Yeah but that dose of legitimacy is exactly what some of us were calling a power grab and now fear it's a danger in the future. I much rather see a different name that allows for likewise legitimate competition rather than a name that implies sole legitimacy but I do agree that two people can't decide what the best name should be and do hope you have a meeting, ask for suggestions and vote on a change ASAP.

As for the rest, I just want to you to take a free market voluntary approach to every aspect and couldn't understand why you didn't do so from the get go. Currently you made a lot of assertions and thereby raised red flags with some of us who are highly coercion wary. So I do hope this is the second most important topic you will discuss at your meeting then ask for suggestions and change ASAP. You can only benefit if you do so even though it might not seem like that right away because you'd be giving up some of this "power" or legitimacy.


And good morning to you too.

In a heated discussion it's hard to remain rational and emotionless, especially if someone is envisioning future scenarios where you are behaving maliciously when you know you have the best intentions at heart right now. I get that. But I thought I did my best, actually surprisingly restrained for my standards, to remain respectful and not manipulative at all times. I really am just trying to ask question and point out what I perceive as inconsistencies and future dangers.

So yes I agree with you, we should try to remain respectful to each other in order to find a solution. And the acknowledgement from you last night that how some of us critics perceive TBF (self imposed spokesperson, policy setting, business vetting, intertwined with corporate interest body) is actually correct was a huge step in the right direction. I hope you can make many more such steps to ensure this becomes a good solution for a long time to come. But it will require more such honesty and openness which might again rattle up some emotions so don't forget this in those moments.

No I don't think that solves the conflict of interest. There can't be ownership of both by the same group or person. You either create two groups separate and independent or do as I suggested if you really want to solve the dangers that a conflict of interest poses in the future.

I'm still interested to hear your response two the other two suggestions.

I'm not trying to be annoying, I'm just pointing out dangers and inconsistencies. I apologize if that annoys you.


After doing so, because .org wasn't working for me but .com was thinking you made a mistake and wanted to fix a broken link, I immediately pmed you about my correction upon which you pmed that I made a mistake for which I immediately apologized for. I don't understand why you are trying to paint me as a saboteur when I am anything but.


As the moderator I have responsibilities. One is to check my mail for reports of which I got more than five asking me why the moderation is being inconsistent moving all the posts discussing the foundation to Service Discussion, and moving all the other announcement to Service Announcements but leaving your announcement of a service, which is my personal opinion what your Bitcoin Foundation is, in the Bitcoin Discussion. Despite all the reports I didn't take any action, instead I extended you some courtesy and pmed you about this issue, to which you gave me a non answer upon which I asked you to tell me how you think about it to which I never got a reply. Because the issue wasn't closed I asked theymos for instruction and he instructed me to leave the post alone which I did.

What I did wrong here, I don't understand.



I also don't understand why you are putting words in my mouth. I'm not spouting off anything, all I did was give Charlie suggestion how to prevent TBF being corrupted in the future and abused and one of my suggetions was to eliminate your conflict of interest which no one wants to acknowledge exists with you being the lead dev and at the same time a founding member on the board of directors for the next two years. I don't understand how else I can express my suggestions and point out facts that it wouldn't bother you. It's about you, it's bound to bother you but that's not my fault.


It is my opinion that if as much effort was put into fund raising as was put into formulating TBF, you would have more than enough funds to fund yourself and a big enough team to support you. A single post on the forum just isn't enough effort to bare any such fruit. Did you ever ask if anyone wanted to help out with promotion or with figuring out a fund raising scheme? I must bring up the very successful foundraising for the very first promotional Bitcoin video that raised something like 9000 BTC which was the money that started weusecoins.com. If that much was raised for that purpose I can't even imagine how much you could get for development.



Yes this is a problem. I don't deny it. But how you now attempted to solve it is not and cannot be the only solution. It's a solution, it's the solution that is the most comfortable and easy for you. Unfortunately it's also the most dangerous solution for the future of Bitcoin.



Last but not least I just don't understand why instead of attacking my persona you don't just point to facts that would support your arguments. It's really scary to read such manipulative posts from you and it makes it that much harder to believe you understand the issues some of us are having with TBF.

Simple. A for profit organization such as what TBF would like to be, can hire Gavin and all the other devs as an independent contractors. Why is this important? Because then Gavin can't hide his actions behind anyone and carries the sole responsibility. His work would be looked at by everyone and it would keep him honest, even if he is paid by some malicious organization.

But what you have done now is provided a shield for his work. A shield he can hide behind. Should TBF ever get corrupted all it needs to do is issue as press release of a changed policy and Gavin simply writes the code. Anyone opposing the new code would now need to challenge the foundation instead of just Gavin which if the TBF is well founded is almost certainly going to result in a loss for the challenger.

You say that Gavin becoming the lead "just happened.) Although it has worked out well, no one can guarantee the longevity of Gavin in that role." but that isn't true. It didn't "just happen".. it happened because he did an awesome job, had he messed up he could have been simply replaced. How simple is it to replace him now?

Also you state there are no guarantees Gavin will keep doing good work but again you miss the self regulating aspect of a market. Gavin would have to keep doing good work and it's a guarantee he would have because if he ever stopped he would get replaced. Something you have now taken away from this community because the Bitcoin Foundation can defend him.


Up is down, left is right. That's all I hear. All check and balances that we needed, we had until 2 days ago.

Now what we have is you telling us there are checks an balances within this one organization, and all the other free market checks and balances that we had were effectively destroyed. It was no accident Bitcoin worked so well until now.

I thought better of you. Why the need to resort to ad hominem attacks in order to manipulate others in falling under the same Stockholms sindrom spell as you have?

As for the rest of your post, all the negatives you listed I could go search your history of post for the last six months and find claims stating exactly the opposite outlook. Yes the foundation can do some good, but no, there are no facts that would support your assertion that it is needed and Bitcoin couldn't succeed without it.

Yeah.

Can you really not stop using trickery in your posts? I'm telling you you can't fool me because I studied this - I know exactly how propaganda works.

What your post here says are 3 things:

1) you assert that "Bounties fail.  KickStarter-like provides unpredictable bursts.  Anonymous donations are a beer-money tiny trickle.  Self-supporting through for-profit ventures steals developer focus and introduces clear, direct conflicts of interest "
 I disagree. Has Gavin tried the bounties route? Has he tried a kickstarter like fundraising? No. You merely assert those methods or some other method doesn't work.

2) you identified a danger and instead of offering a service and letting the market decide whether it wants/needs it, you have self imposed yourself over all users without them having a choice while telling us that this is the only way it could have been done - again a mere assertion. I already explained that in order for this not be the case, you need to change the name, change to for profit, remove Gavin or any dev from members and have independent contracts with them

3) you keep pointing out I can start my own solution and yet I would need to persuade the lead dev and his team to join me without whom my foundation's relevancy would be non existent which you know damn well but refuse to acknowledge. TBF has been formed with lead dev + dev team, two most powerful Bitcoin businesses, no other foundation can possibly match that and you all know this.



Governments do what you did with your post all the time. "Oh oh poor people who got their houses destroyed by a hurricane. We need to do something!" pretending their solution is the only possible way and just forcing themselves on the people and we all know how well that works out - it doesn't. And as much as people applaud politicians for their great speeches when they tell the masses how they fought to secure the funds to help those poor people it doesn't change the fact that usually the road to hell is paved with good intentions and such forced endeavors end up in a bigger tragedy.

Yes Bitcoin development might be facing a freight train, but no your solution isn't the only solution and isn't the best solution and yet you forced us to swallow it no matter what the consequences while making it virtually impossible to compete.

Sorry, but I will not applaud a move like that, ever.

Actually, it's 6:20 am, I'm practically a zombie right now. Today was a very exhausting day for me, this whole issue really wore me down, to the point my family noticed I was in a really bad mood. But you calmed down just a tiny bit now and I think I'll head to bed.

Damn I care about this great experiment way too much.. 

I'm glad you finally understood my points and apology accepted, no hard feelings either.

As for:

My first answer would be to not have a Bitcoin Foundation. Why crack the door open and leave the foot in there if it can be shut closed, right?

But the idea of some of the things the Foundation could do isn't entirely bad, I never said it was. I just think the way you structured it is really bad because of the future dangers. So the next best thing to no foundation would be what I already wrote in a post some pages ago:
- Gavin or any dev just can't be a member, it's a conflict of interest and it gives the Foundation a higher profile than it needs and could be abused in the future
 Gavin and all the devs can simply be independent contractors for the foundation, preferably with public contracts. This also allows competition for Gavins contract by another Foundation.
- The name must change to something that is more akin to a voluntary service rather than how I described it earlier: "self anointed ect.. " Someone already posted a few great suggestions that would be much better and safer than the highly officially sounding Bitcoin Foundation
- It needs to be a for profit organization, dependent on not just donations but primarily on offering a service. If vetting businesses is a service people want and will trust this organization's opinion then they should pay for it which again creates a market and allows for competition. Not only that, if it turns out the services that this organization offers aren't desired it will simply go bankrupt and another will take it's place picking up the pieces ensuring we will have the best quality and price.

Also, my ideas would never include trying to adopt checks and balances through the bylaws because those can always be changed (just like the constitution for example).


If you'd implement these three changes, I'd be 100% on board, I'd even buy a subscription or what ever it would be.

You really don't see that as a slippery slope?

Relying on hope is not such a great plan.. And yeah I would, in a heart beat. I'm, sadly, even considering it right now because of the Bitcoin Foundaton.

Great, I'm glad we cleared this up. We can now both be nice to each other as I wont feel a stench of condescension in your replies to me anymore.


Great, I finally understood this part as well and I do apologize for misunderstanding the meaning of it.


Ah, the crux of the issue remains. I fear down the road this self imposed spokesperson, policy setting, business vetting, intertwined with corporate interest body will get corrupted and try and direct the for the most part ignorant user base to their advantage while you on the other hand have faith the community will be smart and vigilant enough to keep you in check.

Well then as long as the general electorate is the one of which we must now expect vigilance, I'm all calmed down and happy, especially since this works out so well in today's political systems. /this last part was a bit of sarcasm, not mean spirited of course, just for illustrating purposes


Why we needed this foot in the door for bad stuff to be possible to happen I will never understand.

Why would the Bitcoin foundation, an organisaton that has the power to decide which Bitcoin business is legitimate, the power to employ the lead dev, the power to be the self anointed official spokesperson for Bitcoin need to do anything secretly 2 or 3 years down the road. Fear of secret changes is unfounded. The fear of pushed change that the community will simply swallow because the Bitcoin Foundation said so, isn't.

What's what I fear.

Two years down the road the Bitcoin foundation will say jump, and the community will ask how high, how will you prevent this scenario from playing out?

Ok maybe you missed it at the very end, but who the hell is Matt? You want me to be nicer? Why not follow your own advice and stop calling people names that aren't theirs? I never called you any names, all I did was ask questions based off of your posts. And telling someone they are blinded by their ego just can't be an insult. No, I'm actually being extremely nice and cordial by my standards. But I'm not going not point out inconsistencies in your words for the sake of being nice.

As for your answers, I'm not happy, as you can imagine because you have just shown me with your answers that you will seek certain power to do certain things and no matter how open or well intentioned the process is going to be, given how you structured the board of directors you cannot promise me anything that would make me believe corruption and abuse isn't possible down the road. Now I have to trust you. And THAT is my main problem. Before all I needed to worry about was the code, now I need to worry about the code AND trusting you, something I did not consent to and had no need for.

And last but not least, let's clear this up please because I really wouldn't want to "twist your words". Explain what exactly did you mean in the below quote, specifically with the red underlined part:

Such non answers and trickery..

The system works how it works? How about with an answer like "Yes the system works where change is possible, especially backwards compatible change like BIP16, so yes theoretically we could make rules stricter to include an IP address with every transaction and if we got enough mining support there wouldn't even be a hard fork necessary. You are right that is a problem."

But no, you are blinded with ego and can't see three feet in front of you all the dangers that are possible even in this highly restrictive system.

So you aren't going to point to the section of the bylaws the supposedly highly limits the Bitcoin Foundation as was implied with "We cant gain power, in fact we cannot do anything outside the bylaws." ?

I'm worried the foundation will grab the power to:
- claim to speak in the name of all users of the Bitcoin software
- claim to speak as the authority on Bitcoin software
- claim to be a watchdog over the code so individual members needn't worry
- claim to be the authority deciding which Bitcoin businesses are legitimate
- claim to be the authority that decides which Bitcoin projects are worthy of founding
- claim to be the authority that decides which developer's improvements should/shouldn't be added to the core Bitcoin code
- sell a change of Bitcoin or any "approved" layers on top, or just simply a policy or a mission statement to the corporate membership, shoved down the throats of all of the users through a founders 1 + corporate 2 vote giving them the majority

and I could think of more.. So please how are you going to prevent this from happening some day. I realize you probably aren't doing this today, but what about in a year, or 2 or 3 or 5?


After you are done addressing these, don't forget to explain what you meant by "We cant gain power, in fact we cannot do anything outside the bylaws.". It's extremely important that we understand how did you limit yourself through the bylaws as implied by your post. Preferably quote the bylaws. And if you didn't limit yourself, please explain why you worded your post in a manner leaving an impression you did.

Also, who the hell is Matt?

Ok, I guess I need to quote everything in order to show how the conversation actually went (relevant parts are underlined and red):


To which I wrote:


To which you replied:


To which I replied:


To which you replied with a non answer:


To which I replied with my conclusion:


And you replied with another non answer:



And finally I'm waiting to hear your answer to:

For starters I'd like a honest open conversation without trickery. If we call you on a mistake, admit it if facts show it's true. Charlie is a board member and yet also used trickery in his replies as noted.

Besides I already gave constructive criticism above here: