[ANN] Bitcoin Foundation

[Rothgar]

Don't care about supporting an organization whose name is a lie in itself and will likely mislead people - with the high probability of this being intentional.

Damn that national science foundation, and their monopoly on science.

Yes! Did you notice how centralized the science has become? NSF this, NSF that.

Well the bitcoin foundation shouldn't be taking tax money.

[Come-from-Beyond]

Well the bitcoin foundation shouldn't be taking tax money.

I suspect it was founded just to earn money for its leaders. If we won't get a positive answer regarding https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=114911.msg1240116#msg1240116, then it'll be obvious that MtGox has privileges in TBF noone else does.

[EhVedadoOAnonimato]

For the record: I think it would be great to come up with an easier way for people to remain anonymous but still be Foundation members.

It is easy. Make your voting rights proportional to the amount you donate, like shareholders, with the obvious difference that such "shares" expire, and there's no fixed amount of them nor a market where they can be bought or sold.
I've said it a few times already. I guess I'm on your ignore list:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=113400.msg1241674#msg1241674
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=113400.msg1241522#msg1241522

[EhVedadoOAnonimato]

Don't care about supporting an organization whose name is a lie in itself and will likely mislead people - with the high probability of this being intentional.

Damn that national science foundation, and their monopoly on science.

Yes! Did you notice how centralized the science has become? NSF this, NSF that.

Do you want to bet that people will be misled by this organization name?

[cunicula]

RE: one vote per bitcoin: there seems to be some notion that Foundation member will be voting on things like "should a change to the core protocol be rolled out to support XYZ."

Umm, no. Foundation members will be voting for (and lobbying) board members who will decide things like "should the bylaws be changed to allow anonymous memberships" or "how much Foundation budget should be dedicated to X and how much to Y." The number of bitcoins you own has nothing to do with those kinds of organizational decisions.

Hat A) The foundation is ineffectual window dressing. We pretend to advocate for special interests, but really we just make some irrelevant organizational decisions and they help pay for development.
Hat B) The foundation is useful and effective, it will advocate for your business' interest, please donate.
Hat C) The foundation is useful and effective and will represent the interests of the median bitcoiner. We do not take donations from special interests.

Are you going to settle on one hat to wear, or do you plan to keep swapping them depending on who you are communicating with?

I'm not actually against the foundation, but I feel like your response above is disingenuous.

[sharky112065]

Paying salary to developer/s seems counter productive to the whole open source methodology. Once you have a boss so to speak, you will not be making the same coding decisions you did in the past. Like it or not your future decisions can or will probably be influenced by the board. IMO the people writing code should not be members of the board. There is nothing stopping people and or the foundation from donating to developers via their Bitcoin addresses.

I like that it could be used to promote Bitcoin.

I'm not opposed to the foundation, just to having any of its members writing code for Bitcoin (not that my opinion really matters, I'm just one person in a great big sea of other people).

[Sitarow]

Paying salary to developer/s seems counter productive to the whole open source methodology. Once you have a boss so to speak, you will not be making the same coding decisions you did in the past. Like it or not your future decisions can or will probably be influenced by the board. IMO the people writing code should not be members of the board. There is nothing stopping people and or the foundation from donating to developers via their Bitcoin addresses.

I like that it could be used to promote Bitcoin.

I'm not opposed to the foundation, just to having any of its members writing code for Bitcoin (not that my opinion really matters, I'm just one person in a great big sea of other people).

The foundation should never be the face of Bitcoin. However the public and media outlets natural inclination is to place an identity to something that they do not understand. They will turn towards any organized representation that is Bitcoin and assume it is the "authority", the De Facto group behind all that is bitcoin cryptocurrency.

Less not forget that the face of bitcoin is us. All global participants. That's it.


IMO All that The Foundation should be is a group of like minded outspoken Bitcoin "network" members that speak up to guard against any future assaults from special interest groups.

A member could be Amazon, Best Buy, Even US Treasury.

But as far as you and I go, they are just 1 part of the global p2p network phenomenon that is Bitcoin.

[SuperHakka]

hihi, sorry I don't have the will to read entire thread so sorry if this has been mentioned already. Can we expect one of the responsibilties of the Bitcoin Foundation would be to defend individuals and companies who will be unfairly discriminated against purely on the fact they used bitcoin for (legal) trading. In the future, there is going to be incidences of misunderstandings like if you or I have been buying bitcoin with registered exchange and the powers that be investigate us for suspicious activity, you get me meaning. So, will the Foundation defend our rights and argue our case for us?

[matonis]

hihi, sorry I don't have the will to read entire thread so sorry if this has been mentioned already. Can we expect one of the responsibilties of the Bitcoin Foundation would be to defend individuals and companies who will be unfairly discriminated against purely on the fact they used bitcoin for (legal) trading. In the future, there is going to be incidences of misunderstandings like if you or I have been buying bitcoin with registered exchange and the powers that be investigate us for suspicious activity, you get me meaning. So, will the Foundation defend our rights and argue our case for us?

I'm not sure if it has been mentioned yet, but I don't see the Foundation representing members or other individuals in their personal legal matters around the world. Bitcoin Foundation is not a legal defense and advocacy organization like the EFF and ACLU.

I will, however, promote for the publication of key white papers on the topic that address the impotency of bitcoin-directed legislation and the immorality of not respecting financial privacy (in multiple languages, fyi).

[SuperHakka]

I'm not sure if it has been mentioned yet, but I don't see the Foundation representing members or other individuals in their personal legal matters around the world. Bitcoin Foundation is not a legal defense and advocacy organization like the EFF and ACLU.

I will, however, promote for the publication of key white papers on the topic that address the impotency of bitcoin-directed legislation and the immorality of not respecting financial privacy (in multiple languages, fyi).

Thanks, I think that will help somewhat, can at least print copies to give to the authorities. Also good idea on the multiple languages thing, maybe part of donations can get translations of the bitcoin message out, I think some talk on another thread about Persian or something.

[jgarzik]

Paying salary to developer/s seems counter productive to the whole open source methodology.

If you read the thread, you will see many examples where it is clearly beneficial to open source:  Linux Foundation, Apache Software Foundation, Tor Project, ...

I'd wager much of the open source software you use every day, even if unknowningly via remote, is covered by one or more open source foundations.

[franky1]

about the use of real life identities for voting?

why?

i personally have nothing to hide, but i see no benefit in making anyones real life identities a public matter. or a data protection matter where our real life info can be at risk of being hacked
to reduce chances of double voting. each member should just given membership only after they have provided a non newbie forum username and a google identity.

with the hassle of making forum names, getting them established with X amount of posts(minimum 100). paying for membership. i dont think double voting would be a big thing to happen.

if it was free membership with no validation of identity (google + forum identity) then double voting would be easy to achieve.

but the whole storage of real life info, seems risky

[Insu Dra]

with the hassle of making forum names, getting them established with X amount of posts(minimum 100). paying for membership. i dont think double voting would be a big thing to happen.

all the task you mentioned can be automated, it would probably take me a hour to write a app that does exactly that and I'm considered a slow hobby coder ...

... Ok, maybe a bit more then a hour depending on how sensible I want the automated posts to be.

[franky1]

well as ur paying a fee then someone in the foundation should vet the 100 posts minimum requirement for relevance and scope of the conversations to validate if real person or bot creation.

after all giving out real life identification requires vetting too, although people can simply use a phone book or give the name of their neighbour, many other real life ways of faking info..

i am just saying having no verification makes it easy to double vote. but why personal info. i dont appear on the phone book in my country, (saves getting annoying sales calls) so how would they validate my real life info..

unless they have government database access(for accurate validation) i cant see benefits in requiring real life info as opposed to well established online identity.

[sLide.]

This seems like a bad idea and I most likely will not join in.

[bg002h]

This seems like a bad idea and I most likely will not join in.

I'm in.  Bitcoin needs a voice and a way of funneling resources to the tasks that require them. 

[boonies4u]

This seems like a bad idea and I most likely will not join in.

I'm in.  Bitcoin needs a voice and a way of funneling resources to the tasks that require them. 

Without us having to worry about them being charged or accused with money laundering or supporting terrorist operations. *cough* GLBSE *cough*

[kjlimo]

I haven't read all 56 pages of posts here, but the website doesn't mention any projects in the works.

Looks like they have 50 BTC in donations so far:

http://blockexplorer.com/address/1BTCorgHwCg6u2YSAWKgS17qUad6kHmtQW

[niko]

I haven't read all 56 pages of posts here, but the website doesn't mention any projects in the works.

Looks like they have 50 BTC in donations so far:

http://blockexplorer.com/address/1BTCorgHwCg6u2YSAWKgS17qUad6kHmtQW

They've got my annual membership, too. I am eager to see what first steps they will take. 

[kjlimo]

I haven't read all 56 pages of posts here, but the website doesn't mention any projects in the works.

Looks like they have 50 BTC in donations so far:

http://blockexplorer.com/address/1BTCorgHwCg6u2YSAWKgS17qUad6kHmtQW

They've got my annual membership, too. I am eager to see what first steps they will take. 

did you e-mail Lindsay to offer your volunteer services?

I e-mailed her.