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I'm not even going to pretend to understand all the features & possibilities that Open Transactions offers.

I read a bit about it and felt like I should take the short bus from now on. Baskets here, nyms there, Chaumian something or other... it frankly left my head swimming and I put it on my list of things to look into when I had more free time (and possibly a brain upgrade) to try and wrap my head around it.

But that doesn't stop me from realizing that OT is very powerful and can become extremely useful in the future.

So to claim this bounty we need you to provide an easy to use, open source, cross-platform client. Something my grandma (who thinks firefox is "the google", and "internets" her emails to me) would be able to use.

FellowTraveler has stated that the API is high-level & easy to use, so anyone making a client really only needs to worry about the display layer. He recommends using C++ or Java since those are the best tested.

I simply haven't dug into OT enough to adequately make such judgements, so I will defer to FellowTraveler in this regard. If he says you have created such a client I will make good on my portion of the bounty.

---

Devs and testers are available in #opentransactions on FreeNode

You can read more about OT here: https://github.com/FellowTraveler/Open-Transactions/wiki


BOUNTIES
-------------

Obsi	-	100 BTC
FellowTraveler	-	80 BTC
da2ce7	-	some BTC
Donations	-	5.2505 BTC

Donations to further fund this bounty may be sent to 1JbgqTVjfrapGQCCup3eZBD69zshoSouKU

Anyone working on such a free open source client a minimum of 10 hours or more per week is also eligible for DeVCoin disbursements as long as they continue such development / testing / documention etc.

Actually, that applies not just to such a client but to Open Transactions work in general (or at least as long as it isn't somehow designed to preclude being useful to DeVCoin) since Open Transactions is an important building block in the DeVCoin world.

There is already an Open Transactions server up and running supporting DeVCoins and numerous other coins, it has its own thread at https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=53329.0 and is ready for Grandma to come trade DeVCoins, BiTCoins, LiTeCoins, NaMeCoins etc etc, and even some shares, just as soon as she gets her client working...

(It could help in fact to have the server contract and a few asset contracts pre-imported into the client...)

(Also some third party "market makers" would probably help too, see https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=102316.0 there could be good money to be made there helping grandma get her assets in and out of servers...)

-MarkM-

I fully agree with your view Obsi: Open-transactions is huge and I'm too dim to fully get a handle on it all, but I like it!

It's a great way forward. We now have a distributed trusted currency (btc), but need a way to apply distributed and trusted business logic vis a via this currency.

The problem I see is the full OT vision is a little to large to tackle all at once. It spirals into so many different areas that its mind-boggling. Hence, I think the best way forward is for someone to break off a small chunk and try to make that "simple enough for Grandma". Particularly, by solving a real problem / doing something people want to do.

I think the "Smart Contract" feature may be a good place to start because of the obvious practical applications. Moreover, "signing a contract" is something that we all already know...there is a direct analogue to the physical world....whereas issuing digitally signed currencies will seem like outer-space talk to Grandma.  

Want to bet $10 with your friends that the Giants are going to win the game....fire up your handy Qik Contract program you downloaded from the App Store and publish a bet against them...etc..

The beauty of this, is that it doesn't even need to involve BTC originally, so no complicated learning curve. Simply an easy, secure, distributed contract app. However, this sets things up perfectly as a gateway into BTC because compensation for a contract is the obvious next step.

I agree with this.


Maybe. I think the best little chunk to break off and apply for a stripped down OT client would be the untraceable digital cash. If there was client that did just this small portion, while interfacing with a server that was issuing "provably-backed" fully-redeemable bitcoin tokens the demand is there. A truly anonymised layer on top of bitcoin, sure why not? Call them SilkBit tokens. Bitcoin is more fungible than traceable digital fiat (imo creates demand), truly anonymous digital cash is more fungible than bitcoins ... the market gets what the market wants.

My mom used to talk about people sending a "Tex Mex".

Here's an "advanced" UI mock-up: https://www.fluidui.com/editor/live/preview/p_XcN9TmQ5FItuPr5QctxES2XfAhinsVPp.1347267494770

Here's a "grandma" UI mock-up: https://www.fluidui.com/editor/live/preview/p_8ZN0r9Pbp2XzPC7yL3lDFw5lW2L7vEye.1347267526462


Those are only first drafts -- I would expect that a professional designer could do a much better job after drafts 2 and 3.

The "Grandma" mode is a simplification of the advanced mode -- I'm sure it could be simplified a lot more, and still remain true to the OT API.

Here's an article on using the high-level API to implement various use cases:  https://github.com/FellowTraveler/Open-Transactions/wiki/Use-Cases (https://github.com/FellowTraveler/Open-Transactions/wiki/Use-Cases)

Here's a list of all the low-level API functions: https://github.com/FellowTraveler/Open-Transactions/wiki/API (https://github.com/FellowTraveler/Open-Transactions/wiki/API)

If you type "opentxs list" it will show you all the commands supported by the OT command-line utility.
Those commands are all written in OT Script and they all use the high-level API.
Here is the source code for all of them: https://github.com/FellowTraveler/Open-Transactions/blob/master/scripts/ot/ot_commands.ot (https://github.com/FellowTraveler/Open-Transactions/blob/master/scripts/ot/ot_commands.ot)

If you prefer to see Java sample code, check out the Java test GUI, Moneychanger: https://github.com/FellowTraveler/Moneychanger (https://github.com/FellowTraveler/Moneychanger)

While I'm by no means a PRO DESIGNER. I'll be willing to create icons and GUI stuffs that anyone working on this requests! (Send me a pm too)

I'd be willing to work on icons, documentation, etc as well. No charge, I just don't have enough money to donate what I think this project is worth.

Well, my next task is to re-write the high-level API from chaiscript / java into C++.  Afterwards, I'll start work on the QT simple GUI.

da2ce7 Coding machine <o> ... I can probably do the port/build on linux OS's, (maybe some docs and integration stuff install scripts, etc if needed.)

- What financial functions are we going to give Granny's GUI?

- How shall we split the loot up?

Lets get this up and running before glbse supposedly gets their site semi working monday.

Definitely needed and good for the bitcoin economy. I asked it on Rugatu, hope you don't mind Obsi, and pledge 1 bitcoin at this moment.

http://www.rugatu.com/questions/3691/open-transactions-client-for-grandmas

With the demise of GLBSE and similar risks with any central record of ownership it would be a very good time to showcase OT markets functionality and interoperability with BTC.

I forwarded my domain to this page so hopefully it gets more input.

Is someone really working on the client?

I've put forward the idea to the investors of my GLBSE asset RSM on making a donation.

What we have so far is a so called "test GUI" named Moneychanger (https://github.com/FellowTraveler/Moneychanger) which serves as reference code showing how to implement all the various features in a GUI and as a client people can use to test all the various features to check that they actually work and to learn how one goes about using them.

It is very functional, the Martians (http://devtome.org/wiki/index.php?title=Martians), Brits (http://devtome.org/wiki/index.php?title=Britclan), Canucks (http://devtome.org/wiki/index.php?title=Canucks) and others including multigalactic Corps such as GMC (http://devtome.org/wiki/index.php?title=General_Mining_Corp) and GRF (http://devtome.org/wiki/index.php?title=General_Retirement_Funds) have been using it for a long time now and it has been working just fine.

It is written in java, so should not be hard for anyone familiar with java to start shaping it in various directions such as toward something for grandma and toward something for professional traders and so on.

-MarkM-

FYI: The last entry to http://glbse.blogspot.com/ consist of:


Are you up to being surprised? If yes, then click http://www.stochastically.com/

~Bruno~

I read somewhere that he said he was going to forward it.

We now also have a OTdemo demo/test server, see https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=117080.0

-MarkM-

 :D somewhere is 5 post above yours.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=105506.msg1250847#msg1250847

Yeah I figured someone might pick up on that sarcasm :P

do you also collect test cases etc?

Oh neat

What did you have in mind in particular ... there is a lot of sample user data data out there demonstrating server contracts, asset contracts, mulitple Nym wallets, basket currency contracts and etc ...

E.g.
https://github.com/FellowTraveler/Open-Transactions/tree/846a9398ea5326df9eaa2c162d3dcc8a0934e184/sample-data (https://github.com/FellowTraveler/Open-Transactions/tree/846a9398ea5326df9eaa2c162d3dcc8a0934e184/sample-data)

Actually, now I'd like to pledge 3 BTC. I know it's next to nothing, but that's better than actually nothing and I hate being all talk.

Fortunately, I'll only have to annoy you with tiny pledges this one last time. After this bounty is fulfilled we can just do them automatically with OT. :D

Anyone working on this? I can do it, but I don't want to waste my time if someone else already started work.

Also, what are you looking for - desktop Windows client? Crossplat java client? A JS based web client? Can be designed so private stuff don't travel to a 3rd party server.

Ideally something like BitcoinQT, a cross-platform QT client.  The next big project first is the proting of the chaiscript high-level api, to C++.  Once that is built, building a C++ GUI should be trivial.

A cross-platform java client would be best. We have a Java test GUI already but it's just that: a test GUI, not a real client. Therefore we need at least one NICE client that runs on ALL platforms.

As for the JS web client, how secure can that be, and will it require a browser plugin for the OT client DLL ?  Just curious how that would work.

me not. I posted a question if someone works on QA and wanted to look into testing of things, automate them and stuff but it's 'moving slowly'


exactly things like that, and do this for every release candidate, and preferably also night builds should be tested.
- checking if all functionality is available and working after each sw change
- compare contracts, wallets, ious created 'now' with samples from old 'good' versions - should produce same results
- list of functionality to be covered by tests/testing

Updates from Rugatu

http://www.rugatu.com/questions/3691/open-transactions-client-for-grandmas/3842

http://www.rugatu.com/questions/3691/open-transactions-client-for-grandmas/4179

Would this be under GPL/AGPL or some other license? (Maybe the pledgees would like to own it?)

mila : are you saying you could do this? ... or that this is what needs to be done?

The OP only specifies "open source", so any free license (or public domain) should be acceptable. The author would retain copyright, and my tiny pledge has no problems with them selling additional commercial licenses too.

between the lines I volunteered. to start breaking it down to doable and measurable things, it
- needs to be done
- needs to be done repeatedly for each build or at least release candidate
- needs to be maintained (test cases, test data, etc)

I could do this. most probably open source it and tutor any other volunteer who'd join the QA

https://github.com/FellowTraveler/Open-Transactions/wiki/Use-Cases
seen that already?

Last time I contemplated a PC for my grandma it boiled down to one feature (call somebody) and no GUI whatsoever except big pictures of faces of people in her address book on the desktop - clickable - hit the image of a person to dial and one button to hang up. plus some hidden processes to check uplink and pc status.

Once she would 'master' the call feature, another one would be added (like view weather forecast or the cantina menu) adding another button (switch between phone and this new feature). Not sure about the target audience of OT client but what about reasonable expectations? sort features into a learning path and hide the irrelevant stuff at the beginning.

Interesting approach, sounds promising ... i wonder if it could be codified. E.g. using an adaptive learning algorithm that monitors how proficient the user is at using the current menu system then adds in menu items and complexity as the user learns ... ? Begin of course with an incredibly simple interface to do something very basic but desirable ... e.g. "send grandsons moar money", picture of grandson, pop-up numeric digits pad to enter amount, big green send button.

> ... i wonder if it could be codified.

My point was "less features" would be probably an option. When I first saw the sheer number of tabs I was like wtf.
grandma can probably safely touch any of the different corners of the screen, this leaves 3 features/options and back/cancel button.
when focus is in a functional screen, we still have only 3 corners (see back/cancel button should remain where it is) to work with.
maybe 5 elements if we assume grandma can safely touch/distinguish 6 elements on the screen.
like choose face (whom to send teh money), maybe change type of tx (bitcoin, silver IOU, other ...) and type/choose amount.
(if gui has 6 elements, then also "take/consult notes" & "wealth overview") ...

I like multibit's take on this, 3 fixed tabs in the app and all others can be closed (if you open them).
thus you can have the client as complex as you wish (read open tab for everything) or boil it down to basic 3.
what is "all that grandma needs"?
- make 'em feel my generosity - send stuff
- who is in my address book (view/add/probably should not edit - could corrupt vital tx IDs)
- what's in here (list of assets - what can I spend / liabilities - p.ex. memos about bills due this month, year ...)
- add/remove stuff to/from screen (show/hide options/features)
- cancel/back/home
- tutorial / help / training mode (I'd like to allow user to play with the app without consequences, demo mode, maybe change the background, show in the banner if this is the real or training session, let her explore the new mighty wallet)

yes, few big buttons

I second that and if done that way I pledge another 10 BTC. A modular architecture would allow users to select what financial instruments / functions (demo-ed on the MoneyChanger) they would like to use and select them during installation phase or install / uninstall modules later. The GUI must be as simple as possible with few big buttons geared towards younger generations instead as a target group. I'm also skeptical that the average nowadays grandma will ever use this product. OT is way ahead of its time! First bitcoin must dismantle current monetary monopoly and inflict changes on monetary regulation and legal frameworks.

IMHO http://www.voucher-safe.com/ is much better.

Voucher safe doesn't seem very safe, it warns that browsers plugin are needed, which probably means it tries to use some plugin that was deliberately removed due to known security problems. (Flash or java or something like that.)

-MarkM-

I'm not too familiar with voucher safe, but this probably means that users have to download spark browser plugin http://www.igniterealtime.org/projects/spark/ to allow XMPP communication between the client and issuer / publisher server.

Updates from Rugatu:

S0lll0s is asking if this should be open or closed source.

http://www.rugatu.com/questions/3691/open-transactions-client-for-grandmas/4488

@Rugatu & all potential donors to this bounty, I don't like to practices of rugatu.com
while the OP in this server promotes donation address 1JbgqTVjfrapGQCCup3eZBD69zshoSouKU
 user id 58626 (screen name Rugatu) changed it in 'his' site to something else while keeping 95+ % of the OP unchanged - invoking the impression of being collecting funds towards the same goal.
the changed address is also properly labelled in his post but it's imo not best practice and while I understand the 'need' to track sources of pledges, it seems to be done without the consent of OP author. /me is just suspicious

We're sorry if you got that impression, the funds are really collected for the same purpose on both addresses, but as you already seen, Rugatu promotes it's own escrow wallet of the bounty so the creator of this software can be sure he will get his reward.

I don't know for how much time you've been a member of the Bitcoin community but you probably already know that most bounties never get paid at all, so Rugatu was created exactly with this in mind and ease the whole IP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property) work and contract honoring process, between pseudo-anonymous participants. Received funds are shown publicly, and they can be seen in the bitcoin blockchain at the same time.

At this moment Rugatu (http://www.rugatu.com/) is one of a kind escrow service for intelectual work, and is only made possible by the bitcoin's unique properties.

I don't want to create an account to comment:
(Emphasis mine)

OP is about open source.

Guess he didn't read the OP thoroughly, I will comment that for you. Btw you can login with your google, fb or twitter account, there's no need to create a new one.

@Rugatu
da2ce7 paid his bounties and is around 20+ months longer than you (where I stand I see him around longer than you)
he is as well long term O-T project member.
your service is not related to any of them but is attempting to collect bounty for the project.
we will see.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2602.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3154.0

Are you purposely trolling this thread? What da2ce7 has to do with obsi's request (OP) apart from pledging "some coins"? Btw, I can't find the post where he pledged, only some of them where he states working on something.

I'm also going to support this project with 10 Bitcoins.

This looks like a needed project. I'd be willing to put in some bitcoins at some point in the not so distant future.

Devcoin pledges 8 generation shares for the Grandma Open Transaction Client. The value of the generation shares vary, at the time of this writing they are worth about 7.2 bitcoins each:
http://devtome.com/doku.php?id=earn_devcoins_by_writing#generation_share

so 8 shares is about 58 bitcoins. If the devcoin market capitalization rises, the number of generation shares pledged might rise, but it will never be more than 1% of the capitalization:
http://devtome.com/doku.php?id=devcoin_bounty#project_types

Is anyone working on this at the moment? Is the bounty still open?

Yes sir, bounty still open on Rugatu

http://www.rugatu.com/questions/3691/open-transactions-client-for-grandmas

Any progress?

Is there any proof that this bounty is still open?

Both donation addresses are empty and OP wasn't online since October 2012.

Someone donated money rather than pledged it? Wow, no wonder he disappeared.

I'm just asking because..



How can you know if Obsi is still willing to pledge 100 BTC at todays exchange rate?
Or was this just some Rugatu promotion? ;D

I'll throw down a fair bit of BTC (hundreds of dollars worth) for this. I had started working on a web interface months ago, but I'm not even a remotely good programmer. I just think OT has huge potential!

If someone develop something like this he doesn't really need bounty. Because BTC price is going to go really high, and nothing is better than that :D

This was first posted here on Bitcointalk but we saw the chance to promote this project on Rugatu and take advantage of the influx of new users that find out about Bitcoin through it. We pledged a small amount at first to incentive any developers research it, and hoped more people would pledge in the future for having it completed.

The bounty on Rugatu is still active and all funds are kept in escrow, but we don't know for sure if the bounty is still going here on the forum. Guess Obsi should comment on this again.

FWIW my tiny 3 BTC are still pledged here.

I have the technical ability and desire to pursue this project provided the requirements can be defined:

1) I need a digital cash system with wallet and was already building one.
2) I already fully understand the entire design behind OT (having implemented a 'clone' just for fun)
3) I need a digital cash system for my P2P network designs.

So my 'proposed' easy to use system would focus on maintaining a wallet with digital cash tokens and allowing them to be spent.  It would also allow the deposit/withdraw of Bitcoin into such an account. 

I would implement it with Qt and C++ because they provide a better user experience and more native feel without a lot of the hassels of dealing with the JRE.

If I were to pursue this, I would need the following promises from those who are backing this bounty:

1) All competitors must develop "open source" on github so I can tell where they are.  (No surprises winning the bounty after I have done 99%)
2) How will the bounty be divided if there are multiple good contestants?
3) What are the minimum subset of features required to win the bounty?
4) Who will judge the usability and by what objective criteria?

I will have to look into how DevCoins works as I would be working on this in excess of 20 hrs / week.

Obsi has been inactive for months here. Anyone knows about this?

There are some people working hard with this wonderfull project atm.

Peaple interested on contribute please follow here from now on https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=225954.80
It's OT + bitmessage and seem wonderfull, future is coming.

The other bounty does seem much better organized. Is there anyone currently working on this bounty who would object to pledges here being transferred to ft's "holy grail" bounty?

This is what should properly happen ... I have the feeling that the original pledgers are not around any longer though :(

... or they were stupid enough to send funds to OP

I'm actually going to claim this "for Grandmas" bounty myself, on behalf of Monetas.

We have produced a "Grandma Easy" client, we just haven't released it yet (coming soon.)

Screenshots:  http://ft.vm.to/files/screenshots/

--------------------------------------------------------------

I suggest anyone who is interested on working on an OT-related client, look instead at the "Holy Grail" bounty:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=225954.0

*EDIT: Moved to Google Drive (from Dropbox) since many were complaining the videos were cut off at the end.
----

Intro video -- Monetas iPhone app: http://goo.gl/8Dxak1

This app does a lot more than you see in the video, which is meant to show basic functionality.

I'm recording an "advanced" video tonight and will post a link soon.


----

P.S. most of the code in this app is being re-used in the Android app as well as the "Holy Grail" project.

You're doing most of the hard work, I would agree with that, just willing if would be reasonable donating part of this to the bounty of Holy Grail development.

Looking forward.
Congratz again!

ps: can't see neither download the video from dropbox, can u reup?

Hmm I just tried it from a different browser and it still appears to work...

If you want (or if anyone else having problems) send me a PM with your email and I'll make a copy just for you.

No one ever claimed this Grandma bounty (other than myself.)

I originally put in 80 BTC towards this grandma bounty (back when they were like $2 per coin) but I've since paid those to the Indian developer who worked on the original Java test GUI.

As for the other 105 BTC on the grandma bounty, you will have to ask those original contributors to put that towards the Holy Grail, if they so choose. (If they pay it to me for this grandma bounty, I pledge also to put it towards the Holy Grail.)

The Holy Grail bounty is up to 81+ BTC, including some of my own, and I definitely recommend that any new contributions should also go there.

You're exemplar. I'm pleased for reading your answers. And the video worked, nvm.
Will take a look at it later

The btc towards the Holy grail bounty only makes sense to me by unifying the efforts into one area instead of multiple efforts into the same result.

*EDIT: Moved to Google Drive (from Dropbox) since many were complaining the videos were cut off at the end.


Here's the second video, showing off more advanced features:

http://goo.gl/u6xqHc