why aren't we, the community, regularly paying the lead developers of bitcoin?

[paulie_w]

it just occurred to me that we have this crazy flexibility with this stuff.

insert fry pic "take my money, please"

[onesalt]

... Why... Should we?

[ZodiacDragon84]

how do you know some people don't?

[paulie_w]

maybe some of them would like to work full-time on it?

and besides, couldn't they hire more people with that money? what other open source project even has this possibility!?

[paulie_w]

how do you know some people don't?

i don't. but it just occurred to me that we can do this. like, we can actually boost the productivity of the whole fucking game by... you know, being a little recursive. :-)

[ZodiacDragon84]

All you need to do, Is goto the github repository or wiki, that shows all the developers, find them on the forums here, and see if they have their bitcoin addy posted for donations.

[paulie_w]

All you need to do, Is goto the github repository or wiki, that shows all the developers, find them on the forums here, and see if they have their bitcoin addy posted for donations.

i was thinking more like a wikipedia thermometer.

"we have our fill for this month"

[Bitcoin Oz]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=92684.0  thats partly why I set this up.

[paulie_w]

dude, great idea and great work.

[repentance]

It's a legitimate question.  Square has attracted over $200 million dollars in venture capital in the two years since it was launched and is now being used at Starbucks.  Dwolla has also attracted major investors and become a viable alternative to PayPal. 

There are payment systems coming out right and left which are getting serious development funding and merchant adoption, yet there's really no serious money being directed towards solving the issues which create barriers to Bitcoin's acceptance as an alternative, mainstream payment method. People are expected to put time and effort into solving those issues out of idealism, which puts Bitcoin behind the other technologies which are targeting similar markets.

Bitcoin is not "user-friendly" for conventional business at the moment and it's not going to enjoy wide-spread adoption while it's cumbersome to acquire, to store, to spend or to exchange.  It's not going to become user-friendly any time soon unless people are paid to develop solutions.

[justusranvier]

People are being paid to develop solutions  - they just work for a collection of companies like Mt Gox, BitInstant, Paysisus, BitPay, etc.

That being said community funding of the core developers isn't a bad idea.

[2112]

Bitcoin is not "user-friendly" for conventional business at the moment and it's not going to enjoy wide-spread adoption while it's cumbersome to acquire, to store, to spend or to exchange.  It's not going to become user-friendly any time soon unless people are paid to develop solutions.

This has nothing to do with being "user-friendly" and 100% with the attitude of the core development group:

1) check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koIq58UoNfE
about 1:25 into the clip:

we don't much care if you don't approve of the software we write.

2) utter disregard for the GAAP; check out the old thread

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=93502.0

It just too bad that the juiciest portions were deleted by Maged at the request of Gavin Andresen and Roman Shtylman.

[paulie_w]

repentance is on the mark.

can we get gavin and the other guys in here to comment on this?

i know that gavin is a self-made man and doesn't need it for himself right now, but that maybe doesn't apply to some people he'd like to have involved, or others on the team right now.

and if there's such a thing as mob rule or voting: the first non-core thing that should happen is that a UX/UI designer is hired to improve the aesthetics of the satoshi client. :-)

[paulie_w]

Bitcoin is not "user-friendly" for conventional business at the moment and it's not going to enjoy wide-spread adoption while it's cumbersome to acquire, to store, to spend or to exchange.  It's not going to become user-friendly any time soon unless people are paid to develop solutions.

This has nothing to do with being "user-friendly" and 100% with the attitude of the core development group:

1) check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koIq58UoNfE
about 1:25 into the clip:

we don't much care if you don't approve of the software we write.

2) utter disregard for the GAAP; check out the old thread

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=93502.0

It just too bad that the juiciest portions were deleted by Maged at the request of Gavin Andresen and Roman Shtylman.

remember that gavin has said elsewhere on this forum, that they just see the satoshi client as a proof-of-concept, nothing more. i think the future is in the alt. clients, and i guess that opinion is shared with them.

still, it IS the first one people download from bitcoin.org and that should either change or the damn thing should be nicer to use.

money!

[repentance]

Bitcoin is not "user-friendly" for conventional business at the moment and it's not going to enjoy wide-spread adoption while it's cumbersome to acquire, to store, to spend or to exchange.  It's not going to become user-friendly any time soon unless people are paid to develop solutions.

This has nothing to do with being "user-friendly" and 100% with the attitude of the core development group:

1) check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koIq58UoNfE
about 1:25 into the clip:

we don't much care if you don't approve of the software we write.

2) utter disregard for the GAAP; check out the old thread

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=93502.0

It just too bad that the juiciest portions were deleted by Maged at the request of Gavin Andresen and Roman Shtylman.

The devs aren't the only people who can come up with things like ways to compress the blockchain, for instance - there's just not a whole lot of incentive for other people to do it.

[paulie_w]

The devs aren't the only people who can come up with things like ways to compress the blockchain, for instance - there's just not a whole lot of incentive for other people to do it.

exactly.

i think this would be a really important move by the community. we should be putting our money where it counts.

besides:

better software = more users = higher value and utility of btc

[Steve]

I think the best way to do this is for someone to plan a specific project for a specific feature or enhancement.  Estimate the amount of money to get a specific developer or two to work on it and be able to complete it.  Then use a dominance assurance contract to try and raise the necessary funding (the project lead would get a portion of the revenue as well and would be incentivized to market the project and raise the funds).  The person leading it could solicit four or five ideas, try and figure out which one is most likely to get funding (polls, talking to devs, etc), and then focus on the top idea.

I actually think the software industry will move to this model of funding as a better, more efficient alternative to copyright and licensing.  If someone made this work for Bitcoin development (building the necessary infrastructure along the way), there's no reason it couldn't be used for building all sorts of things (and I would love to be an investor in such a company).

[paulie_w]

what is a dominance assurance?

[Gavin Andresen]

remember that gavin has said elsewhere on this forum, that they just see the satoshi client as a proof-of-concept, nothing more.

I've said that I think the download-and-install-software-on-your-PC is a mostly-dead way of using software, and that the vast majority of people using Bitcoin in a year or three will be using it via a web application or on their smart phone. That's half of the reason why I don't think improving the UI is a high priority right now (the other half is because I think solving wallet security and backup issues is critical).

RE: 2112 and GAAP:  "patches welcome."  I don't know nuthin about GAAP, so if you're complaining that the reference implementation doesn't adhere to them then I'm not surprised. Feel free to fix that, or write a detailed proposal on what's wrong, why it'll cause problems, and how it ought to be fixed.

RE: funding development: funding open source software projects is tricky; if done poorly you end up with a couple of paid developers and lots of disappointed unpaid former contributors who decide "I'm not gonna work if I'm not gonna get paid."

That said... stay tuned, and I'll say more when I can.

[paulie_w]

oh my god we just figured out the announcement!