[ANN] Bitcoin Foundation

[Polvos]

Give me an example how a fat ass target foundation will cause us to lose everything?

Imagine USA declares bitcoin illegal and asks the foundation based in this country to leak all the users joined database. All we are now early adopters but, if the foundation becomes the "face" of bitcoin is quite probable that all the newbies will join in there and loose their anonimity.

Imagine the foundation starts buying patents and creation rights from the bitcoin universe.

[shad0wbitz]

He, you just made me realize that Satoshi himself wouldn't be able to be a member of it, if he wants to preserve his anonymity.

+1 THIS. This goes about the very spirit of Bitcoin and its founder. These corporate identities want to make Bitcoin into the next PayPal under the disguise of a "foundation".

[kjj]

The industry pricing suggests that it is intended for "bitcoin industry", rather than "industry that happens to accept payment in bitcoin".  Considering the structure of the organization, the distinction seems like a reasonable one to make.

where do pools fit in this?
If mining is not a basic "industry" of Bitcoin - what is?

A very good point.  And I would suggest that correcting this oversight become the first high priority project.

I suggest two seats just for mining, with voting decided in the coinbase rather than creating a third category of membership.

[EhVedadoOAnonimato]

I'm happy with the board selection.

If they invite you, would you accept being part of it?

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

I think the mission statement for the fundation should read:

"To advance the interest of the biggest players in the industry (mtgox and bitinstant), who already have their hands on everything Bitcoin related. To annihilate competition and to foster camaraderie between the good ol'boys, and to elect a board of directors without any democratic input whatsoever from the true owners of Bitcoins: Its community. Finally, to provide a tax exempt vehicle to pay Gavin Andersen for developing open source, free software".

NO THANK YOU!. We have enough of the Bitinstant/MtGox vaporware and nonsense. I am going to pass on this one.

How about NOBODY that PROFIT from Bitcoin should be on the board? How about not having the SAME attorney for BitInstant and Roger Ver on the board of an "independent" fundation.

I am sorry, but this is a transvestite, just like the last organization that Charlie Shrem and Vorhees were involved with the scammer Matthew N. Wright http://dcao.org/

I hope this community REMEMBERS. I would urge anybody caring about Bitcoin to stay away from this monopoly.

Firstly,

MtGox and BitInstant are listed there because they are the first corporate members. You are more than welcome to join as well. In fact, if you own 1 BTC then you are a profiteer as well when the price goes up.

Second, BitInstant and myself had no involvment with the DCAO other than Matt inviting me to it (like every other Bitcoin business owner was) and putting my name on the website..which I asked him to take down many times.

The foundation is extremely democratic. All you have to do is join for the smallest membership and you can be on the board as well by voting, the same way the other board members are on it.

We've spent hunreds of thousands of dollars and speak to regulators, goverment officials, corporate execs, ect. They all agreed that a foundation neds to be in place for Bitcoin to succeed.

No one owns the foundation, and board seats are not for life. Anyone can run the foundation, just like Bitcoin it runs itself.

Does a PO box count as a "real address"?

How is the Founder board seat given away?

Exactly my point. Why aren't you on the board? You have been as instrumental (if not more) to Bitcoin than Charlie Shrem or Mark for that fact. I guess you have to run a highly profitable bitcoin business to be considered for the position.

Not sure why Theymos was not involved in this. Gavin invited us all in here, and has nothing to do with owning/running a business.

Forsure Theymos should be involved, thats why Peter wrote in his letter we are looking for an exec director and other positions.

Everyone who own a single bitcoin profit when the price rise. So no bitcoiners should be on the bitcoin board. Only paypal and mastercard and everyone who hate bitcoin should be on board.(They don't profit from bitcoin, remember?)

MtGox and BitInstant. They even share lawyers for Pete's sake! How is this a good idea? Am I missing something here?

Another error of yours. Patrick is my lawyer not MtGox's. He has donated his time for free to work for the foundation and I have spent alot of money training Patrick on the laws and regulatory structure of Bitcoin.

He is the most well versed for the job and he is doing it for free.

Please get your facts straight.

He, you just made me realize that Satoshi himself wouldn't be able to be a member of it, if he wants to preserve his anonymity.

+1 THIS. This goes about the very spirit of Bitcoin and its founder. These corporate identities want to make Bitcoin into the next PayPal under the disguise of a "foundation".

Satoshi is in the bylaws of the foundation and the founding member.

Before making statements, please verify you have all the information as I've mentioned before.

-Charlie

[kiba]

And is such formalization necessary? The potential for misunderstandings is big there.
If this was named "Gavin's Bitcoin Development Group" I'd probably be perfectly fine with it. "Bitcoin Foundation" is a lie in its own name, and will certainly provoke misunderstandings.

Very well. I understand your concern for big misunderstanding. However, I think they are overblown.

HTML5 doesn't have enemies. And HTML5 is not really significant to me, so I just don't care. About Bitcoin I do care though.

Sure it does, but they are weak or insignificant or they have become part of the HTML5 army. Think of android, for example, they have lot of powerful enemies.

IF the bitcoin foundation can convert enemies to allies, it will done quite well for itself. Even if the bitcoin foundation is only used to fund Gavin, it would be worth it.

[shad0wbitz]

IF the bitcoin foundation can convert enemies to allies, it will done quite well for itself. Even if the bitcoin foundation is only used to fund Gavin, it would be worth it.

Bitcoin as we know it, and as it was devised by Satoshi will ALWAYS be against the interests of the modern, blood sucking state, period. They will never be allies unless Bitcoin becomes Paypal and tax accountability is in place. This is just a fact. Why do you think Satoshi was so particular about his anonymity? Because he thought he could "mainstream" Bitcoin?

[phatsphere]

would be cool if they link to all the already existing nonprofit bitcoin foundations out there ... to emphasize the p2p networking aspect and so on.

[shad0wbitz]

Even if the bitcoin foundation is only used to fund Gavin, it would be worth it.

And I am fine with that, but let's call it the "Let's pay Gavin's nut" foundation, not the "Bitcoin Foundation"

[Mageant]

I think this is a great development. It has the potential to be very useful for spreading Bitcoin.

I supported the idea in the past so I'm it is really glad it is actually happening now.

As coincidence would have it I have been developing a Bitcoin boardgame in the last few days with a "Bitcoin Foundation" as one of its components. 

[justusranvier]

It's good that the Foundation will be funding development and representing Bitcoin legally, but it's important that the ownership of Bitcoin-related assets doesn't become too centralized. In particular, the Foundation should not:
- Control bitcoin.org
- Control any DNS seeds, etc.
- Own copyright on the Bitcoin source code
- Own any patents
- Own the Bitcoin trademark (unless someone has to own it)

A hostile entity that gained control over those things could do some damage, but it wouldn't be irreperable.

The code is already out in the open. Someone seeking to stop distribution via copyright and patent lawsuits wouldn't have any more luck than the media industry. At worst it would just push future development into the darknet.

[greyhawk]

I would prefer if Bitcoin stayed just like E-mail: no "E-mail Foundation", no "E-mail phone number" etc, and everybody understands that very well. Nobody asks for an "authority over E-mail".

This is hilarious. Do you know who developed and standardized email in it's current form? DARPA!

[jgarzik]

I'm guessing the satoshi client or whatever people call it these days will now be copyrighted under the bitcoin Foundation? The Foundation is essentially the vehicle for the development of that client?

Bitcoin Foundation != dev team

While I hope the Bitcoin Foundation will address critical immediate needs -- like paying Gavin to work on bitcoin -- fiddling with the copyrights does not seem within the claimed Linux Foundation model.  The Linux kernel is copyrighted by the individual authors, not by the Linux Foundation.  It seems logical the code would stay the same.

After all, the code is not just the dev team, even...  it is every contributor.  And every code contributor wrote has written more than a couple lines of code has a copyright claim.

Full disclosure:  yes, I joined the foundation as a lifetime member.

[kiba]

Bitcoin as we know it, and as it was devised by Satoshi will ALWAYS be against the interests of the modern, blood sucking state, period. They will never be allies unless Bitcoin becomes Paypal and tax accountability is in place. This is just a fact. Why do you think Satoshi was so particular about his anonymity? Because he thought he could "mainstream" Bitcoin?

The state is not a monolithic entity. The FBI don't gives a hoot about bitcoin destroying dollars, just as long as they're getting paid(does it matters what?) and you're not committing frauds. The CIA loves an anonymous way of funding their spy operations. Taxation works the same way. They could tax people without violating their financial privacy, but they don't wanna.

The government could see bitcoin as a threat or an opportunity or just not care about it. It depends on how they see it.

It's like a doctor seeing a new cure for cancer that will end his job. He can see it as a threat to his livelihood or he could embrace as saving his life.

[deadserious]

I love the idea of the Bitcoin Foundation and will be supporting it. 

[EhVedadoOAnonimato]

Satoshi is in the bylaws of the foundation and the founding member.

I'm sorry, but how can he be a "founding member" of something founded after he ... "disappeared"?

I'm afraid I can't find these bylaws. Is there a link?

[Serith]

I suggest two seats just for mining, with voting decided in the coinbase rather than creating a third category of membership.

Having two miners seats will give opportunity to two biggest pools to become even bigger, this is clearly a step in wrong direction.

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

Satoshi is in the bylaws of the foundation and the founding member.

I'm sorry, but how can he be a "founding member" of something founded after he ... "disappeared"?

I'm afraid I can't find these bylaws. Is there a link?

Ya, should be posted on the website in a few days.

I'ts not difficult to list someone as a founding member even if they "disappeared"

[greyhawk]

Satoshi is in the bylaws of the foundation and the founding member.

I'm sorry, but how can he be a "founding member" of something founded after he ... "disappeared"?

I'm afraid I can't find these bylaws. Is there a link?

Ya, should be posted on the website in a few days.

I'ts not difficult to list someone as a founding member even if they "disappeared"

Hey, that means you have his real name and adress on file. 

[shad0wbitz]

I'ts not difficult to list someone as a founding member even if they "disappeared"

LOLZ ... I am sorry. Not serious.