MQL5 EA Development

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I'd like to know how MQL5 ensures its ideas won't be stolen when hiring developers to create EAs? Does anyone know?
 
OctavianSterlingford:
I'd like to know how MQL5 ensures its ideas won't be stolen when hiring developers to create EAs? Does anyone know?
MQL5 doesn't "guarantee" your idea won't be stolen. Welcome to the real world of software development 😎⚡

If your strategy is actually valuable, you protect it the same way serious businesses do:

• NDA agreements
• Splitting the logic between multiple devs
• Keeping critical execution logic server-side
• Never giving the FULL system to one random freelancer
• Building with trusted long-term developers only

But honestly… most "Good Strategies" are not even worth stealing 🔥

The real edge is usually:
• Execution.
• Risk management.
• Optimization.
• Market understanding.
• Years of testing.

Not just a few lines of EA logic.

Because even if someone copies your code… they still can't copy the brain behind it.
 
OctavianSterlingford:
I'd like to know how MQL5 ensures its ideas won't be stolen when hiring developers to create EAs? Does anyone know?

It depends on what you mean by the word, "stolen." As a practical matter, and potentially legal matter, it's tough to argue that the creator of the EA source code has no right to the source code─especially in the absence of any job terms to the contrary. Section VII(13) of the Rules of Using the Freelance Service states:

Below are the examples of serious violations of the Terms of Use of MQL5 community:...

Removal, obscuring or altering copyright notices, trademarks, or other proprietary rights notices of MetaQuotes Ltd., MetaQuotes or any third party.

The phrase, "any third party," is sufficiently vague enough to allow the EA source code creator to stamp her/his own copyright on her/his source code. As a criminal matter, voluntarily giving another possession of something does not constitute theft.

A quick legal fix would be to insert exclusive copyright and usage terms into your job post, however, that is not a practical fix as Alex Holloway has already alluded in this thread. Is any job poster really ready to play international lawyer in order to enforce a copyright? How would a job poster even know that the source code creator uses the source code or the executable going forward and following testing?

The only surefire way to keep your strategy private as a practical matter is by learning to code it yourself.

Again as Alex Holloway has already said in this thread, this is all predicated on the assumption that the strategy is actually valuable. If the strategy hasn't been sufficiently backtested or traded prior to automating it, then that value is questionable from the get-go.

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