The most crucial thing I always said about Bitcoin when I was trying to spread awareness about it (and I have done a hell of a lot of that in just the right circles) was that no one is in control, that there is no need to trust any person because the code sets the rules and the rules can't change because the code can't change. Well now I'm not so sure that is true anymore and I don't think I can be faithful to my self and my principles and keep advertising Bitcoin in the same manner. I hope though it still is true because I have a lot riding on this experiment but history teaches me that my hope pointless. Special interest now have a foot in the door and they will not ever pull it out ever again. That much I'm certain. What this means we'll find out I guess.
If you think BF changes anything about how bitcoin-the-protocol or bitcoin-the-software will work, then you simply never understood how bitcoin worked in the first place. Satoshi designed the system so that you would not have to trust the developer (him, a total unknown, pseudonymous individual). The dev team, by introducing git and gitian use, has made that compact even stronger. |
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Assets:
-lead dev
-dev team
-git repository access
Is there anything else that matters and one can own when it comes to Bitcoin?
The Foundation never claimed to own any of these. git repository access policy will not change. Some devs will be paid by the Foundation, and others won't. I'm quite happy with my day job as a kernel hacker, and don't forsee leaving there; that makes me a "community dev" for example. (though I'll certainly accept beer money donations and the like... see sig) It is a bit mystifying though that there is a complaint about the devs having a public, transparent source of funding (BF) as opposed to the current situation of no-funding or no-transparent-funding. |
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If this Foundation is really such a wonderful idea why then did you keep it's formation (founders, bylaws, mission statement, allocation of salaries, ect) private?
You have a confused concept of "private": Founders: https://www.bitcoinfoundation.org/about/boardBylaws: https://github.com/pmlaw/The-Bitcoin-Foundation-Legal-RepoMission statement: https://www.bitcoinfoundation.org/about/Allocation of salaries: nothing is being paid yet, AFAICT from reading this thread Why didn't you open a public thread on this forum and let everyone have an input how such an organization, if one was wanted or warranted in the first place, should be structured.
If you want to have a say in a self-organized group, become a member. Or create your own foundation. That's the beauty of the free market. |
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Q: "Who is developing the Bitcoin software?
A: "The Bitcoin Foundation manages the central repository for the official Bitcoin client, as well as the alert key."
Q: "There have been many hacks resulting in the loss of Bitcoin, what are you doing about that?"
A: "The Bitcoin Foundation suggests using only certified vendors, like Bitinstant."
Q: "Who certifies a Bitcoin business?"
A: "The Bitcoin Foundation provides certifies to validate that Bitcoin businesses are following our 'best practices.'"
Q: "Waiting to download over 2 gigabytes just to get started seems to be an obstacle for non-technical users."
A: "The Bitcoin Foundation recommends that you use a hosted wallet, like Coinbase."
Sorry, none of this has been suggested or wanted. Any Bitcoin Foundation that I am a member of had better suggest decentralized solutions to merchants and users. One idea has been a turnkey open source kit for merchants, where bitcoind + paypal-like HTTP API is provided as software the merchant runs at their own location, 100% within their own control. |
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No it is a silly correlation. Did actor Harry Morgan leave this Earth in 2011 because Gavin was going to speak at the CIA in June 2012? One event happened before that other, so you never know.... </sarcasm> Satoshi had backed away from the project in December 2011, only sending a few scattered emails after that before finally disappearing. |
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The Bitcoin Network is pretty safe now, but what would happen if some government decided to shutdown the exchanges. If banks were cut off from exchanges or the major exchanges were all simultaneously DDOS'd how would anyone know the exchange rate of Bitcoin?
Bitcoin-OTC |
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Why on earth would you want to regulate your otherwise free business through making a company subject to stupid laws, regulations, taxes and accounting obligations? (yeah yeah, you're still technically subject to them anyways, but isn't that the whole point of bitcoin? Having business freedom?)
Because the majority of customers and businesses are law-abiding in their country. If you want to reach a mass of customers, you play by the rules. |
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On a positive note, I think that if "A Bitcoin Foundation" is successful at funding the infrastructure completely using voluntary donations it will serve as a fantastic model to show how "the commons" can be maintained without the coercive power of the State. In this respect, I wish it success. I could be persuaded to donate if there was some recognition of the rough-shod way this was dropped onto the community.
Unfortunately that is damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't. If this was announced without any supporting organizational structure, website or plans, it would get flamed to hell and back. I think it is better to have something in place, and then accept criticism and be flexible and change as the community wants. The organizational version of "show your code", if you will. |
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Nothing in bitcoin happens without the consent of the majority of users, and that is by design.
I assume by majority of users you mean majority of devs with commit access? No, I mean just what I said: a majority of users. Frankly the conspiracy theorists should be far more worried about pool op power. We devs have to beg and plead just to get support for any network-wide feature... PS. Use p2pool! |
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FYI I am not from SomethingAwful, if that is your implication.
No, indeed. You seem to be one of the sane critics ;p |
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Pardon my french, but who the fuck appointed these people to be official spokesmen of Bitcoin?
It is a community where everybody is free to speak their mind, including banding together to speak collectively. laissez faire at its best, really. I think most of the negative reaction to this announcement comes from the arrogance of a handful taking it upon themselves to proclaim to the world that they speak for everyone involved in Bitcoin. It reeks of a power grab.
I think most of the negative reaction comes from one or two high volume posters, probably imported from the SomethingAwful forums  |
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However, they could invest money in ASICs and shutdown the network. The attack would largely pay for itself. If someone wealthy wants to shutdown bitcoin right now or in the future, they could do it easily.
No, it would not pay for itself. And that is an important economic incentive. If you "shut down the network" then bitcoins have no value. The attacks costs a lot, for little direct monetary return. You can spend money and crash the value, or spend money and crash the network. But make no mistake: you are burning money that will not come back to you. |
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I'll ask yet again. Who is Peter Vessenes and why does he get to represent the Bitcoin community? Was Gavin instructed by the CIA to make this "foundation"?
https://www.bitcoinfoundation.org/about/board gives some info. As to CIA silliness: if you cannot trust code written by a pseudonymous individual named Satoshi with unknown backing (CIA? NWO? Taco Bell? who knows?), it is not likely you will trust a lead developer using his real identity. I'll give it 4-5 years tops before Gavin finds himself on the wrong end of a .50 cal dragonov's crosshairs, unless he's working with/for "the man" now.
*plonk* into the Atlas file with you. |
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IMO I see a couple major problems with the foundation. Maybe this will be clarified when bylaws are published.
- The control of what gets coded by devs into the client (the defacto protocol) needs to be decoupled 100% from the foundation board and monetary/political interests. I see this being pretty hard to achieve when the foundation pays the salaries. What's the famous quote about someone always seeing things in alignment with who pays their salary?
(bits copied from other thread) I think you are missing how bitcoin software development works right now. All source code is open, and widely reviewed. We make it easy to fork the code, and find a better way than our own. The moment Gavin or anyone else introduces code the community dislikes, the code will get forked and the community ignores the changes. Nothing in bitcoin happens without the consent of the majority of users, and that is by design. The bitcoin design is used and trusted because it is open and available for deep study. Nobody needed to know who Satoshi was -- they only needed full access to the software, for review. For the technically minded, there are further processes in place to guard against hackers, or evil CIA-funded developers, adding backdoors to bitcoin: - Other bitcoin client implementations exist, besides the "reference client" originally written by Satoshi
- For the source code, we use git. Just like the bitcoin block chain, git is a chain of hashes. Each and every change is protected by a hash. Anyone following git in a decentralized fashion may see and verify all changes. Any "back door" is quite public.
- For the binaries, we use gitian, so that outside parties may independently verify dev team binaries precisely match their locally-built binaries. Bitcoin binaries from the dev team are not published until multiple sig matches appear.
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So my question would be is this currently sufficient to meet development compensation needs? I don't think it is. But I don't think a foundation is the only way to address that. There are projects on Kickstarter.com that raise hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars ( http://www.kickstarter.com/discover/most-funded) that don't have anywhere near the scope and impact of something like Bitcoin. As I posted, crowdsourcing developer compensation shouldn't be a problem. If it has been before now, maybe it's only because the need wasn't made known. There is a cool bitcoin KickStarter feature, just waiting for someone to employ: Create a transaction that (say) sends 10500 BTC to Gavin, with SIGHASH_ANYONECANPAY marker. Send it around. Anyone may add a signature... but the transaction is not valid until the inputs reach 10500 BTC. However, for now, a foundation is the method that has proved successful in providing ongoing developer funding for other open source projects, even as funding sources themselves come and go. Even KickStarter does not provide ongoing funding, only bursts. Not the model of stability that an engineer wants to raise a family on... |
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I just think they're going about solutions the wrong way. If you truly believe in Bitcoin then you believe in its own inherent abilities to foster its success. Its strength is that it's decentralized, and relies on the community to provide what it needs in a free market way.
That is precisely what is happening: part of that community is banding together, in a free market opt-in way, to collectively fill in the basic gaps -- like actually paying devs for their time, or paying for testing -- because that is otherwise not happening right now. |
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Would it be possible for someone or some group to stage an economic attack on the bitcoin network?
Sure. Absolutely. While bitcoin is small, as it is today, bitcoin is vulnerable to manipulation just like any penny stock. A large buyer can cause the price to rocket through the roof. A large seller cause drive the price to pennies. There are stories aplenty about hedge fund traders, daytraders and others manipulating the price of a stock, simply because they had the funds that gave them the financial ability to do so. |
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We are trying to go bank-account-less and do all incoming and outgoing payments with BTC, including payroll. Dogfooding Bitcoin as currency-of-a-corporation is one of my favorite things about the Foundation, actually.
Wow! +100 there You gotta walk the walk. |
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Adding new features or policies can and does happen. See, e.g. BIP 34, which adds the block height to the coinbase transaction found in each block. Minor feature changes that do not cause a hard fork are feasible. Anything that requires a hard fork requires major software upgrades and major community consent. An intentionally high barrier.
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Overall, great press. My household has a subscription; looking forward to seeing it.
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