[ANN] Bitcoin Foundation

[niko]

Jgarzik made excellent points in #772. Also, BTF  website is not available at this moment. DoS?

[WikileaksDude]

Jgarzik made excellent points in #772. Also, BTF  website is not available at this moment. DoS?

Same here, I wanted to make a small donation since today Im feeling good lol.

Will have to wait. I guess.

[Polvos]

Bitcoin Foundation web down (I don't know why, probably DDOSed). Let's all enjoy the flavour of the centralization. Now imagine a newcomer army complaining about the impossibility of enjoying their foundation membership special fees in the Mtgox. Or yelling they abandon bitcoin because they can't download the "official" bitcoin client and they don't trust any other.

[Technomage]

Bitcoin Foundation web down. Let's all enjoy the flavour of the centralization. Now imagine a newcomer army complaining about the impossibility of enjoying their foundation membership special fees in the Mtgox. Or yelling they abandon bitcoin because they can't download the "official" bitcoin client and they don't trust any other.

These comments are just plain stupid and pure FUD. Just like Bitcoin.org today, the Foundation will surely not just instruct people to use the official client. That would be ridiculous these days when we have so many excellent wallets. It was understandable before but not anymore.

In fact most of the FUD here is based on totally made up assumptions of what the Foundation will actually do. I think people will be surprised. Well, some people will be. I hope I won't be because I fully expect neutral information from them and that includes informing people of other clients as well.

[jgarzik]

1) you assert that "Bounties fail.  KickStarter-like provides unpredictable bursts.  Anonymous donations are a beer-money tiny trickle.  Self-supporting through for-profit ventures steals developer focus and introduces clear, direct conflicts of interest "
 I disagree. Has Gavin tried the bounties route? Has he tried a kickstarter like fundraising? No. You merely assert those methods or some other method doesn't work.

It is simple observation.  The self-supporting route was already tried.  Bounties continually fail on this forum, as well as outside.  I have personally paid over 15,000 BTC of my own money in bounties, to juice the bitcoin economy.  Have you?

For KickStarter, every single example is a single burst of money.  That is by definition not a predictable stream of income, year after year.  Any sane developer trying to support a family will prefer a predictable income.

Put on your thinking cap (and take off the tin foil one).

2) you identified a danger and instead of offering a service and letting the market decide whether it wants/needs it, you have self imposed yourself over all users without them having a choice while telling us that this is the only way it could have been done - again a mere assertion.

A group of free individuals created a voluntary organization.  The free market did decide.

The world is full of example where free-market, profit seeking companies get together in a neutral, members-based trade organization for topics of mutual interest.

3) you keep pointing out I can start my own solution and yet I would need to persuade the lead dev and his team to join me without whom my foundation's relevancy would be non existent which you know damn well but refuse to acknowledge.

No, this is open source, free market -- instead of whining you could do something.

If there is a critical mass of people who dislike the Bitcoin Foundation, band together and propose alternate or matching funding.  Then propose your own development funding scheme.

Or fund your own team of developers, independent of BF.

It seems if the dev team were rational economic actors, a proposal of

• Let BF fund 50%
• Let hazek's foundation fund 50%
• Therefore, no one entity can claim >51% control over funding

could be economically in their interests (more diverse funding sources) and placate some of the bitcoin forum critics.

You are, therefore, assuming failure when in fact there are many possibilities for a do-er.

The community will follow a good idea, especially right now, before the supposed BF-led drones take over.

Yes Bitcoin development might be facing a freight train, but no your solution isn't the only solution and isn't the best solution and yet you forced us to swallow it no matter what the consequences while making it virtually impossible to compete.

1) BF is a voluntary organization.  You are forced to swallow nothing.

2) The challenge is, as always:  provide a better solution.

[Gavin Andresen]

hazek, you're really annoying me.

First, you edited my OP and broke all of the links changing .org to .com.
Then you sent me a PM asking if it would be ok to move this thread to Service Discussion.  WTF?  If discussion of the Foundation isn't a good topic for the main Discussion forum what is?

Now you spout off about 'Gavin this, Gavin that.'

It isn't easy to piss me off, but, I'm sorry, you're really pissing me off. Bounties?  Really?  Point me to a successful security-critical open source project where bounties pay the rent.

I haven't tried kickstarter-like fundraising?  http://blockchain.info/address/17XvU95PkpDqXAr8ieNpYzSdRDRJL55UQ8  is the address for the Bitcoin Testing Project, which has received a grand total of 72 BTC, which isn't nearly enough to pay a QA grunt, let alone a QA lead.

You say "why change, Bitcoin has been working great for me!"

It hasn't been working great for me; I'm frustrated by the lack of resources and all of the distractions I have to deal with as the unelected, un-asked-for de-facto leader of this amazing experiment. I'm excited about the Foundation, because it is bringing together dedicated, effective people who all want Bitcoin to succeed.

[jgarzik]

Bitcoin Foundation web down. Let's all enjoy the flavour of the centralization. Now imagine a newcomer army complaining about the impossibility of enjoying their foundation membership special fees in the Mtgox. Or yelling they abandon bitcoin because they can't download the "official" bitcoin client and they don't trust any other.

These comments are just plain stupid and pure FUD. Just like Bitcoin.org today, the Foundation will surely not just instruct people to use the official client. That would be ridiculous these days when we have so many excellent wallets. It was understandable before but not anymore.

Absolutely.  As gavin said,

     To take one example, I don't want to be the centralized decision-maker who
      figures out who should or should not be on the bitcoin-press mailing list that
      is on the bitcoin.org homepage any more.

The bitcoin.org homepage is already moving in the direction of multi-client, in fact: http://bitcoin.org/clients.html  Hopefully there is a better process for choosing the default client on the main page (or simply those front-page links get removed).

We want to make as much of the facilities as possible decentralized.

[Shawshank]

I feel the Bitcoin Foundation is a great idea. Not only the Linux Foundation is an example to follow. All open standards need an organization to guide on their specification. Once these standards are established, guided by proposals and consensus, any individual or company can implement their products in a compatible way.

For example, the specification of the HTTP protocol was coordinated by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C); the definition of the XML markup language was produced by the W3C. I am happy that the Bitcoin Foundation guides the specification for the future evolution of the Bitcoin protocol.

Besides, The Bitcoin Foundation has no similarity with the government or the State. There is no threat of using the force by TBF if you don't comply with their proposals.

[Raoul Duke]

hazek, you're really annoying me.

First, you edited my OP and broke all of the links changing .org to .com.

What?
Did you do that hazek? Really? If so, why?

Notice the time the thread was posted.


Notice the time it was last edited by Gavin.


And the time hazek made his first post in this thread...

[The_Duke]

Then you sent me a PM asking if it would be ok to move this thread to Service Discussion.  WTF?  If discussion of the Foundation isn't a good topic for the main Discussion forum what is?

To be honest, you yourself should have posted it in the service discussion section and not in the main discussion forum. Because you're trying to provide a service, right? Just the act of putting it in the main forum touches on what most "opponents" of this foundation feel is the main problem with it: it seems to go against what they thought bitcoin stood for. Apparently you think that THE bitcoin foundation is so much more important than other services it deserves to be in the main discussion forum.

You say "why change, Bitcoin has been working great for me!"

It hasn't been working great for me; I'm frustrated by the lack of resources and all of the distractions I have to deal with as the unelected, un-asked-for de-facto leader of this amazing experiment. I'm excited about the Foundation, because it is bringing together dedicated, effective people who all want Bitcoin to succeed.

*YOU* feel you are the "unelected, un-asked-for de-facto leader of this amazing experiment". No one made you that, and frankly speaking I don't think the majority of the bitcoin users feel that you are. And even IF they do, I'd say that in itself is a bad sign and should make you shy away from trying to step up even more.
This is how this all makes me feel: It feels like an someone who feels like an unelected, un-asked-for de-facto leader of this amazing experiment would rather become the elected (or in this case, self-appointed) asked-for principal leader of this amazing experiment.

I am really sorry that what is happening with bitcoin doesn't make you feel well at the moment, but just the fact that you put a lot of voluntary work into bitcoin doesn't grant you any rights. That is why it's called voluntary. If you feel it's taking too much out of you, nothing prevents you from changing what you do for/with bitcoin. That's the great part about voluntary efforts. No rights, but also no obligations.
You did choose to change something it seems, but the way in which you want things to change for YOU is a way that a lot of people disagree with. As much as it is your right to change stuff you, it's the right of those people to stand up against how these changes (might) affect them.

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

you want things to change for YOU is a way that a lot of people disagree with.

Actually, the amount of membership and donations are staggering.

I've narrowed it down to 3 trolls in this forum, and a bunch of follower haters which total to about 20.

-Charlie

[hazek]

hazek, you're really annoying me.

I'm not trying to be annoying, I'm just pointing out dangers and inconsistencies. I apologize if that annoys you.

First, you edited my OP and broke all of the links changing .org to .com.

After doing so, because .org wasn't working for me but .com was thinking you made a mistake and wanted to fix a broken link, I immediately pmed you about my correction upon which you pmed that I made a mistake for which I immediately apologized for. I don't understand why you are trying to paint me as a saboteur when I am anything but.

Then you sent me a PM asking if it would be ok to move this thread to Service Discussion.  WTF?  If discussion of the Foundation isn't a good topic for the main Discussion forum what is?

As the moderator I have responsibilities. One is to check my mail for reports of which I got more than five asking me why the moderation is being inconsistent moving all the posts discussing the foundation to Service Discussion, and moving all the other announcement to Service Announcements but leaving your announcement of a service, which is my personal opinion what your Bitcoin Foundation is, in the Bitcoin Discussion. Despite all the reports I didn't take any action, instead I extended you some courtesy and pmed you about this issue, to which you gave me a non answer

Seems odd to think of the Foundation as a "service" ...

upon which I asked you to tell me how you think about it to which I never got a reply. Because the issue wasn't closed I asked theymos for instruction and he instructed me to leave the post alone which I did.

What I did wrong here, I don't understand.

Now you spout off about 'Gavin this, Gavin that.'

I also don't understand why you are putting words in my mouth. I'm not spouting off anything, all I did was give Charlie suggestion how to prevent TBF being corrupted in the future and abused and one of my suggetions was to eliminate your conflict of interest which no one wants to acknowledge exists with you being the lead dev and at the same time a founding member on the board of directors for the next two years. I don't understand how else I can express my suggestions and point out facts that it wouldn't bother you. It's about you, it's bound to bother you but that's not my fault.

It isn't easy to piss me off, but, I'm sorry, you're really pissing me off. Bounties?  Really?  Point me to a successful security-critical open source project where bounties pay the rent.

I haven't tried kickstarter-like fundraising?  http://blockchain.info/address/17XvU95PkpDqXAr8ieNpYzSdRDRJL55UQ8  is the address for the Bitcoin Testing Project, which has received a grand total of 72 BTC, which isn't nearly enough to pay a QA grunt, let alone a QA lead.

It is my opinion that if as much effort was put into fund raising as was put into formulating TBF, you would have more than enough funds to fund yourself and a big enough team to support you. A single post on the forum just isn't enough effort to bare any such fruit. Did you ever ask if anyone wanted to help out with promotion or with figuring out a fund raising scheme? I must bring up the very successful foundraising for the very first promotional Bitcoin video that raised something like 9000 BTC which was the money that started weusecoins.com. If that much was raised for that purpose I can't even imagine how much you could get for development.

You say "why change, Bitcoin has been working great for me!"

It hasn't been working great for me; I'm frustrated by the lack of resources and all of the distractions I have to deal with as the unelected, un-asked-for de-facto leader of this amazing experiment. I'm excited about the Foundation, because it is bringing together dedicated, effective people who all want Bitcoin to succeed.

Yes this is a problem. I don't deny it. But how you now attempted to solve it is not and cannot be the only solution. It's a solution, it's the solution that is the most comfortable and easy for you. Unfortunately it's also the most dangerous solution for the future of Bitcoin.



Last but not least I just don't understand why instead of attacking my persona you don't just point to facts that would support your arguments. It's really scary to read such manipulative posts from you and it makes it that much harder to believe you understand the issues some of us are having with TBF.

[kiba]

This is a debate over nothing. I am tuning this thread out until the hater discussion get separated.

[MatthewLM]

Bitcoin as a technology doesn't have a leader. Different people may lead different projects but bitcoin itself is open for anyone to contribute without needing to follow some lead.

[Herodes]

This is a debate over nothing. I am tuning this thread out until the hater discussion get separated.

All criticism should be listened to, and genuine haters who have no genuine criticism could just be ignored.

It's a saying that goes:

"You can please some of the people, some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time".

Even a saint would have his or her haters, so having everyone like you on the internet is impossible.

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

Once you take the personal attacks out of the debate and people stop making assumptions about other people and policies alot of good comes out of these debates.

Last night, Hazek, Atlas and myself even came to an agreement of a problem we all believe is real regarding the future of the foundation

Read here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=113400.msg1230272#msg1230272

My point is, we can all get along, let's just be civil and stop taking everything so personally

This goes both ways.

-Charlie

[hazek]

My first answer would be to not have a Bitcoin Foundation. Why crack the door open and leave the foot in there if it can be shut closed, right?

But the idea of some of the things the Foundation could do isn't entirely bad, I never said it was. I just think the way you structured it is really bad because of the future dangers. So the next best thing to no foundation would be what I already wrote in a post some pages ago:
- Gavin or any dev just can't be a member, it's a conflict of interest and it gives the Foundation a higher profile than it needs and could be abused in the future
 Gavin and all the devs can simply be independent contractors for the foundation, preferably with public contracts. This also allows competition for Gavins contract by another Foundation.
- The name must change to something that is more akin to a voluntary service rather than how I described it earlier: "self anointed ect.. " Someone already posted a few great suggestions that would be much better and safer than the highly officially sounding Bitcoin Foundation
- It needs to be a for profit organization, dependent on not just donations but primarily on offering a service. If vetting businesses is a service people want and will trust this organization's opinion then they should pay for it which again creates a market and allows for competition. Not only that, if it turns out the services that this organization offers aren't desired it will simply go bankrupt and another will take it's place picking up the pieces ensuring we will have the best quality and price.

Also, my ideas would never include trying to adopt checks and balances through the bylaws because those can always be changed (just like the constitution for example).

If you'd implement these three changes, I'd be 100% on board, I'd even buy a subscription or what ever it would be.

Hey,

For your first point, we thought of an idea having the core dev team and Gavin as part of the non-profit foundation and then having another for-profit foundation as well, splitting it up. Similar to the way the Mozilla Foundation is set up:

Mozilla Foundation

The Mozilla Foundation is a California non-profit corporation exempt from Federal income taxation under IRC 501(c)(3). The Foundation supports the existing Mozilla community and oversees Mozilla's governance structure. It also actively seeks out new ways for people around the world to recognize and steward the Internet as a critical public resource.

Mozilla Corporation

The Mozilla Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation, works with the community to develop software that advances Mozilla's principles. This includes the Firefox browser, which is well recognized as a market leader in security, privacy and language localization. These features make the Internet safer and more accessible.

Still in discussions about this.

I'm gonna respond to the rest later, I need to head offline. Feel free to respond now.

-Charlie

No I don't think that solves the conflict of interest. There can't be ownership of both by the same group or person. You either create two groups separate and independent or do as I suggested if you really want to solve the dangers that a conflict of interest poses in the future.

I'm still interested to hear your response two the other two suggestions.

[BitcoinINV]

Well with some of this money you guys make you should put some commercials on T.V. as a public broadcast. That would be something worth while.

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

My first answer would be to not have a Bitcoin Foundation. Why crack the door open and leave the foot in there if it can be shut closed, right?

But the idea of some of the things the Foundation could do isn't entirely bad, I never said it was. I just think the way you structured it is really bad because of the future dangers. So the next best thing to no foundation would be what I already wrote in a post some pages ago:
- Gavin or any dev just can't be a member, it's a conflict of interest and it gives the Foundation a higher profile than it needs and could be abused in the future
 Gavin and all the devs can simply be independent contractors for the foundation, preferably with public contracts. This also allows competition for Gavins contract by another Foundation.
- The name must change to something that is more akin to a voluntary service rather than how I described it earlier: "self anointed ect.. " Someone already posted a few great suggestions that would be much better and safer than the highly officially sounding Bitcoin Foundation
- It needs to be a for profit organization, dependent on not just donations but primarily on offering a service. If vetting businesses is a service people want and will trust this organization's opinion then they should pay for it which again creates a market and allows for competition. Not only that, if it turns out the services that this organization offers aren't desired it will simply go bankrupt and another will take it's place picking up the pieces ensuring we will have the best quality and price.

Also, my ideas would never include trying to adopt checks and balances through the bylaws because those can always be changed (just like the constitution for example).

If you'd implement these three changes, I'd be 100% on board, I'd even buy a subscription or what ever it would be.

Hey,

For your first point, we thought of an idea having the core dev team and Gavin as part of the non-profit foundation and then having another for-profit foundation as well, splitting it up. Similar to the way the Mozilla Foundation is set up:

Mozilla Foundation

The Mozilla Foundation is a California non-profit corporation exempt from Federal income taxation under IRC 501(c)(3). The Foundation supports the existing Mozilla community and oversees Mozilla's governance structure. It also actively seeks out new ways for people around the world to recognize and steward the Internet as a critical public resource.

Mozilla Corporation

The Mozilla Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation, works with the community to develop software that advances Mozilla's principles. This includes the Firefox browser, which is well recognized as a market leader in security, privacy and language localization. These features make the Internet safer and more accessible.

Still in discussions about this.

I'm gonna respond to the rest later, I need to head offline. Feel free to respond now.

-Charlie

No I don't think that solves the conflict of interest. There can't be ownership of both by the same group or person. You either create two groups separate and independent or do as I suggested if you really want to solves the dangers that a conflict of interest poses in the future.

I'm still interested to hear your response two the other two suggestions.

Good point.

While Im still thinking about this, I think you and I can agree that the structure and name of the foundation needs alot of analyses and opinions from many different people. In and outside of Bitcoin.
One thing to note (I know this doesn't justify it, but forsure a plus)- The name gives it a nice dose of legitimacy outside the Bitcoin world.
We have banks, VC's, press, ect.. literally calling us up and saying now they will work with us since there is a a (and I quote) "Long term entity that makes us comfortable knowing we can invest time and resources into Bitcoin and it being around in the future"

Regarding Gavin and the core dev team, this goes into the same response as above. I don't have an opinion on this, simply because I have not heard enough arguments on both side of the table.

Good morning by the way! 

-Charlie

[BitcoinBug]

you want things to change for YOU is a way that a lot of people disagree with.

Actually, the amount of membership and donations are staggering.

I've narrowed it down to 3 trolls in this forum, and a bunch of follower haters which total to about 20.

-Charlie

+1

There is a poll on CodingInMySleep blog:

What's your first impression of the Bitcoin Foundation?
Love it! (70%, 63 Votes)
Meh. (23%, 21 Votes)
Hate it! (7%, 6 Votes)

http://codinginmysleep.com/announcing-the-bitcoin-foundation/