London 2012

[Nefario]

Stallman was understandably sad and angry, without his gnu (which someone had taken) then it would just be linux.

[Spekulatius]

So far I havent heard of anything newsworthy from the conference. I think nothing else will come off it. Some nice lectures for the attendees, yes; but nothing world changing.

Disclosure: I solld all my bitcoins just now

LOL

Yeah, I always go all in with my trades. Dont really see the merrits in wagering only fractional amounts. Because I feel the little rally that preluded the conference was based on rumor about some "exiting announcements" on the conference and a huge 1,5M USD BID wall that pushed price up at a crucial point where it could have instead broken down to 10$, I think its saver to wait for that potential correction to happen (current support at 10.50$, weak support at ~11.90$) or jump back on the up trend if we break 12$.

[thezerg]

The fact that RMS gave his speech at a Bitcoin conference is a very significant  promotion for Bitcoin.

Stallman putting his stamp on bitcoin removes the last of my reservations about the technical end of the protocol.

not being in your field, just how big is Stallman?

That's a very hard question to answer.  He's the grandfather of open source software, a movement which has revolutionized the way software is developed.  At the same time he does not "come off" well to straight-laced corporate types.  Read up about him... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDxMJQLXmBE

But the fact that the FSF still does not accept Bitcoin makes me go hmm....

[Nefario]

What will come from the conference is mostly hidden because most of the value is in the talks between different Bitcoin pioneers. I can tell that there are potentially some big things coming from it but only time will tell really.

Personally I hope the next conference would be more business oriented. I'm planning on organizing one in Helsinki btw. It would be bigger than anything so far.

That was my impression, it was certainly worth it for me, a lot is going to come from this. I also think it's funny people were moaning about a lack of live streaming, which I think were the same people saying they were not going to boycott the conference in the first place LOL.

[World]

Personally I hope the next conference would be more business oriented. I'm planning on organizing one in Helsinki btw. It would be bigger than anything so far.

+1

[thezerg]

But the fact that the FSF still does not accept Bitcoin makes me go hmm....

Actually, the FSF has been accepting Bitcoin donations since May 2011.

See: Bitcoins: A new way to donate to the FSF

First they did, then they didn't http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2011/06/bitcoin-eff-wikileaks-fsf-donations/39055/.  But I dug deeper and it looks like they do now https://my.fsf.org/donate/other/.  Too bad that atlanticwire article is one of the top bitcoin FSF search hits...

[old_engineer]

First they did, then they didn't http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2011/06/bitcoin-eff-wikileaks-fsf-donations/39055/.  But I dug deeper and it looks like they do now https://my.fsf.org/donate/other/.  Too bad that atlanticwire article is one of the top bitcoin FSF search hits...

FSF != EFF

[Stephen Gornick]

A lot of Bitcoin-based trading was going on in the foyer. People were exchanging bitcoins for cash of course, but they were also buying T-shirts, posters, Bitcoin Magazines, Casascius coins, etc. Also people were sending and receiving BTC to settle up restaurant bills. Some were buying BFL products with Bitcoins.

For many people, it was the first time they had made mobile BTC transactions. People were generating, scanning and photographing QR codes all the time. Plenty of different mobile clients were in use, including blockchain.info and InstaWallet (whose developer, Jan, was at the conference).

Internet access was reported as being crummy, mobile phone data must have been sufficient then.

I see this same challange for other mobile payment methods, and for fraud prevention they only work with mobile signal and not Wi-Fi.   Bitcoin is one of the few that works with either mobile data or wi-fi.  (and doesn't need to be full wi-fi either, it could be locked down to just a few bitcoin wallet sites and the port left open  for bitcoin P2P.)

[jgarzik]

This conference had essentially two strands: technical aspects and social aspects. This worked well, but it would be great to have business aspects as a third strand at future conferences.

+1 agreed...

[Sitarow]

So far I havent heard of anything newsworthy from the conference. I think nothing else will come off it. Some nice lectures for the attendees, yes; but nothing world changing.

Disclosure: I solld all my bitcoins just now

LOL

Yeah, I always go all in with my trades. Dont really see the merrits in wagering only fractional amounts. Because I feel the little rally that preluded the conference was based on rumor about some "exiting announcements" on the conference and a huge 1,5M USD BID wall that pushed price up at a crucial point where it could have instead broken down to 10$, I think its saver to wait for that potential correction to happen (current support at 10.50$, weak support at ~11.90$) or jump back on the up trend if we break 12$.

I still think ASIC demand will make btc value to go up as people use BTC to barter with rather then speculate with.

[kjj]

The fact that RMS gave his speech at a Bitcoin conference is a very significant  promotion for Bitcoin.

Stallman putting his stamp on bitcoin removes the last of my reservations about the technical end of the protocol.

not being in your field, just how big is Stallman?

That's a very hard question to answer.  He's the grandfather of open source software, a movement which has revolutionized the way software is developed.  At the same time he does not "come off" well to straight-laced corporate types.  Read up about him... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDxMJQLXmBE

But the fact that the FSF still does not accept Bitcoin makes me go hmm....

Actually, he is the father of the Free Software movement.  You could say that Free Software spawned Open Source, and call him the grandfather of open source, which is sorta true.  But it also totally missed the point of everything he's been trying to say for the last couple of decades.

To be very clear, he doesn't give a crap about open source software, except when it is also Free Software, and the people that advocate OSS are doing the world a disservice by ignoring the most important stuff (freedom).

[Severian]

The fact that RMS gave his speech at a Bitcoin conference is a very significant  promotion for Bitcoin.

Stallman putting his stamp on bitcoin removes the last of my reservations about the technical end of the protocol.

not being in your field, just how big is Stallman?

Stallman is to free, non-proprietary software as Tesla was to electrical engineering. That's not hyperbole. If not for Stallman, an argument could easily be made that there might not have been a bitcoin either.

The other side of that is that Richard can be really annoying and rub people the wrong way, a small tradeoff for his other gifts.

[thezerg]

The fact that RMS gave his speech at a Bitcoin conference is a very significant  promotion for Bitcoin.

Stallman putting his stamp on bitcoin removes the last of my reservations about the technical end of the protocol.

not being in your field, just how big is Stallman?

That's a very hard question to answer.  He's the grandfather of open source software, a movement which has revolutionized the way software is developed.  At the same time he does not "come off" well to straight-laced corporate types.  Read up about him... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDxMJQLXmBE

But the fact that the FSF still does not accept Bitcoin makes me go hmm....

Actually, he is the father of the Free Software movement.  You could say that Free Software spawned Open Source, and call him the grandfather of open source, which is sorta true.  But it also totally missed the point of everything he's been trying to say for the last couple of decades.

To be very clear, he doesn't give a crap about open source software, except when it is also Free Software, and the people that advocate OSS are doing the world a disservice by ignoring the most important stuff (freedom).

Yes, that is in fact why I said grandfather.  People have taken his baby and run in directions he disagrees with.  But Free Software is open source, and also Open Source Software (TM) whether he wants it to be or not! :-)

Thanks guys for correcting me WRT the distinction between the FSF and EFF!!!

[kjj]

Yes, that is in fact why I said grandfather.  People have taken his baby and run in directions he disagrees with.  But Free Software is open source, and also Open Source Software (TM) whether he wants it to be or not! :-)

Thanks guys for correcting me WRT the distinction between the FSF and EFF!!!

Free Software is open, but Open Source isn't necessarily Free.  And in the views of many people, starting with Stallman, the important part is the Free part, not the open part.