[ANN] cbitcoin 2.0 - A Bitcoin Library in C

[MatthewLM]

deleted

[crazy_rabbit]

Very cool, will definitely check it out. It would be interesting to have the software allow for multiple chains- a plurality of Bitcoins. A world filled with various chains is quite an exciting idea.

None the less, I will be check this out for sure!

+1

[MatthewLM]

At the moment I'm looking to provide support for the testnet chain. The software could be modified to support other chains and maybe the library in the future can be made to be more configurable for custom block chains.

[ArticMine]

With respect to the licensing it appears to me that if one wants to use the GPL v3 but with additional permissions then under section 7 of GPLv3 one can add additional permissions for a work. For legal advice, for a FLOSS project, the place I would suggest is the Software Freedom Law Center. http://www.softwarefreedom.org They have years of expertise on FLOSS licensing.

[MatthewLM]

With respect to the licensing it appears to me that if one wants to use the GPL v3 but with additional permissions then under section 7 of GPLv3 one can add additional permissions for a work. For legal advice, for a FLOSS project, the place I would suggest is the Software Freedom Law Center. http://www.softwarefreedom.org They have years of expertise on FLOSS licensing.

Thanks, I'll check this out.

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

With respect to the licensing it appears to me that if one wants to use the GPL v3 but with additional permissions then under section 7 of GPLv3 one can add additional permissions for a work. For legal advice, for a FLOSS project, the place I would suggest is the Software Freedom Law Center. http://www.softwarefreedom.org They have years of expertise on FLOSS licensing.

If he is the only author & owner of the code, then he can license the code under as many licenses as he can, including GPLv3/v2, BSD, MIT and closed commercial licenses.

The problem only comes when/if more people join the project.

[WikileaksDude]

This is indeed very important to bitcoin.

Just waiting for my money to hit mtgox and use this friday promoting to get some coins.. I sure will be donating some!

Keep it strong, im sure the community will help.

[MatthewLM]

This is indeed very important to bitcoin.

Just waiting for my money to hit mtgox and use this friday promoting to get some coins.. I sure will be donating some!

That will be very much appreciated. 

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

This is indeed very important to bitcoin.

Just waiting for my money to hit mtgox and use this friday promoting to get some coins.. I sure will be donating some!

That will be very much appreciated. 

I will also donate, just waiting for my client to sync with the net.

You know, as it was said above - this project holds tremendous importance when it comes to Bitcoin future, so it probably wouldn't hurt to try kickstarter or something to pay for your time.

[MatthewLM]

I will also donate, just waiting for my client to sync with the net.

You know, as it was said above - this project holds tremendous importance when it comes to Bitcoin future, so it probably wouldn't hurt to try kickstarter or something to pay for your time.

Thanks for the donation.

Would people actually want to donate using fiat moneys? I could set something up if that is the case. And, as I've mentioned, I do not need donations to pay for my time. In fact, I'll not be taking money out, but be putting money in. I cannot promise this will remain the case but I have planned to put £4,000 into the project.

First I want to see how much voluntary contributions I can gather. It will be great if I am able to collaborate with the university with this. Hopefully I'll have more information on that next week.

It's vital that I have other people work on the project, not only to speed things along but so others can check what I've done. I might make mistakes and misunderstand some things that others can pick up on and vice versa.

[jgarzik]

If this was just another client, great!  We like alt implementations.  The more clients, the healthier the ecosystem.

But marketing this as "the route to bitcoin's future" is a bit much.

There are already several other node implementations out there, including C implementations: ufasoft-coin, bitsofproof, and pynode.  Not to mention SPV clients like BitcoinJ, Electrum and picocoin.

The licenses are more liberal than GPLv3 as well.

[MatthewLM]

This is not a client, it is a library. And I'm replacing the GPLv3 with either a dual license or the GPLv3 with exceptions whichever turns out to best. I want to remove some of the nasty bits of GPLv3 as I admit that there are nasty bits.

[jgarzik]

This is not a client, it is a library. And I'm replacing the GPLv3 with either a dual license or the GPLv3 with exceptions whichever turns out to best. I want to remove some of the nasty bits of GPLv3 as I admit that there are nasty bits.

If you look at the links provided, you will see libraries used by said clients.

[MatthewLM]

Well, we will just have to see what becomes the future of bitcoin wont we?

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

This is not a client, it is a library. And I'm replacing the GPLv3 with either a dual license or the GPLv3 with exceptions whichever turns out to best. I want to remove some of the nasty bits of GPLv3 as I admit that there are nasty bits.

As the only author, you can license under as many licenses as you want, simultaneously.

KDE does/did something like that. They licensed under both GPL and commercial license (for money) in case some buyer didn't like the restrictions of GPL.
You can do that, but it will require every other contributor than yourself (if there are/will be any) to completely pass their copyrights to you and give you sole property of their code. Since IANAL and this may be little legally complicated - you would need to do some research on topic how the KDE guys did it exactly.

Mozilla also licenses Firefox under GPL,MPL and LGPL.

----
And BTW, the "nasty bits" of GPLv3 are there for a reason - because big companies usually like to play nasty and generally fuck over everybody (including OSS devs) for profit.

[Joshwaa]

I like where this is going. Watching this one.

[MatthewLM]

By "nasty" I did not mean confusing or awkward but because I do not think there is a good reason for them.

And I will require all copyrights be passed to me, though the licenses will be irrevocable, so that if you receive a copy the license applies to that copy even if I decide to change the license. So it's not a problem. If I decide to change the license to something stupid then people can just fork the project, but never-mind as I will continue to maintain the project as open-source.

Software licenses do confuse me and maybe I do not know what I am talking about here...  

[jimbobway]

I think you are doing great work for Bitcoin.

I do have a question though.  Amir of bitcoinconsultancy also created a library called libbitcoin and also claimed that it would be the future of bitcoin.  I don't think he did as good as job as you though since his library is very dependant on many other libraries while yours is not.  It looks, though, as if Amir has left bitcoin since we have not heard from him for a while.

What kind of assurances can you give us, if any, that cbitcoin will be the future of bitcoin?

[MatthewLM]

I was intrigued by libbitcoin. If I was going to work on another library and not create my own, it would most likely have been that. Unfortunately I don't think libbitcoin is going to go anywhere from here unless someone else picks it up.

Will the same thing happen to cbitcoin, as it does with many other libraries? No it will not. The reason is because I'm not developing the library as an end in itself. I will be using this library for the business idea I have. It's hugely unlikely that I'll suddenly decide to forget all my plans and not go ahead with it. I see great potential in the idea I have, so I will continue to put many resources into cbitcoin. And also, I don't want to see all my work I've done so far go to waste either.

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

It's hugely unlikely that I'll suddenly decide to forget all my plans and not go ahead with it.

"The route to Bitcoin's future" sounds very bold. It is a bold promise. With title like that people will expect (quite reasonably ?) the best of the best, which automatically generates a pressure on you.

Many people can't take such pressure and quit after some time. I hope you are not one of these people and you can live up to your promises.

EDIT:
I think that one of the reasons Linux kernel succeeded was because nobody expected it to grow so big, so there was no pressure on the devs to "deliver", so they could work undisturbed and do what they like.