GPG is a CPU intensive process. In most cases, this is not an issue because either messages are small or they are infrequent. But given the right circumstances, it could bog down the server and could be used as an attack vector much like DDOS or could even be paired with it (we need to make sure this is not possible). We have a lot of other features lined up that could be upsteam dependencies and we need to make sure that in all cases, the server is still responsive.

Let's take the email/GPG use case for example, if an email needed to be sent out to the entire user base. That email would have to be encrypted once per user and then sent out (Given everyone was using GPG). If there are (I'm making this number up) 100,000 users... Can you see how much work that would be for the CPUs? This would be on top of serving those same 100,000 user the forum as well. Now imagine if that email really didn't have anything important to say. That's a lot of work for really nothing. But what if the email did contain sensitive information? There are ways to mitigate the CPU issue by locking it down to a few or just one core but that comes with its own trade offs. The speed at which the emails are being sent out may be drastically lower. If the email isn't time-sensitive but contains sensitive information, this is fine. But what if a system wide breach of the DB were to occur and all user's login/pass were compromised. A time-sensitive and possibly information sensitive email needs to go out...

I could go on and on and keep playing what ifs. Each what if (corner case) does have a solution but some of them require that GPG is not universally used on all messages for the sake of speed. Which means more coding to ensure that logic is in place. Also, if none of the features run into issues like above then it's clearly a good idea to use GPG on everything.

This is why the idea of GPG on all communications is a toss up. It's a great idea and we'd love to implement it, but due to the nature of GPG being CPU intensive, we may need figure out a solution if two features align against each other. But since not all the forum features have been solidified, we can't make a firm decision on it right now. That's just the nature of software development.

It will be 100% new forum software. After viewing the forum software landscape, there weren't very many that had the exact features theymos wanted (please refer to the document mentioned in the other theymos thread), and we felt that the money was better spent building from the ground up than patching older systems to get to something theymos was asking for.

Often times in software, it's easier to build from the ground up with the latest tools. Replicating the features in existing software is quite easy and creating more advanced features become possible with little overhead. A great article about this can be found here: http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html Paul Graham, is the founder of Y combinator, otherwise known in the startup circle as Hacker News. He explains how often using the latest and greatest can give you a technological advantage over those that still use older tools and methodologies. We hope to achieve the same goals with Node.js and this forum software. We have found similar success in other areas with Node.js.

Sorry if this reply is getting lengthy over a short question. I feel that many people are asking the same thing and wanted to put our intentions into written once and for all.

As for the number of developers, yes. Right now we're at two dedicated developers but that will change soon enough. It is up to the individual(s) to reveal themselves. Some of us have families and are not comfortable with the amount of scrutiny that the forum often finds itself wrapped up in. (As James and I have experienced already.)

Alright, I think this is enough. We want to keep this thread from being derailed so this will be the last question I will answer along these lines. If you want to ask more of these types of questions, please do so in another thread within this sub forum. We'd like to keep this thread specifically to the forum features.

How many people are familiar with MarkDown on here?

Would updating the forum's editor to be markdown based vs. what's currently used a favorable idea?

Anything that involves money and security is not so trivial, IMHO. There's a lot of extra bits you have to take into consideration especially since we're designing this to work both with the current server software and the new one we're building. We need to make sure that any user information isn't leaked through the ad auction system yet can tie in directly with what theymos already has.

Edit: not user information because some of it will be public (usernames, whatever else the user has already deemed public in their SMF profile, etc) but at the same time the user does not have to sign up for a new account. They'll be using the account they have in SMF to validate identity. Sounds fun right?

That all should be coming soon. Very soon.

Thank you Kouye! This is the type of feedback we're looking for. Although we can copy as much of the functionality as possible from SMF to ease the transition from this forum to the next. It's up to you guys to help point out the features that are essentially broken or could be better in other ways.

As for the specification, once we make the Github account public, you can track our progress and issues there. You can even submit your own issues as you guys use the new software.

As for the number of people working on the forum, Wangbus and I have volunteered to go public (and thrown to the trolls) but we do not feel it's fair to others (if there are any.  ) for us to release that information. Is this a cheap cop out? In essence, yes. But that's the best I can do given the circumstances. You can assume there's at least two of us.



For everyone else, we understand your concerns and agree that they are valid concerns. I would be just as skeptical about "some company" coming in and trying to sell some million dollar software. The best we can offer is that we are professional Software Engineers. You have our day to day / professional handles. The information about us is out there. You will probably come to your own conclusions as many have. We cannot sway those conclusions with just words. We hope that as we start releasing software, we can start to change your perceptions. We hope that we can work with the community to build better software.

¯\(°_o)/¯

We tried. It caused a rip in the fabric of space/time. Luckily the Doctor just happened to be around. (Sorry, bad Doctor who joke.)

I'm sorry you feel that way gweedo  . I feel like you've twisted some of our words and have made some assumptions which reflect negatively on us. I could sit here all day and talk about price estimates, workload, staffing and whatnot but I would rather not waste other people's time. I do have some work to do.  

In closing, Twitter may have made a lot of people money but itself as a company is still not out of the red. (Last time I checked, pre-IPO.)  vBulletin is not open sourced, but it is also not a custom piece of software which is what my aim was with that statement. As for language, I assume you are referring to JavaScript? JavaScript just happens to be one of the best supported languages out there in the open source world and has more than one use, even down to the command line level. Forum software is outdated, there is a demand. We are helping to fulfill that demand. I don't know how many people you assume are working on this project. The NDA is in regards to prior clients and not this one. I'm sure you can understand that we want to respect our previous client's wishes. But I will guarantee that the software being built is not a rush job that we release and expect the community to finish. We are open sourcing the code for transparency, for the community to help if they would like to (I hope you find some way to work on the code as well, given your skills.), and as a way for theymos to give back to the community. I hope I have addressed most of your concerns. If you would like to discuss this more in private. I'm open to that idea, and I'm also fine with you documenting and releasing anything we discuss privately. In the mean time, I would rather hold off on these questions to allow other people to satisfy their concerns as well.

Good day, sir.

So in response to your previous questions, as much as I'm allowed to at least, we do have other clients and we do try to keep our costs low. As such, we believe our rate is competitive. In all fairness, we hope that this project doesn't just end in a year, no software project ever just ends. At least, not open source ones. We do hope that the community can contribute as well. In our shared experience though, someone does need to champion the cause and often times money is the best motivator. We hope that we can set a good base for the forum, get the designs out the door, then allow the open source community to help fix bugs and build features.

The most successful open source project are usually backed by some commercial sponsor. Node.js itself is backed by Joyent. Also, we want to keep the funding within the hands of BitcoinTalk. This also ensure that any commercial sponsor outside the community can't hijack the project by threatening to pull funds.

As for other startups, many millions have been invested into startups that still have not turned profitable but continues to succeed in their own space. Twitter is a great example of this. We are comparatively cheap on that scale.

As for the software itself, it is not a custom piece of software. When open sourced, it'll be available for use by anyone just like vBulletin.

You are entitled to your own opinions and this is a valid concern. Maybe to quell any doubts, we'll ask theymos to formally introduce the members at some point in the near future. 

Thanks! I wrote that years ago as a personal site and just haven't had time to really update it. I actually don't really like to follow the corporate culture where everyone wears a tie and all that jazz. I'm more of a rebel in that way. Maybe I'll just leave it how it is...

We don't mind the questions. That's what we're here for right now, and why we've created accounts with our day to day handles. We're here to engage the community. So ask away.

As for the amounts being tossed around, I obviously can't speak for Theymos or for James. But I can do a quick back of the envelope calculation. gweedo, being that you're a programmer too, I'm sure you can relate to this.

A typical programmer costs around the price of about 80k a year (that's low for Silicon Valley too). Which comes out to about 37 an hour. All companies need to pay for benefits, overhead, rent, electricity, etc on TOP of paying out a employee. So normally you would charge a rate around 2 to 3 times the salary of a employee. That's already around 114 an hour, or 240k a year. And there's already more than one employee working on the bitcoin forums... so yea.

As a freelancer, I'm sure you charge around the same rate to compensate for the "self-employment tax," your own benefits, etc.

Sorry, that's not me! But that is James. As for my Github profile, it's https://github.com/taesup. Now let's see if you can find my github.io page and/or my personal homepage... it's not hard. I apologize in advance though. I haven't updated either in quite a while.

Naturally, clients that are pleased with our work will suggest us to others and so on. Basically what I'm trying to say, was that we didn't have a need to build out the website.

In all honesty, we just haven't had time. Since the start of the company, we've been pretty busy and we figured that we didn't really need the marketing. Our work spoke for itself.

Correct. The NDA was in reference to previous work we've done with other clients. We would love to  share more about our previous customers but this was a decision on their side and we have to respect their wishes. As for the forum code, it will be open source. No NDA here.

Hey Guys,

I'm currently employed by Slickage Studios as a Senior Software Engineer. I wanted to post on here since it seems like we're making ourselves public and to let you guys know that's we're real software engineers with real experience in the field. I'm pretty sure you guys are going to Google the hell out of our handles so we've gone ahead and used the handles that we use in our day to day lives. So have at it.

I'll try to be online in this forum as must as possible to field questions, and give updates when appropriate.