[ANN] Bitcoin Foundation

[shad0wbitz]

Hey Erik, why the change of heart?:

Because he rather be the power than fight it.

+1, and because he is known to flip like a pancake, generally speaking in the direction that power/money blows. READ: letter to MNW.

[1715629291]

1715629291

[boonies4u]

I'm not going to address conspiracy theories, mostly because I'm not seeing most of them because of who I've got on my ignore list.

- FACT: The decision of forming "The Bitcoin Fundation" was made by a few powerful players without no input from the community.
Oh no! Powerful people not asking permission to do what they want!
- FACT: The board of the foundation was elected under close door, without any input from the community.
Oh no! The board of the foundation is actually THE BOARD OF THE FOUNDATION.
- FACT: Two members of the foundation own and/or operate the largest for profit corporations in the Bitcoin Industry: MTGOX AND BITINSTANT.
Oh no! What an obvious conflict of interest! MtGox and BitInstant totally want bitcoin to fail.
- FACT: The foundation's attorney is the same attorney than Bitinstant. A CLEAR conflict of interests.
In all seriousness I believe this was addressed earlier.
- FACT: The bylaws and other articles of the foundation weren't made public until yesterday, and only because of the public outcry of the community.
Oh no! They did so many evil things before the bylaws were released!
- FACT: There was no democratic, open, free process that decided if there was a need for a foundation, or who should lead and seat said on the board of directors.
Oh no! The bitcoin community isn't a democracy!

Guys I think The Bitcoin Foundation is up to some shady stuff! Totally!

[Polvos]

I would like to see Gavin reject hazek's bitcoin.  

It's easy. Even he doesn't need to change the protocol code. Gavin only has to include some hazeks purchased coins through the MtGox exchanger to some tainted coin list running in the Bitcoin Foundation and "improving the newcomers experience" by tweaking the satoshi client offered there in order to reject the tainted ones (returning autometically them to the sending address and warning the user)

[boonies4u]

I would like to see Gavin reject hazek's bitcoin. 

It's easy. Even he doesn't need to change the protocol code. Gavin only has to include some hazeks purchased coins through the MtGox exchanger to some tainted coin list and "improving the newcomers experience" by tweaking the satoshi client in order to reject the tainted ones (returning autometically them to the sending address and warning the user)

I meant him ACTUALLY doing it.

[kiba]

I meant him ACTUALLY doing it.

I don't think Gavin is going to waste his time. Beside, Mark Karpeles totally want his business.

[Herodes]

The main danger is if the community trusts such an organization too much.  For example- if everyone assumed the client version put out by the organization was trustworthy, then there is serious danger. A group as you propose should probably exist, but the community should remain skeptical of it, and always constructively critical.

I thought of the exact same thing, now is the time to make one or more services which sole purpose is to constantly review the downloadable official client for changes, and alternative clients too. As long as these checks are in place, it should be difficult to sneak in backdoors. Such checks are no distrust, but rather a salute to the current developers, and the very nature of bitcoin.

[shad0wbitz]

Not if evil is redefined over time by The Bitcoin Foundation and people accept the message.

It already started, we now are the conspiracy theorists, the failed business man that pretend to be the little guy, the guy that "must have some beef" and is trolling, etc.. etc..

Gavin, Shrem, Vorhees, Mark, they are the owners of Bitcoin, and how you dare disagree with them? 

[The_Duke]

The main danger is if the community trusts such an organization too much.  For example- if everyone assumed the client version put out by the organization was trustworthy, then there is serious danger. A group as you propose should probably exist, but the community should remain skeptical of it, and always constructively critical.

I thought of the exact same thing, now is the time to make one or more services which sole purpose is to constantly review the downloadable official client for changes, and alternative clients too. As long as these checks are in place, it should be difficult to sneak in backdoors. Such checks are no distrust, but rather a salute to the current developers, and the very nature of bitcoin.

And then if some person doing these checks turns out to spend an awful lot of time on it, he will end up having to make a Bitcoin Foundation Foundation, in order to raise money and have his salary paid by it, so he can do it fulltime. After which we will have to cry out at the fact that people who did something good initially (checking the dev's code), now have gone ego-crazy and started an undemocratic foundation that claims to be THE organisation that checks the dev's code! Then someone would have to start checking the work of the code checkers, until it starts taking him so much time that....

[Atlas]

Not if evil is redefined over time by The Bitcoin Foundation and people accept the message.

It already started, we now are the conspiracy theorists, the failed business man that pretend to be the little guy, the guy that "must have some beef" and is trolling, etc.. etc..

Gavin, Shrem, Vorhees, Mark, they are the owners of Bitcoin, and how you dare disagree with them? 

Imagine: The executive director announces that The Bitcoin Foundation will be making a public-private partnership with the government, to help aid in justice for money laundering, drug trafficking and other financial crime. Please download this new implementation to help us catch criminals and retrieve stolen funds.

[shad0wbitz]

- FACT: The decision of forming "The Bitcoin Fundation" was made by a few powerful players without no input from the community.
Oh no! Powerful people not asking permission to do what they want!
Oh No! DO what you want, but don't call it THE Bitcoin Foundation...
- FACT: The board of the foundation was elected under close door, without any input from the community.
Oh no! The board of the foundation is actually THE BOARD OF THE FOUNDATION.
I am sorry ... WHAT??
- FACT: Two members of the foundation own and/or operate the largest for profit corporations in the Bitcoin Industry: MTGOX AND BITINSTANT.
Oh no! What an obvious conflict of interest! MtGox and BitInstant totally want bitcoin to fail.
MtGox and BitInstant want MtGox and BitInstant to succeed. Perhaps you should read about for-profit corporations.
- FACT: The foundation's attorney is the same attorney than Bitinstant. A CLEAR conflict of interests.
In all seriousness I believe this was addressed earlier.

Where?
- FACT: The bylaws and other articles of the foundation weren't made public until yesterday, and only because of the public outcry of the community.
Oh no! They did so many evil things before the bylaws were released!
- FACT: There was no democratic, open, free process that decided if there was a need for a foundation, or who should lead and seat said on the board of directors.
Oh no! The bitcoin community isn't a democracy!
You seem to be pleased about that?

[kjj]

The main danger is if the community trusts such an organization too much.  For example- if everyone assumed the client version put out by the organization was trustworthy, then there is serious danger. A group as you propose should probably exist, but the community should remain skeptical of it, and always constructively critical.

I thought of the exact same thing, now is the time to make one or more services which sole purpose is to constantly review the downloadable official client for changes, and alternative clients too. As long as these checks are in place, it should be difficult to sneak in backdoors. Such checks are no distrust, but rather a salute to the current developers, and the very nature of bitcoin.

There are discussions of this in one of the other threads around here.  Great idea.  If I'm not drunk before my server comes back up (they say it is a multi-state outage, so don't hold your breath), I'll write a PHP script to fetch and compare signatures.  Actually, I think someone might have already posted one.

The problem is that all of the signatures and the binaries all come from the same shadowy cabal of secret developers that operate from their hidden lairs in the logged public IRC channel and logged public mailing list.

[molecular]

I think it's good. Thanks a thousand for calling bitcoin "cryptographic money" instead of "cryptocurrency".

Did Mark donate his "bitcoin" trademark?

[Atlas]

Did Mark donate his "bitcoin" trademark?

And people wonder why we are butthurt.

[shad0wbitz]

Imagine: The executive director announces that The Bitcoin Foundation will be making a public-private partnership with the government, to help aid in justice for money laundering, drug trafficking and other financial crime. Please download this new implementation to help us catch criminals and retrieve stolen funds.

MtGox is ALREADY blocking accounts of people that received what they considered "Tainted coins", with no legal authority to do so. So go figure... you are such a conspiracy theorist

Can you picture Chase freezing cash bills that they think might be involved on some crack cocaine deal?

[Polvos]

Did Mark donate his "bitcoin" trademark?

And people wonder why we are butthurt.

I feel your pain.

[Serith]

After a few mins of more thinking...

Perhaps the idea of an "official" group is not wise.  Instead, the core dev team could create an organization, with special logo and name. This organization would be the de facto official group, but only so long as it held up its reputation. At all times, other groups can form and compete for "de facto officialness."

In essence then, this would just be a Non-profit, spontaneously organized by individuals. If multiple such organizations sprout up, then each community member can support whomever they wish.

Think of it like a market for competing representatives. No group official by law, but any group official by market sentiment. We would see one group come to dominate the sentiment, but Bitcoin would not be irrevocably tied to it.

No group should be granted an explicit monopoly... but an implicit market-derived monopoly would not bother me.

This is an excellent suggestion. Hazek, you should start making plans to create competition but implement it only if or when Bitcoin Foundation shows signs of weakness. Of course the hardest part is to find and convince people to join you, but developers of alternative clients would be a good start.

[Atlas]

Imagine: The executive director announces that The Bitcoin Foundation will be making a public-private partnership with the government, to help aid in justice for money laundering, drug trafficking and other financial crime. Please download this new implementation to help us catch criminals and retrieve stolen funds.

MtGox is ALREADY blocking accounts of people that received what they considered "Tainted coins", with no legal authority to do so. So go figure... you are such a conspiracy theorist

Can you picture Chase freezing cash bills that they think might be involved on some crack cocaine deal?

It's not a conspiracy, it's history. Power corrupts and this organization wants power to standardize and be the main income source for bitcoin development.

The sad thing is if full power and legitimacy is reached in this organization, people like me will be rejected for being anti-government, terroristic loons if they start turning Bitcoin into a fiat currency.

[boonies4u]

- FACT: The decision of forming "The Bitcoin Fundation" was made by a few powerful players without no input from the community.
Oh no! Powerful people not asking permission to do what they want!
Oh No! DO what you want, but don't call it THE Bitcoin Foundation...
Why the hell not? Does someone have a trademark on the word THE?
- FACT: The board of the foundation was elected under close door, without any input from the community.
Oh no! The board of the foundation is actually THE BOARD OF THE FOUNDATION.
I am sorry ... WHAT??
The board of the foundation is not the board of the bitcoin community.
- FACT: Two members of the foundation own and/or operate the largest for profit corporations in the Bitcoin Industry: MTGOX AND BITINSTANT.
Oh no! What an obvious conflict of interest! MtGox and BitInstant totally want bitcoin to fail.
MtGox and BitInstant want MtGox and BitInstant to succeed. Perhaps you should read about for-profit corporations.
MtGox and Bitinstant's success is tied to the success of bitcoin. Perhaps you should look at the mutual interest of all parties involved.
- FACT: The foundation's attorney is the same attorney than Bitinstant. A CLEAR conflict of interests.
In all seriousness I believe this was addressed earlier.Where?
Earlier in this thread, I will edit to link it.
- FACT: The bylaws and other articles of the foundation weren't made public until yesterday, and only because of the public outcry of the community.
Oh no! They did so many evil things before the bylaws were released!
- FACT: There was no democratic, open, free process that decided if there was a need for a foundation, or who should lead and seat said on the board of directors.
Oh no! The bitcoin community isn't a democracy![/b]
You seem to be pleased about that?
Yes, I have never submitted a vote when it comes to community affairs, and I don't believe that I (or anyone) am entitled to one.

You are trying to limit what people can and can't do with their bitcoins and their right to form a collective. You are the kind of person who is trying to shackle peoples' freedoms in the name of keeping bitcoin "pure" and holding up the bitcoin community as if it were the state.

[kiba]

You are trying to limit what people can and can't do with their bitcoins and their right to form a collective. You are the kind of person who is trying to shackle peoples' freedoms in the name of keeping bitcoin "pure" and holding up the bitcoin community as if it were the state.

He can't actually limit anyone's right to form a collective or a development cabal. He's just whining that nobody in the foundation is doing what he wants.

[Atlas]

You are trying to limit what people can and can't do with their bitcoins and their right to form a collective. You are the kind of person who is trying to shackle peoples' freedoms in the name of keeping bitcoin "pure" and holding up the bitcoin community as if it were the state.

He can't actually limit anyone's right to form a collective or a development cabal. He's just whining that nobody in the foundation is doing what he wants.

And whine we shall until our message is understood and heard.

Say no to hegemony. Say no to a one-sided, corporatist Bitcoin economy.