or time to setup and install opencv usually have their
students do this legwork, and instead take the role of mentor.

There's definitely draw in uploading something i've already implemented/taken
the time to learn for someone else to try out... I'd like to think such
pursuits would eventually lead to a large set of good work, but in reality it
seems like elance for homework solutions.

------
auzengi
Peter Thiel says "Competition is for losers." IMHO Algorithmia will prove it
with its market niche and originality.

------
csears
In case anyone was wondering, quicksort is already available on the
marketplace for the bargain price of 1 credit* per second:

[https://algorithmia.com/algorithms/swm8023/quicksort](https://algorithmia.com/algorithms/swm8023/quicksort)

*100 credits is about $0.01

~~~
readerrr
So is bogosort:
[https://algorithmia.com/algorithms/ikkebr/BogoSort](https://algorithmia.com/algorithms/ikkebr/BogoSort)

I think it is cheaper and faster to run any sort on a local machine than to
send the data there and back.

~~~
platypii
Agreed, but sorting is kind of the "hello world" of algorithms.

~~~
vijayr
It literally seems to have a hello world algo

[https://algorithmia.com/algorithms/demo/Hello](https://algorithmia.com/algorithms/demo/Hello)

------
mlmonkey
Since the page wasn't clear, how does this work? What's to prevent someone
from just downloading the code and using it forever without royalties?

~~~
doppenhe
founder here. Algorithm developers get to choose if they want their code open
source or closed source. Close source makes black box algorithms.

For open source algorithms nothing stops users form grabbing the code and
taking it off the platform - but again thats the point of open source code.
The simplicity of not having to start your own servers, download dependencies
or maintain the code yourself makes it worth not leaving the platform in most
cases.

~~~
angersock
How do you handle closed-source programs that are based on GPL or AGPL
licenses? i.e., closed-source programs that are derived from copyleft programs
that are meant to remain open-source?

~~~
anowell
Great question. We currently only allow GPL-licensed algorithms to be open
source as we continue to evaluate the best way to promote the virality of OSS
licenses in compliance with license. However, some licenses (like AGPL) as
simply too restrictive for us to support on the Algorithmia platform at this
time.

------
ivanche
TRWTF is that there is a bounty for a Traveling Salesman algorithm :)

~~~
platypii
It's only WTF if the bounty demands Polynomial time :-)

~~~
plesiv
... and you want optimal solution and not just _really-good_ one.

------
heironeous
Programmers will have to list their Algorithmia profiles in their CVs now. I'm
gonna start mining algorithms to post on here, then comes the massive gainz

