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Your paying for some big bitcoin businesses to have more power then they need too with no checks or balances to there power. Also it isn't that big only ~250 ppl considering this forum is over 70k. Also you have to sign up with your real name which means they are destroying a main value of bitcoin being the anonymous

I think it's a good idea in theory: BitCoin could use some people to help promote it better. But I'm not a member, so I don't know how well it works out in practice.

When the government wants to get a list of bitcoiners in future its best not to be on one.

As just one Bitcoin Foundation member, I certainly can not speak for the whole organization, but, a big part of this organization to to pool funds to actually pay people to get stuff done. Bitcoin has become something more than a hobby experiment...and we can't keep relying on the good will of smart people to keep the gravy train rolling, so to speak. People tend to think of Bitcoin as this huge thing, almost as if there were no people behind it...in fact, it's a very small group that actually develop code for the protocol. A measly few BTC membership fee, which one could easily spend on dinner and a movie, is a small price to pay to buy programmers to help make your remaining btc worth more.

Ok, but what about the privileges, other then a sound conscience?

I'm curious about this too. What benefit does it have to the members other than one vote?

I agree with what you said, but like others, could you explain the real benefits of the membership? Also I didn't notice the 2.5 BTC annual fee, i guess its not so bad, but ill probably just end up getting the lifetime membership which will most likely increase as btc becomes higher.

Maybe they do a T-shirt or bright yellow  :) badge for the members?

Didn't Woody Allen say "I wouldn't want to be in a club that would have me as a member"?

The benefits of membership are access to a forum for members, ability to vote on elections for board members, and that's about it.

The primary reason to join at this point is to help fund Gavins salary.

The Foundation also achieves a bunch of other important things, for instance, it recently obtained code signing certificates in the name of the foundation, which looks a hell of a lot more professional to the "man on the street" than having Bitcoin-Qt signed by some random guy you never heard of. Finally they're starting to do outreach to governments and organizing conferences. It's covered in their blog.

Basically it's about raising the professionalism of the project.

What makes you think you'd get a sound conscience by participating ?

Privileges? None really. You get to participate in setting the foundation agenda.

Foundation needed for non-bitcoiners to come to with questions and insults? Yes, very much so. This forum scares people away.
Foundation needed for bitcoiners who use it everyday? I highly doubt it. The blockchain is our foundation.

"The Blockchain is our Foundation!"

This should be Bitcoins catchphrase. 

It is a foundation, guess joining is not about privileges, but about agenda you support.

Yes. I support the agenda that pays smart people to make stuff for me...as opposed to hoping someone will keep doing it for free.

Personally I support the Foundation and became a lifetime member.

The group still needs to prove itself with time, but even having the Foundation exist offered immense confidence to many investors and outsiders looking at our new ecosystem.

The fact that the Foundation pays Gavin a salary now is reason enough to join as a member.

This is another reason I will not join. Your telling me Gavin needs a salary which tells me two scenarios

A) Gavin didn't believe in bitcoin so he never invested his money which at is time could have made him a millionaire, which would mean he doesn't need a salary.

B) Gavin is super greedy and wants a salary which really should go to all those developers equality that work hard not just him.

Regarding A: So if Gavin did buy lots of coins and is currently a millionaire, he doesn't deserve a salary for all the work he's doing? And why should he divulge how many coins he has?

Regarding B: Everyone wants more money. I do, you do, Gavin does. There is nothing wrong with that. Gavin's work has been instrumental, and he deserves a salary after working pro-bono for years. Other devs do as well. All the more reason to support the Foundation.

C) Gavin is a necessary part of the core Bitcoin development team, and doesn't want to work for free.

As far as I know none of the core developers have become millionaires because of Bitcoin. The whole assumption that you can become a millionaire this way is based on the idea that after finding Bitcoin, all you do is try to acquire as many as possible and hold onto them (obviously to get a salary you need to sell them from time to time). But developers tend to want to .... develop ..... not mine or hoard.

Well now is bitcoin just money to him, I think he is in a weird position were, the amount of money for bitcoin protocol shouldn't matter at all. I think once your in a foundation, your working on open source software and you need a salary is going against what the protocol should be. There no reason he can't make money on the side like he did, but if your working on the bitcoin protocol you should be doing it for nothing, or everyone gets paid the same, none of this one person gets a salary. Also if your a millionaire your not going to take a salary. This is a revolution idea and being a driving force should be good enough for him.


Then we all have failed, there shouldn't be one person that is "Necessary" to the development team, while Gavin has brought a lot to the table and helped moved us farther in the software, he should be expendable just like anyone else. This is kinda border line breaking a core value of a decentralized currency, if one person is "Necessary" to the development team. I really hope one day someone will build a full node to compete with bitcoin-qt but until then we are in this horrible postion according to software.

You misunderstand how opensource communities work. People usually do what they find interesting, and there is stuff nobody wants to do that needs to be done. That's why someone should be paid to (have to) deal with the "dirty stuff".

+1
I joined just for that reason.

+1 This this this

Donating to the foundation is hedging against tragedy of the common.

Can be as a strategic investment or because you believe in the value for value model.

Could someone educate me a little bit about Gavin's role in bitcoin development?

I couldn't agree more with the above. If Gavin is indispensable to Bitcoin then that is highly concerning news to me.

I believe that paying Gavin, so he can focus 100% on Bitcoin, is a good investment. That's why I support the foundation.

If Gavin disappeared, the foundation would probably have paid an other developer who was taking over his job. But I'm very happy that Gavin is the leader of the development group now.

The bus factor should be changed.

What if there is no other developer that can take over. What if Gavin isn't expendable, and that no other developer can take control of the codebase, well then sir welcome to non-decentralized currency and we are lying to everyone that uses bitcoin-qt/bitcoind.

Just because nobody have the skills like Gavin to develop the bitcoin protocol, doesn't mean it's centralized.

Then the other developers should press the alarm button tonight!

Yes it does, he has full control of it. Also what if the old "bus hits Gavin tomorrow" situation who would take over?

Exactly. It'd be like saying that Science is centralized just because not everyone can understand it. You could of course argue that science kind of is centralized by the governments and institutions, but I'm not quite sure about that. One thing I have felt odd about is requiring just a handful of bitcoin developers to "approve" push requests on Github itself kind of makes it centralized, at least for the current blockchain if you ask me. I'm comfortable that nothing nefarious would get past the current community, but that is also true for small governments and look how that turned out. I can imagine that later on the slogan will become "Bitcoin, decentralized and anyone can edit the code* (Code editors must be pre-approved by a panel of the richest guys in Bitcoin)"

As far as I understand it anyone can fork the code, change it, package it and freely distribute their version, no approval necessary by anyone. What does require approval is distribution through bitcoin.org. (someone please correct me if this isn't accurate)

Gavin is not indispensable to bitcoin. He has contributed a lot to development but there isn't any reason to believe Bitcoin would fail without Gavin. Without Gavin, one or more individuals would most likely step up to fill his shoes. They would probably prefer to be paid, too.

This is how I understood it too, but it begs the question: What is bitcoin.org representing? The technology or the current blockchain? If it's just representing the blockchain, then Gavin (and whomever else has permissions to accept PUSH requests) has total control of the entire network. If it's representing the technology that powers the blockchain, why not revamp the bitcoin.org website to allow people to publish their own versions of bitcoin, including alt coins, forked chains, etc? They wouldn't go anywhere (I guess), but like voting, it would at least in the sense of voting for elections, it would make people feel like they have a choice in the matter.

What do you think?

People can put up their own sites to promote their own Bitcoin client. And no, of course he has no control over the blockchain.

What I meant is, bitcoin is a technology (general) but also a particular implementation. Bitcoin.org is catering to the implementation. That in itself seems like a centralization of sorts.

It may seem but it's not.

RE: what's my role in the core team:  I try to do whatever needs to get done, that isn't getting done.  Today I'm cross-compiling the 0.8 release and testing it on Windows, trying to track down a crash-at-exit issue and an excessive-memory-use issue that seems to only happen on Windows.

When I'm not doing nitty-gritty things like that, I try to work on big, what-is-most-likely-to-make-Bitcoin-succeed problems.

RE: why pay me a salary?  "why pay for the cow if you can get the milk for free?"

I told myself (and my wife) a couple of years ago that I wasn't going to sink dollars into Bitcoin-- that I'd sink time into it, and that I'd EARN bitcoins by starting a bitcoin-related startup.

Well, there's enough core development work to keep me busy full time. I wasn't very happy doing core development work AND trying to make ClearCoin happen; I'm happier when I can concentrate on one thing.  Besides, having my own startup introduces potential conflicts of interest (ClearCoin sparked conspiracy theories about why I push for multisig transactions so hard).

RE: what if I get hit by a bus?

Then the other core developers will carry on without me. I'm not indispensable.

RE: Why should you join the Foundation?  What is in it for you, personally?

That is a hard question, because you can "free ride" -- if we're successful making Bitcoin successful, everybody will benefit. Personally, I don't respect people with that kind of "I'm not going to do it because I'm sure somebody else will" attitude, and I think in the long run the people who take the risks and roll up their sleeves and do the work needed tend to win in the end.

Really, the main benefit of joining the Foundation is it is an organization full of people who are rolling up their sleeves and doing the work. If you're smart, you'll realize that networking with those types of people is to your long-term benefit.

Gavin: I think I may have asked this previously ... do you have a donation address?

(One for those of us who would just like to drop a few coins into your own pocket now and then, without signing up to anything.) Thnx.

Edit: you can PM it to me if you would like to keep it private.

+1 but...

And there is a big BUT, we have to have some incentives system in place for the main developers, the ones that really do the hard work like Gavin and team, because if we don't we're being at risk of having the highest bidders push changes over time and corrupt the system from within, always in their own interest.

I'm not part of the Foundation, but seeing how things are taking course lately I'm thinking seriously about paying my subscription and support the developers for their awesome work. Bitcoin has just started to gain traction but allot has to be done to gain mainstream adoption, and we will surely not be there real soon if we're scattered all around. I remember someone's comment from these forums: voluntarily joining forces is how free market gets things done, and is good.


Edit: I just signed up for a year, hope I support the devs and learn something useful too.

Fair enough. How about:
D) Gavin is greatly encouraged through monetary incentive to work harder, longer, and faster on various fixes and features for Bitcoin-QT.  Instead of things taking months or years to get fixed by whomever feels like they want to tackle it in their spare time, the paid full-time developer Gavin can address problems in days or weeks instead.  And given that the foundation believes he is the best/most efficient/most trustworthy coder on the QT project, he gets paid.

Another way of going about it might be to offer bounties on various bugfixes and features, but how do you know that the person implementing the fix is trustworthy?  What happens when their sloppy coding results in more bugs found down the line?  What if their documentation is poor?  Etc, etc.

Mozilla pays workers to work on their software, but many people also make their own contributions on a voluntary basis.  How does that differ from this current situation in Bitcoin?  Gavin is a paid lead developer, and everyone else can contribute at their leisure on a voluntary basis.

Ohhh and you know how long thing would take if he wasn't getting paid... I am just saying there like 10 core developers between them and there time, they couldn't handle the software. I just think that one person handling the lead on such a revolutionary idea is bad news. Remember I want to run a full node, currently there is no other option. I think this is classic monopoly and if Gavin was unable to do his job tomorrow, bitcoin would greatly stuffer, we need more lead developers, maybe we can get 3 people on board I feel little bit better. In reality one person that relied on this heavy in this much a decentralized way, is insanity!

Also I never talked about bounties, actually I would disagree with a bounties model, that code is usually rushed and very buggy. I think people that take on the job of bitcoin-qt want to give something back. Hey I knew C++ and python at the level I know other languages I would be right there helping sadly I can't.

Mozilla, makes a browser... i don't see any parallel and I think your miss understood why I disagree with Gavin getting paid. I feel like it is giving too much power to on person, which it is cause no ONE has said an actual person's name IF Gavin was unable to do bitcoins anymore.

I think we need an actual name, if you leave bitcoins for whatever reason I think there should be a backup person, this is only going to lead to confusion on the forums and could be the thing, that could bring bitcoins from $16 right back to $5 or even $2.

In case of the bus scenario: Let the core team decide among them and elect one to take his job! Otherwise we'll have some weird dynasty up there.

But who on the core team has the knowledge of the codebase like Gavin? That is what we trying to figure out... Think about if Gavin can't do bitcoins who will take over? He isn't expendable! There is no straight answer to this...

You're making a mountain out of a molehill (not the first time either). There are at least three I can think of off the top of my head who could lead the devs quite happily ... and if it really comes down to it I imagine Satoshi would reappear, the same, though changed.

I wouldn't lose any sleep over this for a number of reasons.

• I've seen key superstar developers that looked irreplaceable leave many important commercial software products.  They were always replaced successfully, even if it took their successors a little while to get up to speed at the same level of proficiency.  For interesting projects, there will always be smart people eager to step up to the plate.  And Bitcoin is definitely interesting.
• Lots of very smart and capable developers are working on the Bitcoin client and related projects right this instant, and several of them could have the right skillset to replace Gavin.  Some might visit bitcointalk frequently, but others work with low publicity or visibility.  Subscribe to the development mailing list on sourceforege to get a fuller picture of development activity.
• Retroactively imagine the panic you would've felt if you'd known Satoshi was leaving for good.  If anyone was irreplaceable, it was him.  And yet, things have turned out fine.

Having said all this, I don't want to be misunderstood, Gavin is a very valuable asset, I like his style, and I hope he sticks around for a long time.

I guess legit concerns I should just keep to myself... Sorry let me go and talk about how great the foundation is... Really then you insult my intelligences with this statement.


I am not losing sleep, but this should be something that is talked about. I think most of the dev team is very able to pick up the program today. I think more of the Gavin is a strong entity in the bitcoin world and being the lead developer of the official bitcoin and only full node gives him a lot of power.


I think a lot of people are misunderstood, if a couple people are saying Gavin is not an expendable person on the bitcoin project, then that means this experiment was a fail. Soon we will either have to have a spilt of the official bitcoin application or a new full node, to defeat this monopoly.

I've joined, and i think it's worthy.

I joined, too.

Hey Gavin,

I appreciate you taking the time to respond to all the questions everyone has brought up in this thread, it has really made everyone realize the reality of the foundation and how important the role of you and your team are to this community. Although some may not agree, we are all entitled to our own opinions, either way I came to the final decision of joining the foundation as a lifetime member. Thank you.

Short and sweet answer, NO.

You're contradicting yourself. First you're against developers getting paid, then you whine how Gavin isn't expendable and there is no one to take his place. Well, why would there be if people can have well paying jobs instead of working on bitcoin code for free? At least someone needs to be paid to deal with the stuff other people don't want to. Gavin is the most appropriate candidate for the job. Because of people like you that don't want to contribute, there (probably) isn't enough money to hire more developers and make it more "decentralized".

Gavin's bank account says thank you :)

I am not against any developer getting paid, but we are blurring the lines of paying one person over the others not getting paid and risking that one person can be there to do bitcoins for a long time, backups are always good. No one is discounting Gavin's experience and skill set, the entire community respects that aspect of him. Also as Gavin did say he has not spend and will not spend one dollar on any bitcoins. Sadly I find that a little offensive cause you have a chance to be worth a lot of money yet you don't invest in it. I just want to make sure the software I use will always get top of the line especially since it deals with a lot of money. If you don't feel that way then I can't help you there. That is the one thing about this forum I will always hate, asking questions and bring up questions about issues everyone takes for granted is looked at as a troll.

Also I will not contribute to a foundation that doesn't have the same views (PM me if you want the reasons why the foundation is not worthy of my contributions) as me is not hindering the software. What is a hinder is one person knowing too much about the entire codebase and no one else stepping up and creating another full node software to compete with this. There always needs checks and balances and this one things that is not decentralized and doesn't have the correct checks.

The problem with decentralization and extreme resiliency is that it is EXPENSIVE. It is EXPENSIVE to educate a developer into knowing the codebase and working on it fulltime. It is EXPENSIVE to build a completely separate node software when it can be concentrated into one project. It is EXPENSIVE to make bitcoin totally resilient against any governmental attacks, any privacy-breaking attempt, any bugs in the system.

Security is expensive. Think of all the locks, the policemen, the soldiers, military R&D, mining rigs, and all the bank guards in the world. Now think of the money that could be spent on something more useful and relevant to our lives if everyone is a goodyshoes.

So you want resiliency and security from "gavin dies, we're screwed"? Well, are you willing to pay for the cost or providing said resiliency and security? It seems that you are bent on decentralization, resiliency, and security at any cost.

There are no such things as a free lunch.

No its not. There's plenty of open source project that have excellent security track records where no one gets paid. Also, paying gavin does not make this project more secure, it makes it LESS secure, because it creates dependencies, centralization and it gives influence through a small amount of companies that have a financial interest for themselves rather than towards the community.

Security is an easier problem to tackle in an open source project, sufficiently managed. That's not to say decentralization don't have costs. It would be a lot more efficient if we just use a group of servers managed by a few trustworthy individuals, but it's also quite vunerable to takedown by nefarious organizations. That's why bitcoin exists. Arguably, you could say bitcoin is a lot cheaper than other approaches, but you also have take into mind the mining rigs that's popping up all over the planet.

And a lot of people really don't like how bitcoin operates because it is blatantly inefficient in a lot of way.


 ::) You can join the Bitcoin foundation as an individual member, have more corporations join it, etc.

These same open source projects are also completely decentralized, some having thousands of developers from all over the world and none are getting paid.
The whole bitcoinfoundation thing has made it less likely that the development will be sustainable, open and decentralized. If I were a developer working on open source projects and perhaps interested in joining another (which I happen to be, heh) I would think twice before joining one where the "lead dev" is getting paid by an organisation that is (partly) ran by some companies that have a financial gain from his work. It will limit freedom, and it is not very open-spirited.



"We set up something flawed, and if you don't like the flaws you can join it and make it better".

 ::)

Don't give me that crap. People are paid to work on linux, firefox, apache, and any number of large open soruce projects. In fact, some projects are responsible for the livelihood of developers, such as ruby on rails.

You could say that open source spawn commercial activity. Why shouldn't it be the same with bitcoin, in which their whole points is to support commercial activity!?


You think those linux foundation members are doing nefarious things? I am sure that they are getting some "financial gains" from funding Linus' works.


If you want to fix under-representation in an organization, you fix it by joining it as a member so that you are represented.

I also get paid to work on one open source project. But I get paid by a company (for which I also do other activities), who want someone to defend their interests in this project. That's all open and transparent.
That is very different from a foundation paying a dev, with this foundation being paid by "members", whose main contributors and board members happen to be... companies that have an interest in the development.
It is not open and tranaparent anymore. Is gavin making code that he wants to make? If he making code that the foundation wants him to make? Is he making code that a specific part of the board of the foundation wants him to make?


Is it? None of the foundations three "missions" are aimed at that though. Not officially at least. I agree that unofficially they *will* be aimed at that of course. And whose commercial activities are they likely to support best you think? Yours? Mine? Or maybe MtGox's? And Bitinstant's?


I don't know. I'm not involved in it. But if I wanted to be involved in it, I'd first check to make sure no companies that have a financial gain (or loss) depending on the direction linux is headed are paying its core devs through the foundation while being in the board if this foundation themselves.


If you want an organization that is not under-represented in some areas, then set it up in a way that supports and stimulates that.

The pricey part is trying to be MPEx. It doesn't work in their case because they don't actually provide any value for the price. Being part of the exclusive club of kids who can trade BTC securities is one thing, being part of the exclusive club of kids that sit around being part of the exclusive club of kids is nothing at all.

The seeming big part is unexplainable. They don't seem anything other than very small, as best I can determine.

It's a circumvoluted way for a couple of BTC groups to pay Gavin's salary without outright starting a war with the miners (who will in the future be hiring their own dev teams, forking the project and carrying on). This isn't even bad, mind you, the more kingdoms warring the more stable the continent, and in the particular the weaker party organizing itself first holds promises for future stability.

I would expect them to be a public voice for bitcoin.

What disappointed me was that they missed the opportunity of a press release for bitcoin's fourth birthday.