[ANN] Bitcoin Foundation

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

Ah, the crux of the issue remains. I fear down the road this self imposed spokesperson, policy setting, business vetting, intertwined with corporate interest body will get corrupted and try and direct the for the most part ignorant user base to their advantage while you on the other hand have faith the community will be smart and vigilant enough to keep you in check.

Well then as long as the general electorate is the one of which we must now expect vigilance, I'm all calmed down and happy, especially since this works out so well in today's political systems. /this last part was a bit of sarcasm, not mean spirited of course, just for illustrating purposes

Why we needed this foot in the door for bad stuff to be possible to happen I will never understand.

No no, don't be sarcastic, because I agree with you.

(It only took us 38 pages to see each others points lol, partly my fault)

Of course this is a total real fear, one I have myself. You said it perfectly "self imposed spokesperson, policy setting, business vetting, intertwined with corporate interest body will get corrupted and try and direct the for the most part ignorant user base to their advantage"

This is totally a real threat, and a very scary one indeed. If this is what you were getting at, Im sorry for not seeing it earlier.

So basically, how do we protect the foundation from something like this?
Right now, the board members are fairly well known and can keep each other in check without corruption.
Like you said though, in 2 years all board members can be replaced, and 5 corrupt people can be voted in (We see this in government all the time!)

I think if we work together, we can come up with solutions to this issue and hopefully by doing so, you can see the good things about the foundation and help us work on the bad ones.

Earlier there was a great idea, Im gonna requote it:

The foundation might consider a bylaw along the lines of:

Any recommendation to change Bitcoin client code that alters user privacy or acceptability of transactions must be voted unanimously. Such a recommendation to programmers must be non-compelling such that any programmers who choose not to implement the change need not fear for their job. Such a recommendation once decided upon and issued must be made public.

Or language to this effect as lawyers find suitable to ensure secret changes aren't given to programmers and then compelled to be implemented via fear of job loss.

This  ^^^
I would be glad if the bylaws includes the compromise by the foundation to not change or sponsor the change of  any of bitcoin basic principles, as they were initially envisioned by Satoshi.

Something like this should be put in the bylaws, and I will bring it up in Fridays meeting and every member will vote on it.

You really don't see that as a slippery slope?

Hmm, definitely is a slippery slope but I think we can develop protections for it.

I hope I took some of your fear away and I apologize again if I seemed condescending or arrogant.

-Charlie

[Atlas]

Ah, the crux of the issue remains. I fear down the road this self imposed spokesperson, policy setting, business vetting, intertwined with corporate interest body will get corrupted and try and direct the for the most part ignorant user base to their advantage while you on the other hand have faith the community will be smart and vigilant enough to keep you in check.

Well then as long as the general electorate is the one of which we must now expect vigilance, I'm all calmed down and happy, especially since this works out so well in today's political systems. /this last part was a bit of sarcasm, not mean spirited of course, just for illustrating purposes

Why we needed this foot in the door for bad stuff to be possible to happen I will never understand.

No no, don't be sarcastic, because I agree with you.

(It only took us 38 pages to see each others points lol, partly my fault)

Of course this is a total real fear, one I have myself. You said it perfectly "self imposed spokesperson, policy setting, business vetting, intertwined with corporate interest body will get corrupted and try and direct the for the most part ignorant user base to their advantage"

This is totally a real threat, and a very scary one indeed. If this is what you were getting at, Im sorry for not seeing it earlier.

So basically, how do we protect the foundation from something like this?
Right now, the board members are fairly well known and can keep each other in check without corruption.
Like you said though, in 2 years all board members can be replaced, and 5 corrupt people can be voted in (We see this in government all the time!)

I think if we work together, we can come up with solutions to this issue and hopefully by doing so, you can see the good things about the foundation and help us work on the bad ones.

Holy mother of god, thank you.

[acoindr]

The devs would probably quit BF, I imagine.

What does the protocol design say is possible?  What the majority of users want.  If the majority of users want IP tracking and a 400M coin limit, that is what bitcoin becomes.

I wager the majority of bitcoin users will actively and fervently resist any such changes.  At least I hope so.

(of course, if the majority of users wanted IP tracking or currency supply inflation, per manifesto I would quit bitcoin in a heartbeat, and hope you would too)

That's an interesting point. What if it's the foundation that wants a new coin limit, or other significant change? Don't you think TBF would have uneven leverage to influence such a change?

Think about Microsoft IE, for example. What if IE users were Bitcoiners. How easy would it be for Microsoft to say "hey everyone, this is what we all need to upgrade to, as it will be better. We are the representation of the community, so what we say the community wants is self-fulfilling. Please upgrade at your earliest convenience."

In other words, TBF users vote as a bloc.

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

Holy mother of god, thank you.

LOL no one ever said the foundation goals, bylaws, beliefs, ect are a closed book!

Remember, this is a member driven organization!

My job as a board member is to find the bad and wrong things about the foundation and fix them by putting them up to vote.

I really try and understand your arguments (many of them good) but sometimes the personal attacks and sarcasm make it difficult.

For the future, I will try harder and read over all posts before responding but I also ask from you is to make your points more clearer using accurate and sourced data. If you make an opinion, please make sure your readers know thats its your opinion, and not a fact.

Don't forget, many people here are new and not as well versed as you and I are.

-Charlie

[jgarzik]

Exactly. You're right that gitian is a helpful tool, actually. But it still doesn't account for naive non-tech savvy users - the majority of users.

Yes it does -- see the previous "Aunt Tillie" example.

[hazek]

Ah, the crux of the issue remains. I fear down the road this self imposed spokesperson, policy setting, business vetting, intertwined with corporate interest body will get corrupted and try and direct the for the most part ignorant user base to their advantage while you on the other hand have faith the community will be smart and vigilant enough to keep you in check.

Well then as long as the general electorate is the one of which we must now expect vigilance, I'm all calmed down and happy, especially since this works out so well in today's political systems. /this last part was a bit of sarcasm, not mean spirited of course, just for illustrating purposes

Why we needed this foot in the door for bad stuff to be possible to happen I will never understand.

No no, don't be sarcastic, because I agree with you.

(It only took us 38 pages to see each others points lol, partly my fault)

Of course this is a total real fear, one I have myself. You said it perfectly "self imposed spokesperson, policy setting, business vetting, intertwined with corporate interest body will get corrupted and try and direct the for the most part ignorant user base to their advantage"

This is totally a real threat, and a very scary one indeed. If this is what you were getting at, Im sorry for not seeing it earlier.

So basically, how do we protect the foundation from something like this?
Right now, the board members are fairly well known and can keep each other in check without corruption.
Like you said though, in 2 years all board members can be replaced, and 5 corrupt people can be voted in (We see this in government all the time!)

I think if we work together, we can come up with solutions to this issue and hopefully by doing so, you can see the good things about the foundation and help us work on the bad ones.

Earlier there was a great idea, Im gonna requote it:

The foundation might consider a bylaw along the lines of:

Any recommendation to change Bitcoin client code that alters user privacy or acceptability of transactions must be voted unanimously. Such a recommendation to programmers must be non-compelling such that any programmers who choose not to implement the change need not fear for their job. Such a recommendation once decided upon and issued must be made public.

Or language to this effect as lawyers find suitable to ensure secret changes aren't given to programmers and then compelled to be implemented via fear of job loss.

This  ^^^
I would be glad if the bylaws includes the compromise by the foundation to not change or sponsor the change of  any of bitcoin basic principles, as they were initially envisioned by Satoshi.

Something like this should be put in the bylaws, and I will bring it up in Fridays meeting and every member will vote on it.

You really don't see that as a slippery slope?

Hmm, definitely is a slippery slope but I think we can develop protections for it.

I hope I took some of your fear away and I apologize again if I seemed condescending or arrogant.

-Charlie

I'm glad you finally understood my points and apology accepted, no hard feelings either.

As for:

This is totally a real threat, and a very scary one indeed. If this is what you were getting at, Im sorry for not seeing it earlier.

So basically, how do we protect the foundation from something like this?

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.

[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

[hazek]

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

-Charlie

Actually, it's 6:20 am, I'm practically a zombie right now. Today was a very exhausting day for me, this whole issue really wore me down, to the point my family noticed I was in a really bad mood. But you calmed down just a tiny bit now and I think I'll head to bed.

Damn I care about this great experiment way too much.. 

[jgarzik]

What does the protocol design say is possible?  What the majority of users want.  If the majority of users want IP tracking and a 400M coin limit, that is what bitcoin becomes.

I wager the majority of bitcoin users will actively and fervently resist any such changes.  At least I hope so.

Relying on hope is not such a great plan.. And yeah I would, in a heart beat.

That's the best we have.  All systems are ultimately human systems.  Bitcoin is just another system for humans voting on something.

Bitcoin works without central authority, but only by replacing that with mob rule... with all that entails.

Why do you do think we have code to spread network connections as widely as possible, guard against Sybil attacks and the like?  The entire blockchain (your money) is only as safe as the voting procedure (network peer selection).

I'm, sadly, even considering it right now because of the Bitcoin Foundaton.

Well, that is disappointing...  but we are open to suggestions!

What is a sustainable way to help fund devel, testing, network defense, security patch response, etc.?  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 (as opposed to indirect conflicts of interest through a trade association).

On the other hand, voluntary visible donations through neutral trade organizations are a well worn path.

What are the other realistic, sustainable alternatives are available?

Maybe you haven't been paying attention to the wonderful stats that dooglus and others have been posting, but we need some serious engineering to avoid incentivizing users away from the P2P clients and towards centralized, privacy killing websites:

• One single gambling application has doubled the size of the blockchain in the past 4-6 months
• The reference client, the "full nodes" keeping the network alive, is feeling the strain
• A punishing blockchain download may incentivize users away from P2P clients, towards easy-to-use websites
• Resultant P2P node counts decline, reducing decentralization factor

We are racing to implement ultraprune and other changes to address some of the scaling issues.

But the most important part of Satoshi's design, the part that keeps the network scaling further -- SPV mode -- was only lightly sketched by Satoshi.  SPV mode enables anyone to be a fully decentralized P2P client, even on your mobile phone.

It is a race to fully implement the decentralized design, otherwise users will simply not bother with apps at all and go straight to mtgox.com or instawallet.org or blockchain.info.  And even that is a race, to "seed" bitcoin across the world, making sure it is sufficiently entrenched before the inevitable legal and governmental and central banker push-back.

So frankly I do not think many critics in this thread even comprehend the Clear And Present challenges looming, just to keep bitcoin alive and decentralized.

The critics here are worrying about phantoms, tilting at windmills, while missing the freight train heading straight for you.  Every objective measure shows that Gavin and the rest of the devs are working as hard as we can to keep decentralization in your hands.

The Bitcoin Foundation is the only entity that has stepped up to the plate with some real solutions that can help us complete the Satoshi design and scale beyond the next 12 months.  A truly decentralized solution, the private free market at work.

If you don't like it...  fix the problem!  Start another foundation, and fund the dev team 50% matched with BF.  Or figure out another, more creative solution to solving the problems listed above.

[jgarzik]

In other words, TBF users vote as a bloc.

Centralized, privacy killing, often hacked website users do too.  They hand their votes, in big thick metaphorical bundles, to the website operator.

What do you think is the result of creating obstacles to improvement and distribution of the decentralized client?  People will switch to easy-to-use websites and forget all about that silly decentralized nonsense.

I would rather see focused resources put towards scaling the Satoshi client, keeping the network running under the strain of doubling data volumes and completing the Satoshi vision with SPV mode.

Seeing the scalable Satoshi client (or compatible client!) in the hands of as many people as possible is the only way to ensure bitcoin's survival and thus the only way to ensure bitcoin's monetary freedom remains with us.

[Come-from-Beyond]

• A punishing blockchain download may incentivize users away from P2P clients, towards easy-to-use websites
• Resultant P2P node counts decline, reducing decentralization factor

I predict that "TBF" will launch a "webwallet" for (new) bitcoiners so they won't have problems with blockchain download issue. All transactions between such "wallets" will be instant and this will solve "one hour for 6 confirmations" issue. Later "TBF" will add an option to reverse bitcoin payments (like with a credit card). After a while the "official" client will be modified so it will get new transactions only from a (the?) central authority. This will solve "double-spending in fast payments" issue.

Hell, "TBF" will definitely make the Bitcoin world better!

[matonis]

Maybe you haven't been paying attention to the wonderful stats that dooglus and others have been posting, but we need some serious engineering to avoid incentivizing users away from the P2P clients and towards centralized, privacy killing websites:

• One single gambling application has doubled the size of the blockchain in the past 4-6 months
• The reference client, the "full nodes" keeping the network alive, is feeling the strain
• A punishing blockchain download may incentivize users away from P2P clients, towards easy-to-use websites
• Resultant P2P node counts decline, reducing decentralization factor

We are racing to implement ultraprune and other changes to address some of the scaling issues.

But the most important part of Satoshi's design, the part that keeps the network scaling further -- SPV mode -- was only lightly sketched by Satoshi.  SPV mode enables anyone to be a fully decentralized P2P client, even on your mobile phone.

It is a race to fully implement the decentralized design, otherwise users will simply not bother with apps at all and go straight to mtgox.com or instawallet.org or blockchain.info.  And even that is a race, to "seed" bitcoin across the world, making sure it is sufficiently entrenched before the inevitable legal and governmental and central banker push-back.

So frankly I do not think many critics in this thread even comprehend the Clear And Present challenges looming, just to keep bitcoin alive and decentralized.

+1 good clarification. Thanks for post here, Jeff.

[Atlas]

Why can't the network function with just miners handling the network load and users paying fees to support them?

[Technomage]

+1 to jgarzik from me as well. Excellent post, important viewpoint!

[hazek]

What does the protocol design say is possible?  What the majority of users want.  If the majority of users want IP tracking and a 400M coin limit, that is what bitcoin becomes.

I wager the majority of bitcoin users will actively and fervently resist any such changes.  At least I hope so.

Relying on hope is not such a great plan.. And yeah I would, in a heart beat.

That's the best we have.  All systems are ultimately human systems.  Bitcoin is just another system for humans voting on something.

Bitcoin works without central authority, but only by replacing that with mob rule... with all that entails.

Why do you do think we have code to spread network connections as widely as possible, guard against Sybil attacks and the like?  The entire blockchain (your money) is only as safe as the voting procedure (network peer selection).

I'm, sadly, even considering it right now because of the Bitcoin Foundaton.

Well, that is disappointing...  but we are open to suggestions!

What is a sustainable way to help fund devel, testing, network defense, security patch response, etc.?  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 (as opposed to indirect conflicts of interest through a trade association).

On the other hand, voluntary visible donations through neutral trade organizations are a well worn path.

What are the other realistic, sustainable alternatives are available?

Maybe you haven't been paying attention to the wonderful stats that dooglus and others have been posting, but we need some serious engineering to avoid incentivizing users away from the P2P clients and towards centralized, privacy killing websites:

• One single gambling application has doubled the size of the blockchain in the past 4-6 months
• The reference client, the "full nodes" keeping the network alive, is feeling the strain
• A punishing blockchain download may incentivize users away from P2P clients, towards easy-to-use websites
• Resultant P2P node counts decline, reducing decentralization factor

We are racing to implement ultraprune and other changes to address some of the scaling issues.

But the most important part of Satoshi's design, the part that keeps the network scaling further -- SPV mode -- was only lightly sketched by Satoshi.  SPV mode enables anyone to be a fully decentralized P2P client, even on your mobile phone.

It is a race to fully implement the decentralized design, otherwise users will simply not bother with apps at all and go straight to mtgox.com or instawallet.org or blockchain.info.  And even that is a race, to "seed" bitcoin across the world, making sure it is sufficiently entrenched before the inevitable legal and governmental and central banker push-back.

So frankly I do not think many critics in this thread even comprehend the Clear And Present challenges looming, just to keep bitcoin alive and decentralized.

The critics here are worrying about phantoms, tilting at windmills, while missing the freight train heading straight for you.  Every objective measure shows that Gavin and the rest of the devs are working as hard as we can to keep decentralization in your hands.

The Bitcoin Foundation is the only entity that has stepped up to the plate with some real solutions that can help us complete the Satoshi design and scale beyond the next 12 months.  A truly decentralized solution, the private free market at work.

If you don't like it...  fix the problem!  Start another foundation, and fund the dev team 50% matched with BF.  Or figure out another, more creative solution to solving the problems listed above.

Can you really not stop using trickery in your posts? I'm telling you you can't fool me because I studied this - I know exactly how propaganda works.

What your post here says are 3 things:

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.

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. I already explained that in order for this not be the case, you need to change the name, change to for profit, remove Gavin or any dev from members and have independent contracts with them

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. TBF has been formed with lead dev + dev team, two most powerful Bitcoin businesses, no other foundation can possibly match that and you all know this.



Governments do what you did with your post all the time. "Oh oh poor people who got their houses destroyed by a hurricane. We need to do something!" pretending their solution is the only possible way and just forcing themselves on the people and we all know how well that works out - it doesn't. And as much as people applaud politicians for their great speeches when they tell the masses how they fought to secure the funds to help those poor people it doesn't change the fact that usually the road to hell is paved with good intentions and such forced endeavors end up in a bigger tragedy.

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.

Sorry, but I will not applaud a move like that, ever.

[marcus_of_augustus]

So frankly I do not think many critics in this thread even comprehend the Clear And Present challenges looming, just to keep bitcoin alive and decentralized.

The critics here are worrying about phantoms, tilting at windmills, while missing the freight train heading straight for you.  Every objective measure shows that Gavin and the rest of the devs are working as hard as we can to keep decentralization in your hands.

The Bitcoin Foundation is the only entity that has stepped up to the plate with some real solutions that can help us complete the Satoshi design and scale beyond the next 12 months.  A truly decentralized solution, the private free market at work.

Fine words Garzik (Clear and Present eh?) ... me and many others will be watching. Make no mistake, you and the others of "The Foundation" are gathering power upon yourselves (you have even now with these words offered a "crises" to justify such) .... you have made yourselves the target voluntarily.

You now have enemies within and beyond the gates, step carefully or your digital world may crash and disappear spectacularly all about you.

PS: Paranoia is nice word to throw around but it gets real when someone pops something inside your kernel that says, "Hi Jeff!" next time you launch bitcoin ....

[kasimir]

The critics here are worrying about phantoms, tilting at windmills, while missing the freight train heading straight for you.  Every objective measure shows that Gavin and the rest of the devs are working as hard as we can to keep decentralization in your hands.

The Bitcoin Foundation is the only entity that has stepped up to the plate with some real solutions that can help us complete the Satoshi design and scale beyond the next 12 months.  A truly decentralized solution, the private free market at work.

Great summary of this thread

[bitcats]

why is  #bitcoin-foundation unable to join channel (invite only) 

Do you have to be a member of TBF to get an invite?

[acoindr]

The start of a new day...

First, slightly off-topic, I must say regardless of all current issues, hazek, you've got my respect, bro.

Exactly. You're right that gitian is a helpful tool, actually. But it still doesn't account for naive non-tech savvy users - the majority of users.

Yes it does -- see the previous "Aunt Tillie" example.

You misunderstand me. Here is your "Aunt Tillie" example:

Aunt Tillie might wind up downloading bitcoin-paranoia.exe, but soon all hell would break loose, and forks would appear immediately.  Users would vote against bitcoin-paranoia.exe with their feet.  It is a self-correcting system.

Again, I'm not talking about Bitcoin itself, the protocol, how its design is cleverly built to be self-protecting. That obviously works well. I'm talking about the vulnerability of countless numbers of "Aunt Tillies" trusting by default that they go to a centralized official site to get "Bitcoin". A malicious site can compromise and abuse users different ways. I'm sure you know this. Downloading "bitcoin-paranoia.exe" isn't necesssary. Simply calling a user's un-patched Java/Adobe/IE script is all that's needed to deliver malicious code/spyware, you name it.

Yes, the security measures of Bitcoin and secure software distribution tools like gitian certainly help cut down on options for mischief, but they don't and can't eliminate it. I think you know one of the most effective hacks simply involves social engineering - don't brute force a password, just ask for it.

Without an "official" foundation users are left to their own devices to acquire safe Bitcoin code to use. This doesn't mean they always will, but it does mean an enemy to Bitcoin, like the State, can't target them from a single "official" point.

In other words, TBF users vote as a bloc.

Centralized, privacy killing, often hacked website users do too.  They hand their votes, in big thick metaphorical bundles, to the website operator.

I don't follow you here. If 5 million people use a site like blockchain.info versus 5 million who recognize an "official" bitcoin foundation how is that the same? If blockchain.info makes an announcement to double the 21M coin limit you're saying that will have the same effect as "The Bitcoin Foundation" saying it?

What do you think is the result of creating obstacles to improvement and distribution of the decentralized client?  People will switch to easy-to-use websites and forget all about that silly decentralized nonsense.

First, what do you mean by "creating obstacle to the improvement and distribution of the decentralized client"? Second, a majority of people will use easy-to-use websites regardless. They will look for the path of least resistance for transactions no matter what. The inherent structure of Bitcoin operation is disadvantaged in this way versus the options available to Web and mobile browser based sites.

I would rather see focused resources put towards scaling the Satoshi client, keeping the network running under the strain of doubling data volumes and completing the Satoshi vision with SPV mode.

I would also. However, we likely disagree on ways to accomplish this.

Seeing the scalable Satoshi client (or compatible client!) in the hands of as many people as possible is the only way to ensure bitcoin's survival and thus the only way to ensure bitcoin's monetary freedom remains with us.

Even if that's a true statement it doesn't mean there must be a centrally recognized official foundation to achieve it.

What is a sustainable way to help fund devel, testing, network defense, security patch response, etc.?  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 (as opposed to indirect conflicts of interest through a trade association).

On the other hand, voluntary visible donations through neutral trade organizations are a well worn path.

What are the other realistic, sustainable alternatives are available?

Maybe you haven't been paying attention to the wonderful stats that dooglus and others have been posting, but we need some serious engineering to avoid incentivizing users away from the P2P clients and towards centralized, privacy killing websites:

• One single gambling application has doubled the size of the blockchain in the past 4-6 months
• The reference client, the "full nodes" keeping the network alive, is feeling the strain
• A punishing blockchain download may incentivize users away from P2P clients, towards easy-to-use websites
• Resultant P2P node counts decline, reducing decentralization factor

We are racing to implement ultraprune and other changes to address some of the scaling issues.

But the most important part of Satoshi's design, the part that keeps the network scaling further -- SPV mode -- was only lightly sketched by Satoshi.  SPV mode enables anyone to be a fully decentralized P2P client, even on your mobile phone.

It is a race to fully implement the decentralized design, otherwise users will simply not bother with apps at all and go straight to mtgox.com or instawallet.org or blockchain.info.  And even that is a race, to "seed" bitcoin across the world, making sure it is sufficiently entrenched before the inevitable legal and governmental and central banker push-back.

So frankly I do not think many critics in this thread even comprehend the Clear And Present challenges looming, just to keep bitcoin alive and decentralized.

The critics here are worrying about phantoms, tilting at windmills, while missing the freight train heading straight for you.  Every objective measure shows that Gavin and the rest of the devs are working as hard as we can to keep decentralization in your hands.

The Bitcoin Foundation is the only entity that has stepped up to the plate with some real solutions that can help us complete the Satoshi design and scale beyond the next 12 months.  A truly decentralized solution, the private free market at work.

If you don't like it...  fix the problem!  Start another foundation, and fund the dev team 50% matched with BF.  Or figure out another, more creative solution to solving the problems listed above.

Now, this may be the substantive post you've made as far as I'm concerned. I think you've highlighted real concerns you (and others) can have about impediments to Bitcoin's success. I believe you think you have what is likely the only viable answer which comes in the form of an officially recognized and powerful foundation. I don't think we differ very much here in terms of starting point, but our reactions are quite different.

You chose one course, which happens to include swift tangible action. I actually must applaud that as respectable, even while I may disagree with the course taken overall. The answer I don't think is easy. It comes from the unavoidable weaknesses of something as complex yet potentially powerful (due to decentralization) as Bitcoin. I actually had already planned a more ideological post/thread with my views on this, which is forthcoming.

[bbit]

Glad to hear this. As much as people hate centralization there is a place for it IMHO.