No, the Linux Kernel is not like Bitcoin nor its network. Sorry.

[mobile4ever]

Because the false institutions of money, government and religion are the dominant social institutions that affect his life, and he is not afforded the necessities of life, but must compete for them in an increasingly corrupt and deadly game of arbitrary rules called capitalism.

You reminded me of this:

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.    ~ Winston Churchill

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[The_Duke]

To give these thoughts a concrete example: I see a need for a C++ based Bitcoin client that gives people an alternative to the Satoshi software. However, if the Satoshi software continues to be religiously embraced by most users as the "official" software, this would give Gavin and Co. plenty of power to do as they please.

Exactly, hence my topic in the "Alternative Clients" section. It would be nice to have a client that is developed by real independent people that are not part of the foundation-gang.

[greyhawk]

To give these thoughts a concrete example: I see a need for a C++ based Bitcoin client that gives people an alternative to the Satoshi software. However, if the Satoshi software continues to be religiously embraced by most users as the "official" software, this would give Gavin and Co. plenty of power to do as they please.

Exactly, hence my topic in the "Alternative Clients" section. It would be nice to have a client that is developed by real independent people that are not part of the foundation-gang.

Come from behind is doing something like that last I checked. At least it explains his Anti-Bitcoin-FUD.

[The_Duke]

Exactly, hence my topic in the "Alternative Clients" section. It would be nice to have a client that is developed by real independent people that are not part of the foundation-gang.

Come from behind is doing something like that last I checked. At least it explains his Anti-Bitcoin-FUD.
[/quote]

Seems to me that most FUD is coming directly from the foundation-gang at the moment.

[johnyj]

I can feel after that. The thing I am trying to make you understand the whole time is that Gavin already had this level of control. He has control over the Git tree which he is aiming to share with this foundation thing. So in a way things are for the better.
In order to solve this issue we would need a completely decentralized approach to collaborative software development which currently does not exist.

Great, that is the question: Are all human involved systems destinied to be centralized?

People have to agree on some thing in common to communicate, which is a common protocol, and if that protocol is fixed, the decentralization can happen, but anyway some degree of centralization (common protocol) is required to build the system

[Atlas]

I can feel after that. The thing I am trying to make you understand the whole time is that Gavin already had this level of control. He has control over the Git tree which he is aiming to share with this foundation thing. So in a way things are for the better.
In order to solve this issue we would need a completely decentralized approach to collaborative software development which currently does not exist.

Great, that is the question: Are all human involved systems destinied to be centralized?

People have to agree on some thing in common to communicate, which is a common protocol, and if that protocol is fixed, the decentralization can happen, but anyway some degree of centralization (common protocol) is required to build the system

The centralization becomes a problem if it gets a degree of power to where it can change and upgrade the protocol on a whim.

[adamstgBit]

I can feel after that. The thing I am trying to make you understand the whole time is that Gavin already had this level of control. He has control over the Git tree which he is aiming to share with this foundation thing. So in a way things are for the better.
In order to solve this issue we would need a completely decentralized approach to collaborative software development which currently does not exist.

Great, that is the question: Are all human involved systems destinied to be centralized?

People have to agree on some thing in common to communicate, which is a common protocol, and if that protocol is fixed, the decentralization can happen, but anyway some degree of centralization (common protocol) is required to build the system

The centralization becomes a problem if it gets a degree of power to where it can change and upgrade the protocol on a whim.

you just don't get it,

anyone can and always was able to, change and upgrade the protocol on a whim.
But,
Everyone must agree to the change.

so what changed?

not much... the core team is given funding to continue to improve and promote bitcoin, and they now have a board of directors to report too.

so they are doing Exactly what they did before, only now they are more transparent, and have financial back up.

your argument is simply not valid...

[Atlas]

I can feel after that. The thing I am trying to make you understand the whole time is that Gavin already had this level of control. He has control over the Git tree which he is aiming to share with this foundation thing. So in a way things are for the better.
In order to solve this issue we would need a completely decentralized approach to collaborative software development which currently does not exist.

Great, that is the question: Are all human involved systems destinied to be centralized?

People have to agree on some thing in common to communicate, which is a common protocol, and if that protocol is fixed, the decentralization can happen, but anyway some degree of centralization (common protocol) is required to build the system

The centralization becomes a problem if it gets a degree of power to where it can change and upgrade the protocol on a whim.

you just don't get it,

anyone can and always was able to, change and upgrade the protocol on a whim.
But,
Everyone must agree to the change.

so what changed?

not much... the core team is given funding to continue to improve and promote bitcoin, and they now have a board of directors to report too.

so they are doing Exactly what they did before, only now they are more transparent, and have financial back up.

your argument is simply not valid...

I think this adds too much legitimacy to the bitcoin.org client.

[adamstgBit]

I can feel after that. The thing I am trying to make you understand the whole time is that Gavin already had this level of control. He has control over the Git tree which he is aiming to share with this foundation thing. So in a way things are for the better.
In order to solve this issue we would need a completely decentralized approach to collaborative software development which currently does not exist.

Great, that is the question: Are all human involved systems destinied to be centralized?

People have to agree on some thing in common to communicate, which is a common protocol, and if that protocol is fixed, the decentralization can happen, but anyway some degree of centralization (common protocol) is required to build the system

The centralization becomes a problem if it gets a degree of power to where it can change and upgrade the protocol on a whim.

you just don't get it,

anyone can and always was able to, change and upgrade the protocol on a whim.
But,
Everyone must agree to the change.

so what changed?

not much... the core team is given funding to continue to improve and promote bitcoin, and they now have a board of directors to report too.

so they are doing Exactly what they did before, only now they are more transparent, and have financial back up.

your argument is simply not valid...

I think this adds too much legitimacy to the bitcoin.org client.

[sarcastically] - your right its so unfair, we should we have the bitcoin government step in and put a stop to the foundation. 

[johnyj]

"And as an update, several recent client versions have "broken compatibility" by changing the protocol--in particular, the handling of fees given the increased value of bitcoins. The changes were eagerly adopted by the community in general, and the changeover happened exactly as I described, though by successive versions rather than a block number in particular. Because the client with the dormant protocol was accepted near-universally, the change was rolled out live in the next version shortly after. And everything worked like clockwork--you can now send transactions with much smaller fees. – eMansipater Jul 12 '11 at 21:41"

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5605571/is-bitcoin-protocol-future-proof

[Atlas]

I can feel after that. The thing I am trying to make you understand the whole time is that Gavin already had this level of control. He has control over the Git tree which he is aiming to share with this foundation thing. So in a way things are for the better.
In order to solve this issue we would need a completely decentralized approach to collaborative software development which currently does not exist.

Great, that is the question: Are all human involved systems destinied to be centralized?

People have to agree on some thing in common to communicate, which is a common protocol, and if that protocol is fixed, the decentralization can happen, but anyway some degree of centralization (common protocol) is required to build the system

The centralization becomes a problem if it gets a degree of power to where it can change and upgrade the protocol on a whim.

you just don't get it,

anyone can and always was able to, change and upgrade the protocol on a whim.
But,
Everyone must agree to the change.

so what changed?

not much... the core team is given funding to continue to improve and promote bitcoin, and they now have a board of directors to report too.

so they are doing Exactly what they did before, only now they are more transparent, and have financial back up.

your argument is simply not valid...

I think this adds too much legitimacy to the bitcoin.org client.

[sarcastically] - your right its so unfair, we should we have the bitcoin government step in and put a stop to the foundation.  

My vision: Ruthless competition between client providers and protocol developers. And it will get to that point as Coinbase starts using its funding.

I hate the idea of a stagnant, single vision for Bitcoin that can be easily usurped and corrupted. That's all I am fighting here. It may already exist, sure. Let's destroy it nonetheless.

[ElectricMucus]

My vision: Ruthless competition between client providers and protocol developers.

I like that.
But again we need a new way of collaboration enable it. I'm thinking about a p2p version control software, you get me?

[jgarzik]

not much... the core team is given funding to continue to improve and promote bitcoin, and they now have a board of directors to report too.

While agreeing with a lot of your points, this must be emphasized:

The core team does not "report to" anybody.

It is entirely possible that the Bitcoin Foundation and core dev team will disagree on some issues, as they are separate entities, of separate minds.

The Bitcoin Foundation is not going tell the dev team what to do.

[jgarzik]

"And as an update, several recent client versions have "broken compatibility" by changing the protocol--in particular, the handling of fees given the increased value of bitcoins. The changes were eagerly adopted by the community in general, and the changeover happened exactly as I described, though by successive versions rather than a block number in particular. Because the client with the dormant protocol was accepted near-universally, the change was rolled out live in the next version shortly after. And everything worked like clockwork--you can now send transactions with much smaller fees. – eMansipater Jul 12 '11 at 21:41"

That "broken compatibility" statement is factually incorrect.  Old clients may continue to communicate with the network just fine, and old bitcoins may continue to be spent.

The fee changes referenced were not protocol changes.

[n8rwJeTt8TrrLKPa55eU]

It is entirely possible that the Bitcoin Foundation and core dev team will disagree on some issues, as they are separate entities, of separate minds.

The Bitcoin Foundation is not going tell the dev team what to do.

Jeff: true today for sure.  But what if someday in the future, some folks in the dev team become dependent on foundation salaries or stipends to put food on the table?  How resistant would they be to pressure?

Wouldn't it be better to put in place a donation/funding mechanism for the dev group that was more distributed, crowdsourced, anonymous, and not directly tied to any organization?

[jgarzik]

It is entirely possible that the Bitcoin Foundation and core dev team will disagree on some issues, as they are separate entities, of separate minds.

The Bitcoin Foundation is not going tell the dev team what to do.

Jeff: true today for sure.  But what if someday in the future, some folks in the dev team become dependent on foundation salaries or stipends to put food on the table?  How resistant would they be to pressure?

Wouldn't it be better to put in place a donation/funding mechanism for the dev group that was more distributed, crowdsourced, anonymous, and not directly tied to any organization?

That is the rub:  when you find a better mechanism, yes, it will get used.

At present, distributed, crowd-sourced, anonymous donations not tied to any organization do not tend to yield anywhere near the amount necessary to pay a full time developer on a consistent basis, much less a team.

[johnyj]

I think most of the miners can contribute part of their work to pay the developers, this is very easy

There are 7200 BTC to be mined everyday, how much those core devs want per day? Say 3 core devs, each get a payment of 100 BTC/day, that's 300 BTC, about 4% of total BTCs per day

And even better, we can pay them at once with each new realase of BTC client, they can even sell the new BTC client if it has great new features

[johnyj]

"And as an update, several recent client versions have "broken compatibility" by changing the protocol--in particular, the handling of fees given the increased value of bitcoins. The changes were eagerly adopted by the community in general, and the changeover happened exactly as I described, though by successive versions rather than a block number in particular. Because the client with the dormant protocol was accepted near-universally, the change was rolled out live in the next version shortly after. And everything worked like clockwork--you can now send transactions with much smaller fees. – eMansipater Jul 12 '11 at 21:41"

That "broken compatibility" statement is factually incorrect.  Old clients may continue to communicate with the network just fine, and old bitcoins may continue to be spent.

The fee changes referenced were not protocol changes.

Thanks for point that out, and I'm still use old clients, but even a change in fee is somewhat a sensitive topic, maybe not now