[ANN] Bitcoin Foundation

[jgarzik]

most of the devs already support p2pool

Yep.

General opinions on IRC and "in the hallway" (at conferences) are that p2pool is preferred over pools, because p2pool is decentralized.  We appreciate pool operators -- bitcoin wouldn't be where it is without them -- but those tend to be centralized operations where the pool operator is in a much greater position of power over the network than most other users.  Recall that Deepbit had over 50% network power, at recent times in bitcoin's history.

The pool operators of the largest pools, I'd say, are even more powerful than Gavin or any other dev.  We have to beg and plead, just to get things like P2SH deployed.

p2pool is decentralized and does not place huge amounts of power into any one hand.  If you mine... please try p2pool!

[px403]

Has anyone gotten notification email after joining?  I signed up and sent in the coins a couple hours ago, but haven't seen anything in my email.

[kjj]

1) My post never claimed that it was possible for copyright to be "taken"

I know.  I was agreeing with, and extending, your reply.

According to github, huge swaths of the bitcoin code are still from Satoshi, and he seems unlikely to break seclusion just to assign his rights.

[kjj]

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.

Huh?

Members that would occupy mining seats will protect interest of biggest mining pools, e.g. they will fight promotion of p2pool.

I find it amusing, and a bit disturbing, that you think that p2pool is fightable.

[Fluttershy]

If a lifetime member were to be revealed as a scammer, would they be stripped of their membership?

[kjj]

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

I disagree strongly with this. Miners perform work for the network, but their interests are not really important. Every miner can be replaced if someone figures out how to do mining more efficiently, and this is good.

I think that most miners would disagree with you on that.  And just because no one miner is special doesn't mean that mining as a whole doesn't deserve our attention.

[BitPay Business Solutions]

Has anyone gotten notification email after joining?  I signed up and sent in the coins a couple hours ago, but haven't seen anything in my email.

It sounds like we should automate this for them.  

[scomil]

Has anyone gotten notification email after joining?  I signed up and sent in the coins a couple hours ago, but haven't seen anything in my email.

It sounds like we should automate this for them. 

Agree, both email and payment.

[BitPay Business Solutions]

I will talk to Peter tonight about it.  we can have the donations and emails automated in less than 5 minutes.

[MemoryDealers]

They have something on their web page about disallowing felons. So I guess that means no Silkroad, no BFL.

Felons under whose definition?
SR so far are no criminals under any serious objective Ethics, for example.

And to reject "felons" (under whichever definition), they need to require people to identify themselves. That's already something that I consider that goes against bitcoin principles. I wouldn't expect that of Jon Matonis, for example, who proudly supports financial privacy. And look who's on the board... (PS: I haven't verified yet if they really block anonymous memberships, I'm saying this based on what was said on this topic)

As a convicted felon,  I think it is important to distinguish between:
Malum in se
vs
Malum prohibitum

If there is no victim, there is no crime.
People who enforce victimless crime laws are the criminal agressors and need to stop.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5mZ5FBHg0A

[ElectricMucus]

If there is no victim, there is no crime.
People who enforce victimless crime laws are the criminal agressors and need to stop.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5mZ5FBHg0A

Still, since the foundation is a legal entity it needs to respect the laws even if they are unfounded.

[MemoryDealers]

If there is no victim, there is no crime.
People who enforce victimless crime laws are the criminal agressors and need to stop.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5mZ5FBHg0A

Still, since the foundation is a legal entity it needs to respect the laws even if they are unfounded.

Now the world knows why I am not on the board. 

[greyhawk]

If there is no victim, there is no crime.
People who enforce victimless crime laws are the criminal agressors and need to stop.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5mZ5FBHg0A

Still, since the foundation is a legal entity it needs to respect the laws even if they are unfounded.

Now the world knows why I am not on the board. 

I wanted to ask what you did, but then I remembered Google. First thought: Not THAT's a business that bombed. 

[boonies4u]

If there is no victim, there is no crime.
People who enforce victimless crime laws are the criminal agressors and need to stop.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5mZ5FBHg0A

Still, since the foundation is a legal entity it needs to respect the laws even if they are unfounded.

Now the world knows why I am not on the board. 

Nice video. Best of luck to you and the (people of the) US. And bitcoins for that matter.

I would hate to see this leap in freedom of what people can do with their money to be destroyed or undermined.

[MemoryDealers]

If there is no victim, there is no crime.
People who enforce victimless crime laws are the criminal agressors and need to stop.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5mZ5FBHg0A

Still, since the foundation is a legal entity it needs to respect the laws even if they are unfounded.

Now the world knows why I am not on the board.  

I wanted to ask what you did, but then I remembered Google. First thought: Not THAT's a business that bombed.  

In reality,  I ran for California state assembly in 2000 as a Libertarian / Voluntarist.
I said enough to upset the feds so much that I became the only person in the USA to be prosecuted for selling a legal product
that was also being sold by hundreds of other companies across the USA including http://www.cabelas.com/
http://www.justice.gov/criminal/cybercrime/press-releases/2002/verPlea.htm
There is no freedom of speech.
This is why the world needs Bitcoin, and this is why I support bitcoinfoundation.org

[LightRider]

Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's.

4c016ae1a57beb4fd885303d48592e16ae937b41263218b3461d292aa393cf88

[apetersson]

it would be nice to have email confirmations up soon.

also i would like to point out that that there should be a kind of non-profit umbrella organisation we as non-profit (bitocoin-austria) could join i was hoping the foundation would be something like that, but for us 500 btc is not really feasable. there are lots of people working hard to improve the bitcoin ecosystem for free and for ideological reasons and they are neither "early adopters" nor bitcoin businesses.

[LightRider]

Q: The Foundation is a corporation, and corporations (especially US corporations) are evil.

OK. So don't join-- go form your own non-corporate non-evil organization, or just ignore the Foundation and do whatever you think is right.

Saving this for posterity.

[wareen]

it would be nice to have email confirmations up soon.

also i would like to point out that that there should be a kind of non-profit umbrella organisation we as non-profit (bitocoin-austria) could join i was hoping the foundation would be something like that, but for us 500 btc is not really feasable. there are lots of people working hard to improve the bitcoin ecosystem for free and for ideological reasons and they are neither "early adopters" nor bitcoin businesses.

+1

Nevertheless, this foundation is definitely a step in the right direction and I fully support it!

Bitcoin is in dire need of legitimate organizations backing it, to get rid of the questionable image propagated by countless bad press articles.

[elux]

How is the Founder board seat given away?

In general, whoever founds an organization gets to make the rules.

Starting off with a board of sane and competent people seems obviously better than starting off with people fighting for the seats.

Anyone who is - for some reason or another - opposed to the foundation, their rules, their policies,
their board, their members, their results, their lack of results, etc. etc. etc. is free to start their own advocacy group.

Everything is as it should be.