Should I protect juridically my software code?

The question is actually whether putting the idea in a public repository and making it available to public means that it is no longer patent eligible material. Now if public is actually alpha/beta testing with signed confidentiality agreements that's a different matter but you may want to consider what deserves protection (UX, algorithm, novel concept) as there are different approaches for tradedress, secrets and inventions. Startups have different business approaches and even philosophies, some treat the app as loss leader to build up a two-sided market (if the shortage is techies), others want to keep everything secret on the server-side, others have a live-let-live approach in that the app source is available for security inspection but not generally public. It all depends ...