Funding core development

[RawDog]

Clearly there is a severe shortcoming regarding funding for core development.  Why don't we run "Bitcoin Core: 0.10.1" for a year or two where all miners kick the fees over to salaries for the smartest guys to spend their days working hard on the core?  Miners don't really need the fees yet.  In about 10 years, miners will live off those fees.  But today, miners are well paid (over paid) as it is.  So much easy money in mining has caused them to rush out and buy extremely expensive exotic process nodes for radical ASICS.  Too much money in mining caused this arms race that went too fast and too furious.  We don't need to put more juice into mining rewards.  We need more juice in core development.  It was an imbalance that Satoshi couldn't predict.  But we can easily fix it.  All miners should 'volunteer' (by running Bitcoin Core 0.10.1") to route fees to core development for a period of time (e.g. 2 years).  This will benefit everyone.  (well, it will probably slow mining hardware development by about 1/1000th - so arguably those guys will suffer).

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[SpanishSoldier]

I failed to understand the necessity of Core Development in today's scenario. When Satoshi first wrote it there was nothing else. But today, there are so many wallet softwares around core code is open as well. If someone want, he/she can modify/extend it as well. But, what is the point of keeping a core dev team that would follow the directives of a centralized body which would feed them (Read: bitcoin foundation) ?

[Welsh]

Why don't people just contribute to core development instead? Fees for mining are necessary. Although, you would have to be pretty advance to contribute to core development, it's still something some people are very much capable of doing.

Even contributing towards development by suggesting and providing feedback is a great way to start. Without feedback from the community, the software has limitations because of the developers wants/needs and their aspirations.

[RawDog]

Why don't people just contribute to core development instead? Fees for mining are necessary. Although, you would have to be pretty advance to contribute to core development, it's still something some people are very much capable of doing.

Even contributing towards development by suggesting and providing feedback is a great way to start. Without feedback from the community, the software has limitations because of the developers wants/needs and their aspirations.

People are capable, but all these capable people left to go earn money doing something else.  The core dev team is nearly totally gone on other projects leaving a serious shortcoming regarding the advance of the entire bitcoin system.  This notion that 'open source' will attract people to stay up late and work hard for free - just doesn't work. 

I failed to understand the necessity of Core Development in today's scenario. When Satoshi first wrote it there was nothing else. But today, there are so many wallet softwares around core code is open as well. If someone want, he/she can modify/extend it as well. But, what is the point of keeping a core dev team that would follow the directives of a centralized body which would feed them (Read: bitcoin foundation) ?

Clearly you don't understand Bitcoin.  The core remains a bit fragile.  It could use some good attention from very smart guys.  'wallet softwares'?  has nothing at all to do with the work done by core devs.

[Welsh]

People are capable, but all these capable people left to go earn money doing something else.  The core dev team is nearly totally gone on other projects leaving a serious shortcoming regarding the advance of the entire bitcoin system.  This notion that 'open source' will attract people to stay up late and work hard for free - just doesn't work. 

I think I would have to disagree. There are a lot of successful projects which are open source. Open source is the way to go in the future. It isn't about a certain few members staying up late or contributing more. It's about a wide range of people contributing to each others work in order to advance it for the better.

I know striping the miners fees would only hurt Bitcoin, miners are essential for Bitcoin to work and no miner is going to take a loss and work for free. Where are the core developers are not taking a loss necessarily.   

[ashour]

People are capable, but all these capable people left to go earn money doing something else.  The core dev team is nearly totally gone on other projects leaving a serious shortcoming regarding the advance of the entire bitcoin system.  This notion that 'open source' will attract people to stay up late and work hard for free - just doesn't work. 

I think I would have to disagree. There are a lot of successful projects which are open source. Open source is the way to go in the future. It isn't about a certain few members staying up late or contributing more. It's about a wide range of people contributing to each others work in order to advance it for the better.

I know striping the miners fees would only hurt Bitcoin, miners are essential for Bitcoin to work and no miner is going to take a loss and work for free. Where are the core developers are not taking a loss necessarily.   

Exactly, open source is the way to go for bitcoin since it's decentralised and none controls it. The community developers should take over the development of the bitcoin core, there is no point for the bitcoin foundation to take over development since bitcoin is decentralised. The community should crowdfund bounties for developers that contribute to the bitcoin core.

[SaltySpitoon]

While I'm sure the core dev team gets more than a few donations for their work, they also operate by an economic model that I've used in the past which is pretty effective. It goes without saying that they hold Bitcoins, if their contributions help the network, by most accounts that increases the value of Bitcoin, increasing the value of the Bitcoins that they hold, in effect paying themselves without taking money from anyone.

That said, I'm sure they don't mind it when people send them thanks for their work, but I dont know how on board miners would be sending them their tx fees. That would probably end up being the big pool's call, and in order for them to feasibly do that, they would need all of the other pools to do it as well, as miners flock to the pool with the best payouts. If one is offering to pay TX fees while all the others don't, the core devs won't be getting those miner's business regardless.

[DarkHyudrA]

The current Bitcoin model wouldn't serve for the mass adoption, so yes the core needs a lot of improvement.
But I don't think that paying people would solve it. This totally open source and got to the 10th version only trough community help.

[JPage]

Exactly, open source is the way to go for bitcoin since it's decentralised and none controls it.

You guys are completely crazy.  IBM is currently working on a new cryptocurrency with the US Fed.  If you think that is going to be a low performance system, you are stupid.  They will have a very kick-ass system up and running.  Only the anarchists will refuse to use it because it is controlled by governments.  Your grandma and all her friends are going to use it.  Soon, it will be everywhere.  And even the anarchists will use it - reluctantly. 

Bitcoin will do the very same thing Napster, Tor, FireFox, and others did.  It will just fade away.  No organized core development and bitcoin can look forward to being replaced in the coming 24 months.

Good quality funding and organization doesn't mean bitcoin is centralized.  The miners still can reject the new code.  What it means is the best programmers will be working all day on advancing the performance of the core.  This needs to be done.  Or, we could just let a few tinkerers fuss with the code from time to time and see what happens.  Do you really want IBM and the US Fed to get ahead of bitcoin? 

Pull your head out of your ass.  'Open source' is equal to highly disorganized way to advance.  Open source is a waste of time. 

[lucasjkr]

You guys are completely crazy.  IBM is currently working on a new cryptocurrency with the US Fed.  If you think that is going to be a low performance system, you are stupid.  They will have a very kick-ass system up and running.  Only the anarchists will refuse to use it because it is controlled by governments.  Your grandma and all her friends are going to use it.  Soon, it will be everywhere.  And even the anarchists will use it - reluctantly. 

Bitcoin will do the very same thing Napster, Tor, FireFox, and others did.  It will just fade away.  No organized core development and bitcoin can look forward to being replaced in the coming 24 months.

Good quality funding and organization doesn't mean bitcoin is centralized.  The miners still can reject the new code.  What it means is the best programmers will be working all day on advancing the performance of the core.  This needs to be done.  Or, we could just let a few tinkerers fuss with the code from time to time and see what happens.  Do you really want IBM and the US Fed to get ahead of bitcoin? 

Pull your head out of your ass.  'Open source' is equal to highly disorganized way to advance.  Open source is a waste of time. 

Bitcoin's core is mostly akin to a protocol, with apps, from the official QT client to Electrum to the plethora of Bitcoin accepting sites to faucets all built atop of it. The core, while it will need maintenance and improvements over time, isn't in need of huge resources, IMO.

To draw a rough parallel, I think of Bitcoin basically like TCP/ip. How much development was devoted to IP4 these last 10 years? I can't imagine much. But hugely impressive sites and applications were built on top of that infrastructure.

[pissedoff]

Open source is the future in my opinion but it needs dedication. it has good morals and it hasnt really taken off yet. it just proves how an amazing system like bitcoin can be completely open source and theymos has required the new forum software to be open source everything is slowly going open source and thank god no monopoly companies stealing all the money

[Snail2]

Exactly, open source is the way to go for bitcoin since it's decentralised and none controls it.

You guys are completely crazy.  IBM is currently working on a new cryptocurrency with the US Fed.  If you think that is going to be a low performance system, you are stupid.  They will have a very kick-ass system up and running.  Only the anarchists will refuse to use it because it is controlled by governments.  Your grandma and all her friends are going to use it.  Soon, it will be everywhere.  And even the anarchists will use it - reluctantly. 

Bitcoin will do the very same thing Napster, Tor, FireFox, and others did.  It will just fade away.  No organized core development and bitcoin can look forward to being replaced in the coming 24 months.

Good quality funding and organization doesn't mean bitcoin is centralized.  The miners still can reject the new code.  What it means is the best programmers will be working all day on advancing the performance of the core.  This needs to be done.  Or, we could just let a few tinkerers fuss with the code from time to time and see what happens.  Do you really want IBM and the US Fed to get ahead of bitcoin? 

Pull your head out of your ass.  'Open source' is equal to highly disorganized way to advance.  Open source is a waste of time. 

Interesting. Until now I thought e.g. Linux kernel development is just doing fine as open source...

[Gameroid]

Exactly, open source is the way to go for bitcoin since it's decentralised and none controls it.

You guys are completely crazy.  IBM is currently working on a new cryptocurrency with the US Fed.  If you think that is going to be a low performance system, you are stupid.  They will have a very kick-ass system up and running.  Only the anarchists will refuse to use it because it is controlled by governments.  Your grandma and all her friends are going to use it.  Soon, it will be everywhere.  And even the anarchists will use it - reluctantly. 

Bitcoin will do the very same thing Napster, Tor, FireFox, and others did.  It will just fade away.  No organized core development and bitcoin can look forward to being replaced in the coming 24 months.

Good quality funding and organization doesn't mean bitcoin is centralized.  The miners still can reject the new code.  What it means is the best programmers will be working all day on advancing the performance of the core.  This needs to be done.  Or, we could just let a few tinkerers fuss with the code from time to time and see what happens.  Do you really want IBM and the US Fed to get ahead of bitcoin? 

Pull your head out of your ass.  'Open source' is equal to highly disorganized way to advance.  Open source is a waste of time. 

Lol I think you are the crazy one. why are you even here if you dont like the idea of open source? I think Linux is the most successful and most reliable operating system. its used by banks and other big organsations and guess what thats open source...

[AtheistAKASaneBrain]

Satoshi is one of the biggest holders if not the biggest. I wonder why wouldn't he donate anonymously to the development team? if anyone can do it it's him.

[lucasjkr]

Satoshi is one of the biggest holders if not the biggest. I wonder why wouldn't he donate anonymously to the development team? if anyone can do it it's him.

Apparently, if he ever moves his coins the world will freak out and send BTC to zero. I don't get it but that seems to be the sentiment.

[vm_mpn]

Clearly there is a severe shortcoming regarding funding for core development.  Why don't we run "Bitcoin Core: 0.10.1" for a year or two where all miners kick the fees over to salaries for the smartest guys to spend their days working hard on the core?  Miners don't really need the fees yet.  In about 10 years, miners will live off those fees.  But today, miners are well paid (over paid) as it is.  So much easy money in mining has caused them to rush out and buy extremely expensive exotic process nodes for radical ASICS.  Too much money in mining caused this arms race that went too fast and too furious.  We don't need to put more juice into mining rewards.  We need more juice in core development.  It was an imbalance that Satoshi couldn't predict.  But we can easily fix it.  All miners should 'volunteer' (by running Bitcoin Core 0.10.1") to route fees to core development for a period of time (e.g. 2 years).  This will benefit everyone.  (well, it will probably slow mining hardware development by about 1/1000th - so arguably those guys will suffer).

OP, where is this concern for Bitcoin development coming from? Are you changing your stance on Bitcoin?

[Mikestang]

Why don't we run "Bitcoin Core: 0.10.1" for a year or two where all miners kick the fees over to salaries for the smartest guys to spend their days working hard on the core?

Because paying people lots of money that others worked hard to get always fixes everything!  A very communist idea of you.

[ashour]

Satoshi is one of the biggest holders if not the biggest. I wonder why wouldn't he donate anonymously to the development team? if anyone can do it it's him.

Maybe he already is donating  to the development team and we don't know it. Although he probably is has left bitcoin and never looked back, it's speculation at the moment until satoshi reveals himself .

[oblivi]

Satoshi is one of the biggest holders if not the biggest. I wonder why wouldn't he donate anonymously to the development team? if anyone can do it it's him.

Maybe he already is donating  to the development team and we don't know it. Although he probably is has left bitcoin and never looked back, it's speculation at the moment until satoshi reveals himself .

Wasn't all of his addresses of public domain? i guess he figured a way through that and donated anonymously tho.

[ashour]

Satoshi is one of the biggest holders if not the biggest. I wonder why wouldn't he donate anonymously to the development team? if anyone can do it it's him.

Maybe he already is donating  to the development team and we don't know it. Although he probably is has left bitcoin and never looked back, it's speculation at the moment until satoshi reveals himself .

Wasn't all of his addresses of public domain? i guess he figured a way through that and donated anonymously tho.

He is probably donating anonymously maybe not with his coins but with coins he has bought. Or he has never donated before, there are many possibilities for satoshi.