[ANN] Bitcoin Foundation

[hazek]

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

In a heated discussion it's hard to remain rational and emotionless, especially if someone is envisioning future scenarios where you are behaving maliciously when you know you have the best intentions at heart right now. I get that. But I thought I did my best, actually surprisingly restrained for my standards, to remain respectful and not manipulative at all times. I really am just trying to ask question and point out what I perceive as inconsistencies and future dangers.

So yes I agree with you, we should try to remain respectful to each other in order to find a solution. And the acknowledgement from you last night that how some of us critics perceive TBF (self imposed spokesperson, policy setting, business vetting, intertwined with corporate interest body) is actually correct was a huge step in the right direction. I hope you can make many more such steps to ensure this becomes a good solution for a long time to come. But it will require more such honesty and openness which might again rattle up some emotions so don't forget this in those moments.

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

Agreed.

I hope you can make many more such steps to ensure this becomes a good solution for a long time to come. But it will require more such honesty and openness which might again rattle up some emotions so don't forget this in those moments.

I promise at all times to do my best with this.

If you feel I'm getting defensive or being dishonest, please point it out to me ASAP (and even reference this thread if you want)

I know you only have good intentions here, it's hard for people to see it sometimes.

Good Morning Charlie! Always the friendly reply. 

Will you have regularly scheduled meetings and are you going to be posting the minutes to board meetings somewhere for review?

Yes of course!

We will start to have meetings once a week, minutes will be posted to all members.

Every 3 months, the foundation members meet physically as well.

There are already a few ideas coming out of these threads that we will be putting up to a member vote

-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 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

Yeah but that dose of legitimacy is exactly what some of us were calling a power grab and now fear it's a danger in the future. I much rather see a different name that allows for likewise legitimate competition rather than a name that implies sole legitimacy but I do agree that two people can't decide what the best name should be and do hope you have a meeting, ask for suggestions and vote on a change ASAP.

As for the rest, I just want to you to take a free market voluntary approach to every aspect and couldn't understand why you didn't do so from the get go. Currently you made a lot of assertions and thereby raised red flags with some of us who are highly coercion wary. So I do hope this is the second most important topic you will discuss at your meeting then ask for suggestions and change ASAP. You can only benefit if you do so even though it might not seem like that right away because you'd be giving up some of this "power" or legitimacy.


And good morning to you too.

[Herodes]

Well, if there's a meeting in person of all persons on the Bitcoin Foundation, esp. if it's on US soil, it wouldn't be too hard for a government agency to bring all of them in for 'questioning' at once, esp. as bitcoins grows bigger and becomes a threat. Since the members of the foundation is big players in the bitcoin economy, it would hurt the economy a lot if they don't have plans for how their operations should proceed in the event they were incapacitated for a shorter or longer time.

This threat is real. We must remember the crackdown of the Internet gambling industry from the US government. I hope the big players plan accordingly. We must also realize that law enforcement swipes with a wide brush when they first strike.

I would wish nothing but success for bitcoin, but please, everyone involved, please be prepared in the event of anything like this.

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

I would wish nothing but success for bitcoin, but please, everyone involved, please be prepared in the event of anything like this.

Would you believe me if I told you someone is paying monthly for a life insurance policy on me?

They have so much vested in me and in Bitcoin, that if I die, they want to make sure they get paid.

Obviously, if I'm murdered he won't get paid because of the "Anti Gotti" laws

[Herodes]

I would wish nothing but success for bitcoin, but please, everyone involved, please be prepared in the event of anything like this.

Would you believe me if I told you someone is paying monthly for a life insurance policy on me?

They have so much vested in me and in Bitcoin, that if I die, they want to make sure they get paid.

Obviously, if I'm murdered he won't get paid because of the "Anti Gotti" laws

I have no reason not to believe you, all I'm saying is that it's important to be organized and prepared for all possible scenarios.

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

I would wish nothing but success for bitcoin, but please, everyone involved, please be prepared in the event of anything like this.

Would you believe me if I told you someone is paying monthly for a life insurance policy on me?

They have so much vested in me and in Bitcoin, that if I die, they want to make sure they get paid.

Obviously, if I'm murdered he won't get paid because of the "Anti Gotti" laws

I have no reason not to believe you, all I'm saying is that it's important to be organized and prepared for all possible scenarios.

Agreed.

[Come-from-Beyond]

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/

According to https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=113509.0:

Do you support the launch of the Bitcoin Foundation?
Yes - 55.1% (49/89)
No - 25.8% (23/89)
Not decided yet - 19.1% (17/89)

[jgarzik]

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?

Woah.  That is a significant abuse of moderator power.

Has hazek edited any of your other posts?
Has hazek edited any of my posts?
Has hazek edited any of satoshi's old posts?

Editing another's posts is far worse than deletion, when it comes to abuse of moderator powers.  That is misrepresenting someone else's identity.

Edit:  Yes, Gavin should have signed his post with PGP, to more easily spot things like this.

[niko]

There is some constructive criticism to be found here, but there is an overwhelming amount of hysterical ignorance. Bitcoin is a technology. A tool. Like a knife or a voice coil or a laser or a jet engine or a convection oven. It's not supposed to fight Visa, Big Brother, wars, peace, statism, anarchism, capitalism, socialism, individualism, libertarianism, or government subsidies. Unfortunately, it doesn't fight stupidity and ignorance either. Grow fucking up and stop bitching and masturbating over your ideological views and fantasies here in public. Face the fact that not everyone in this world shares your values, your selfishness, your fears, your notion of freedom, and your hopes. Also, face the fact that many of those people different from you are perfectly fine folks.

[titeuf_87]

The foundation site seems to be down now?

Tried locally and on downforeveryoneorjustme.com

[The_Duke]

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.

Actually, the amount of supportive emails, PM's and phonecalls I got all supporting what I said is staggering.

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

I've narrowed it down to a handful of people who have something to gain from associating with the foundation-gang and a bunch of follow lickers which total to about 20.

 

Anyone already wondered how many bitcoins Gavin has acquired by being an early adopter, how much that would amount to by now in USD, how much your average coder makes in a year and how many years Gavin could live off of that money? Anyone already wondered what would be better for the bitcoin economy: Gavins coins actually being spent by him, or Gavin (and crew) collecting MORE coins by forming a foundation asking for your money?

[kjj]

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?

Woah.  That is a significant abuse of moderator power.

Has hazek edited any of your other posts?
Has hazek edited any of my posts?
Has hazek edited any of satoshi's old posts?

Editing another's posts is far worse than deletion, when it comes to abuse of moderator powers.  That is misrepresenting someone else's identity.

If true, this is a major breach of community trust.  It is the lowest of the low to edit the posts of a flame war opponent.

Please don't let this escalate into a fiasco.  From what he said, it sounded like his edits were well-intentioned, and I don't have any reason to suspect any abuse of his responsibilities.  And I'm saying that as someone that recently had a fairly heated and very public disagreement with him.

These forums need moderation, and that means that someone has to have the power to edit posts.  If nothing else, the owner of the server can just diddle the database directly.  There is a level of trust that we have to take on in exchange for the convenience of these forums.

Important things should be signed with GPG before posting.  In retrospect, perhaps this post was one of those.

[The_Duke]

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?

Woah.  That is a significant abuse of moderator power.

Has hazek edited any of your other posts?
Has hazek edited any of my posts?
Has hazek edited any of satoshi's old posts?

Editing another's posts is far worse than deletion, when it comes to abuse of moderator powers.  That is misrepresenting someone else's identity.

Edit:  Yes, Gavin should have signed his post with PGP, to more easily spot things like this.

Maybe you should read someone's replies to accusations before judging people?  
It seems that hazek's intentions were good, whereas Gavin is simply spreading FUD by selectively pulling things out of context.

But it's nice to see that you realise the danger when people have the power to influence things you trust on in daily life. I assume that with this new found knowledge you better understand the criticism on the foundation-gang.
But hey, maybe the foundation can set up their own forums, where they can moderate-away any opinions they don't like and ensure that *their* vision on bitcoin (which is the most important one in their eyes) gets spread undisturbed...

[The_Duke]

Every 3 months, the foundation members meet physically as well.

Will the foundation members pay for those trips themselves, or will donations and membership-money be used to pay for holidaytrips of foundation members?

[jgarzik]

Has hazek edited any of your other posts?
Has hazek edited any of my posts?
Has hazek edited any of satoshi's old posts?

Maybe you should read someone's replies to accusations before judging people?  

None of the replies answered any of the above, specific questions.

It seems that hazek's intentions were good, whereas Gavin is simply spreading FUD by selectively pulling things out of context.

Yes there was an explanation, possibly innocent.  It was good that he responded -- thanks!  I agree the intentions may have been innocent, but it does not look good as a critic, to edit the post of those on whom you are critical. I remain curious about the following unanswered questions:

Has hazek edited any other non-hazek post in this thread?  If yes, what were the edits?
Has hazek ever edited any older posts of the following people: Gavin, me, satoshi?
Is there an audit trail of moderator post edits?

[phatsphere]

Has hazek edited any other non-hazek post in this thread?  If yes, what were the edits?
Has hazek ever edited any older posts of the following people: Gavin, me, satoshi?
Is there an audit trail of moderator post edits?

that's quite serious. i suggest to open a thread in the meta forum

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=24.0

[jgarzik]

Has hazek edited any other non-hazek post in this thread?  If yes, what were the edits?
Has hazek ever edited any older posts of the following people: Gavin, me, satoshi?
Is there an audit trail of moderator post edits?

that's quite serious. i suggest to open a thread in the meta forum

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=24.0

Already opened a thread in the Staff forum (which might not be visible to non-moderators).

[acoindr]

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.

Okay, this seems like a blatant political attempt to vilify hazek who has had a dissenting voice on TBF.

Under the circumstances wouldn't this be more suited to a PM? What are the charges, again? That he changed the links from .org to .com?

Let's look at this from the perspective of hazek intentionally being malicious... Seems like a pretty weak action to me. On the other hand, an honest attempt to fix what is thought to be a broken link sounds more likely, at least to me. I don't know the details surrounding this, but I've seen repeated messages about TBF site being unavailable, and one post asking about some private party owning the .com version which suggests to me such a version exists. Sounds like an honest mistake.

Second charge? That he PM'd you to clarify proper handling of placement for this thread? Again, that sounds like a pretty weak charge. I myself had the exact same question upon visiting and seeing about 7 foundation related threads moved to Service Discussion while this thread remained on the main forum. I wondered about consistency, but felt given the significance of this the inconsistency might be justified; just my own view.

Last charge? That he's "spouting off" about Gavin this or that? Please. Your behavior is really starting to worry me. Maybe you're just stressed with all that's going on. I hope that's the case rather than intentional negative political/PR tactics, because that would suggest the need to behave in a disingenuous manner over something which is supposed to be a good idea on its own merits.

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.

Apples to oranges comparison.

Let me spell it out since you and Jeff Garzik apparently haven't any inkling about how crowdfunding Bitcoin Kickstarter style might work.

Do you know how I'd go about it? The first step would be identifying the need/problem. What exactly is it? Reading through these posts I'd say there is strain in different forms on the leading developers of Bitcoin software, including compensation. Okay. So that's a problem. What's the scope? Well, given technical threats and just the inherent needs of such a complex and large-scale project I'd say enormous, i.e., it could threaten/halt Bitcoin progress completely. Okay, so we've identified that we need to get adequate development compensation or it may halt Bitcoin progress completely.

Don't you think that sounds just a bit more urgent than a "Bitcoin Testing Project" that received 72 BTC, or a subtle donation plate style wallet address in a dev signature? You make a thread in the main forum along the lines of "Listen up everyone, Bitcoin may come to a grinding halt if we don't find a solution to X". In this case X is raising adequate developer compensation.

As a libertarian I've followed the campaign of Ron Paul, who raised millions of dollars, not from any wealthy special interests, but pretty much entirely from grassroots supporters. In fact he set a campaign fundraising single day record of about $6 million through use of a grassroots invention called the "money bomb". Why do I bring this up? Because Dr. Paul didn't have wealthy donors. His average contribution was about $25. It's just that so many people believed in the cause so much that raising these lofty figures suddenly became possible, so much so it started garnering media attention for someone way outside the mainstream.

So you set a goal. You say we need 1 million dollars raised in the next month or the current leading developers will have to retire temporarily. But if we raise it we can pay X number of developers for X amount of time which should get Bitcoin to point X, at which time we can reassess things.

Dr. Paul didn't do much with his impressive grassroots funding in his '07/08 run, but in his latest 2012 run he raised far more; his momentum had garnered far more supporters...

Make sense? Fundraising via a foundation is crowdfunding too, is it not?

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.

I can see why you of all people would be glad to see something in the way of this foundation. I knew you were in a quasi-leadership type role for Bitcoin, but I had no appreciation for just how much you were doing before now. Let me take a quick moment to say thank you, and to the other developers as well. My impression was that people put into Bitcoin whatever they could, in the form they wished, when they wished to do so. I imagined voluntary contributions were sure to be uneven in places, but that nobody should be putting in anything that would result in any strain. Why should they? But it appears you were, at least.

So I can certainly sympathize with you in pushing for this foundation. Unfortunately, that doesn't automatically make it a good idea in my book. As I posted earlier I plan on posting another thread with my own version of solutions to perceived Bitcoin problems.

[BitcoinINV]

I would like to what they are spending every coin on before I invest any  problems with that? Just sounds fair public funds = public views.