I'm sure I could find a post I made a few hundred pages back about DarkSend being released under some sort of royalty model if used for commercial purposes, but free for general use.
The problem with this type of approach is that most crypto is put to commercial use. They nearly all seek to create some element of profit. That would mean everyone who uses DarkSend would be liable to pay a royalty. That's great, but Darkcoin relies on Bitcoin source code.
I think I got to the point where it would set double standards to freely use open source software for commercial purposes and then release open source updates, DarkSend, with a royalty element.
Nice work if you can get it, but not sure it would fly.
Darkcoin relies on Bitcoin code, but that may not apply to Darksend. At this point only the dev knows. If it isn't derivative, he can licence it however he likes.
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This assumes the philosophy of intellectual property is compatible with the world of cryptocurrency with a focus on anonymity.
Pure anarchy tends not to work well. Copycoins would have a choice: 1. Licence DarkSend, benefit from the hard work being done for them and existing market recognition. 2. Use DarkSend unlicenced, good luck getting any serious investment due to the blatant illegality of it 3. Come up with something themselves, ie hard work
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Moreover that foundation could have a patent on DarkSend and other coins would have to pay a fee in DRK to use it. (fee redistributed to the network or bounty)
I don't think that's possible with open source software. I could be wrong, not sure. Open source code can be released under a variety of licences. But I'm no expert either. If there was a way of licencing Darksend with minimum fuss then that would certainly ease a lot of minds re: copycat coins. It wouldn't eliminate competition, but it would be a help. Someone needs to look into it. Maybe the EFF or someone could offer advice? Dual licensing like MySQLDual Licensing Schemes
Some projects try to fund themselves by using a dual licensing scheme, in which proprietary derivative works may pay the copyright holder for the right to use the code, but the code still remains free for use by open source projects. This tends to work better with code libraries than with standalone applications, naturally. The exact terms differ from case to case. Usually the license for the free side is the GNU GPL, since it already bars others from incorporating the covered code into their proprietary product without permission from the copyright holder. An example is the MySQL license, described at mysql.com/company/legal/licensing.
15 June 2013: If you're reading this note, then you've encountered this section while it's undergoing substantial revision; see producingoss.com/v2.html for details.
poss2 todo: Note how that page, and so many other dual-licensing pages, refer to the proprietary license as "commercial". Need a subsection here about why it's important not to call it that.
You might be wondering: how can the copyright holder offer proprietary licensing for a mandatory fee if the terms of the GNU GPL stipulate that the code must be available under less restrictive terms? The answer is that the GPL's terms are something the copyright holder imposes on everyone else; the owner is therefore free to decide not to apply those terms to itself. A good way to think of it is to imagine that the copyright owner has an infinite number of copies of the software stored in a bucket. Each time it takes one out of the bucket to send into the world, it can decide what license to put on it: GPL, proprietary, or something else. Its right to do this is not tied to the GPL or any other open source license; it is simply a power granted by copyright law.
The attractiveness of dual licensing is that, at its best, it provides a way for a free software project to get a reliable income stream. Unfortunately, it can also interfere with the normal dynamics of open source projects. The problem is that any volunteer who makes a code contribution is now contributing to two distinct entities: the free version of the code and the proprietary version. While the contributor will be comfortable contributing to the free version, since that's the norm in open source projects, she may feel funny about contributing to someone else's semi-proprietary revenue stream. The awkwardness is exacerbated by the fact that in dual licensing, the copyright owner really needs to gather formal, signed copyright assignments from all contributors, in order to protect itself from a disgruntled contributor later claiming a percentage of royalties from the proprietary stream. The process of collecting these assignment papers means that contributors are starkly confronted with the fact that they are doing work that makes money for someone else.
Not all volunteers will be bothered by this; after all, their contributions go into the open source edition as well, and that may be where their main interest lies. Nevertheless, dual licensing is an instance of the copyright holder assigning itself a special right that others in the project do not have, and is thus bound to raise tensions at some point, at least with some volunteers.
What seems to happen in practice is that companies based on dual licensed software do not have truly egalitarian development communities. They get small-scale bug fixes and cleanup patches from external sources, but end up doing most of the hard work with internal resources. For example, Zack Urlocker, then vice president of marketing at MySQL, told me that the company generally ends up hiring the most active volunteers anyway. Thus, although the product itself is open source, licensed under the GPL, its development is more or less controlled by the company, albeit with the (extremely unlikely) possibility that someone truly dissatisfied with the company's handling of the software could fork the project. To what degree this threat preėmptively shapes the company's policies I don't know, but at any rate, MySQL does not seem to be having acceptance problems either in the open source world or beyond. Source : http://producingoss.com/en/dual-licensing.htmlDual Licensing - Under dual licensing, one software program is made available under the two different distribution mechanisms described above. Under the open source/publication mechanism, source code for the software is made available at no cost under license terms that allow third parties to study the software and use it for research purposes, but contain restrictions on use or distribution that may make commercial use unfeasible. Under the commercial licensing mechanism, the software is licensed for a fee on licensing terms that permit the use of the software for commercial purposes. Examples of UT software that have been distributed under dual licensing include GotoBLAS and HOARD. Source : http://www.otc.utexas.edu/licensing.jspIf DarkSend was released as open source but with a licencing fee for commercial use (ie. any other coin using it) that would be a coup... copycoins would have to pay DarkFoundation a fee and the more that did so, the stronger the market position of DarkSend would be.
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Android wallet ASAP souds like an excellent idea. It will be a bit more than just a simple rebranding job though to incorporate Darksend. Devs should put up a decent bounty on it! edit: I have no clue whether he would be interested, but the guy who did the VTC Android wallet is talented and (I speak from personal experience, and others can back it up) completely trustworthy. http://www.reddit.com/user/18pct - just a suggestion.
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haha, just bought another 20 DRK with the BTC I made yesterday fleecing those Quebecqois. ![Grin](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/grin.gif)
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we've had 750 pages of marketing already.. it's time to give it a rest until we have more substance
I would appreciate the substance waiting another week or two while I buy more on the cheap, thanks.
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Is there a mining calculator available for DRK? I'm trying to figure out how many I could mine with 3x 280X. Any idea?
13MH gets me about 10 DRK/day, so your 280s would be about 6-7MH? So roughly 5-6 DRK/day or something like that. Diff varies wildly so it's hard to be more precise. And this one's for LawBC! ![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fi60.tinypic.com%2F2n022x5.png&t=665&c=4OTU1LWfZK55_g)
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LawBC, here is a quick mockup of what I meant earlier: ![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fi58.tinypic.com%2F4qk8wk.png&t=665&c=gjQclbeIg7dlGA) I think it looks simpler and friendlier. No headless dude. Minimal scrolling required @ 1920x1080. edit: looking at it now I would have the eclipse thing up top as the main logo, but with a gold D. However I will wait for the laughter to die down before I dig myself any deeper... ![Cheesy](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/cheesy.gif)
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Just putting this out there in light of Limlims stepping back:
My background is in psychological operations with the US Army, which is um. ..well marketing, in a certain sense.
If it would be useful, I'm willing to take over (or at least contribute to) what he was doing in the interim until we find a pro marketing firm/individual.
Just PM me if I can be of any assistance.
Chuck out some suggestions and proposals mate so we can mull them over. Don't worry about getting anything wrong, you can't hope to compete with me on that! ![Wink](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/wink.gif) Seriously the more ideas the better, preferably with some actual plan to implement them.
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@ LawBC:
Respectful suggestion:
Your site would look far better in either colour scheme if you
replaced "Anonymous / Rare / Valuable" with "Secure / Private / For Everyone," lost the current pics underneath those words or replaced them with something more human,
got rid of the headless dude and the giant card thing in the middle,
and had fewer words. Have some dropdowns or something with all the technical crap in them.
edit: I like the eclipse thing going on at the bottom of the black/gold version, but don't overdo it.
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I'm not knocking anyone, I've tried design work - it's hard, it takes bloody ages, and I'm bad at it, but of these three the clear winner to me is the original... the whole gold/black thing looks tacky and the last one looks like a headless duck. IMHO. ![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fi61.tinypic.com%2F11148bs.png&t=665&c=0qAalj_QRLi-2g)
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Moreover that foundation could have a patent on DarkSend and other coins would have to pay a fee in DRK to use it. (fee redistributed to the network or bounty)
I don't think that's possible with open source software. I could be wrong, not sure. Open source code can be released under a variety of licences. But I'm no expert either. If there was a way of licencing Darksend with minimum fuss then that would certainly ease a lot of minds re: copycat coins. It wouldn't eliminate competition, but it would be a help. Someone needs to look into it. Maybe the EFF or someone could offer advice?
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I guess I assumed that the 1% fee I pay at the official pool went into some pot anyway? Or at least anything left after runnng costs. Simcom's idea is fine by me. I suggest a publicly viewable ledger of what's raised and what it's spent on, a page on the official website maybe. We have to keep these things 100% transparent and above board. edit: I still hate the idea of paying lawyers though. What about half the money this proposed (non profit, charitable ![Wink](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/wink.gif) ) foundation raises going to starving children instead? We have the power to do a little good. I've yet to see a starving lawyer. Although if I did it might cheer me up... ![Cheesy](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/cheesy.gif)
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DRK has a lot going for it: It's BTC with all that implies, but with privacy, one of the major failings of BTC and every other cryptocurrency. We have the security of a distributed blockchain with anonymous transactions. That's pretty much the Holy Grail right there. We have a fantastic dev team who are comitted to DRKs future and success. We have a (mostly!) very intelligent community, not the usual ADD crowd. DRK WILL win, as long as we don't do anything stupid. I have NO issue with donations from pools or elsewhere being spent constructively for the greater good, but it MUST be voluntary. If Evan asks for help (one man can only do so much!) there are many here who can supply it, and I bet most would do it gladly, free and gratis. I have implemented a sig! I stand by my belief that ultimately, those five words and the inevitable skyrocketing price will be all the marketing that DRK really needs... DarkCoin - Security - Privacy - For EVERYONE
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I think it's a bad idea. If bitcoin had implemented something like this, siphoning off a % of mining profits and putting it into some fund to pay salaries it would have never taken off. It just comes off as super scammy to most people I suspect. I'm fine donating to a pool to get some of these things done, but I don't think it should be built into the coin. Besides sounding shady, it would create constant sell pressure and I think a lot of people would abandon ship. I'm a little worried just talking about this will tank the price (like the airdrop talk did).
Completely agree. Creaming off the network to pay lawyers is going to have people laughing in disbelief and abandoning DRK in droves. Anyone who wants to fund such things can put their own money up, not steal everyone elses.
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Yeah, you didn't actually answer the question though, did you?
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think most here would agree that the technological achievements of Darkcoin are FAR AHEAD of the coin's marketing. I think most will also agree with LimLims that such activity needs a dedicated professional person.
I therefore propose the following - from the next fork, X% of the masternodes proceeds will go into a dedicated multi-sig wallet that will pay a salary to a dedicated full-time professional marketing person.
Hopefully, in time, the price of darkcoin will go up, this fund will be able to employ more than one person, and thus also pay the developers, webmaster, etc. imho, the time has come to become less bootstrap and more professional.
I love this idea! But I'd like to expand on it, I think it would be better to go into the bounty fund and that fund would be much more generic. For example, we just needed an icon designed, now we need a website, color scheme, etc. As the price grows, the size of things we need to get done grows just as much. Next we'll need to setup a foundation, retain an attorney to help with legal matters, etc. I propose 1/10 of the masternode payments go toward a bounty fund for generic uses. - At current market prices this will be $184.03 per day (259 DRK) If the price goes to $5, that will be $1296 per day, which should be enough for a full marketing budget, the foundation, a retained lawyer and maybe on office for the foundation? What the christ does a decentralised, distributed cryptocurrency need its own goddamn lawyer for?
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think most here would agree that the technological achievements of Darkcoin are FAR AHEAD of the coin's marketing. I think most will also agree with LimLims that such activity needs a dedicated professional person.
I therefore propose the following - from the next fork, X% of the masternodes proceeds will go into a dedicated multi-sig wallet that will pay a salary to a dedicated full-time professional marketing person.
Hopefully, in time, the price of darkcoin will go up, this fund will be able to employ more than one person, and thus also pay the developers, webmaster, etc. imho, the time has come to become less bootstrap and more professional.
I have no interest in funding marketing zombies, thanks.
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Also you are fighting against governments and centralbanks with cryptos, especially with anonymos transactions. It“s the same thing like it is with precious metal. Price of gold is surpressed over years.
You think governments and politicians (let's face it, the largest criminal group by several orders of magnitude) wouldn't also like to keep their finances private? Think about it.
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I've got an investor that wants to buy about £5k - £10k GBP of DRK.
He has never done crypto before, but I know him from consumer financial services. I'm having lunch with him today.
PM please anyone that is interested.
This is the kind of thing we need - investors care about the fundamentals, they don't give a shit about "super secure X11 hashing algo!" or what colour the logo is. Is it secure? Yes Is it private? Yes Is it useful, in demand, and thus likely to rise in price? Yes. Sold. Hopefully your investor friend will get talking to his investor buddies.
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