Is it good or bad that Core development is virtually controlled by one company?

[owm123]

I was recently reading this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/43pq1z/i_didnt_realize_how_bad_it_is_blockstream_has_9/?ref=search_posts

And it seems scary that Bitcoin Core development is driven by a single company. With news that this company got $55 mil founding more, I worry they will be doing more to please and make profits for themselfs and investors, rather than what's good for Bitcoin's community.

When did Bitcoin go from being free and community driven development with volunteers fighting against current financial systems and companies, into de-facto companies driven project with primary goal of fast financial gains?

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[shorena]

So Tor's development is driven by the US government? Just trying to understand your logic behind this.

[bargainbin]

So Tor's development is driven by the US government? Just trying to understand your logic behind this.

TOR development is funded by the US government, but not necessarily driven by it. Unlike corporations, governments (at least in theory) are not created/structured to generate profit.

Corporations, of course, are responsible to their shareholders, typically to generate financial gains.
Imagine such a for-profit corporation, a hot dog bun manufacturer, being placed in charge of your lunch menu.
Question: All other things being equal, do you think you'll eat hot dogs or hamburgers more often?

[CreativeCarol]

I would believe believe most developments would be run by only one company. Or maybe two or three at most.

[Lauda]

This is nonsense. This has nothing to do with control. Only 1 developer from Blockstream has commit access and that is what matters. Stop reading biased sub-reddits such as "r/btc" as your source of news (i.e. take the news with a grain of salt).

So Tor's development is driven by the US government?

Apparently.

[franky1]

dont diss bitcoin core. or they will call you a corporate shill.. oh wait................................

ok, lets try something else.. 2nd time lucky

dont be part of the community asking for a simple 3 line of coe updateto expand bitcoin, because.. blockstream is there for the benefit of the community.. oh wait.................

ok i got it, third time lucky

dont rebuttal the code using logic, because blockstream is all about the code logic.. oh wait.. dang it, even in this case blockstreams defense is illogic rebuttals that make no sense. and are just said to confuse noobs into surrendering to the roadmap..
EG
blockstream: increasing to 2mb hardfork will require data centers  .. community: but, segwit full archival is between 2-4mb blocks
blockstream: users cant handle the data.. community: skype videocalls are 30mb UPLOAD every 10minutes from a home PC
blockstream: but the other implementations have corporate agenda.. community: so do you, you even wrote your agenda to move people off bitcoin in a roadmap (liquid, sidechains LN)


in short it was always a 3 corporate shell game.

3 shells and the name of the game is "you have 2 chances to throw away the corporate ball under the shells, the 3rd shell stays"
(secret all 3 shells R3, toomin, and blockstream have corporate balls) though for months they have pretended they are here only for the community

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

So Tor's development is driven by the US government? Just trying to understand your logic behind this.

TOR development is funded by the US government, but not necessarily driven by it. Unlike corporations, governments (at least in theory) are not created/structured to generate profit.

Corporations, of course, are responsible to their shareholders, typically to generate financial gains.
Imagine such a for-profit corporation, a hot dog bun manufacturer, being placed in charge of your lunch menu.
Question: All other things being equal, do you think you'll eat hot dogs or hamburgers more often?

To be fair, I don't think a private company has the same legal obligations. There are no shareholders.

[bargainbin]

So Tor's development is driven by the US government? Just trying to understand your logic behind this.

TOR development is funded by the US government, but not necessarily driven by it. Unlike corporations, governments (at least in theory) are not created/structured to generate profit.

Corporations, of course, are responsible to their shareholders, typically to generate financial gains.
Imagine such a for-profit corporation, a hot dog bun manufacturer, being placed in charge of your lunch menu.
Question: All other things being equal, do you think you'll eat hot dogs or hamburgers more often?

To be fair, I don't think a private company has the same legal obligations. There are no shareholders.

"Blockstream has raised $55m in Series A funding to continue its work expanding the bitcoin code base for commercial use." --CoinDesk

"A Series A round is the name typically given to a company's first significant round of venture capital financing. The name refers to the class of preferred stock sold to investors in exchange for their investment. It is usually the first series of stock after the common stock and common stock options issued to company founders, employees, friends and family and angel investors."--Wikip

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

"We were one of the first companies that painted a vision for interoperable blockchains, that there wasn’t going to be one blockchain, but many of them, all building off the bitcoin codebase to deliver the technology."

No false modesty here. Just a dynamic, innovative company.




Problem?

[calkob]

So what if its going in the right direction and any changes have consensus what the problem?

[franky1]

blockstream shills reveal the bait and switch to move common bitcoin users off of bitcoin and into their pretend money.

I don't see a valid reason for this; your $1 purchase doesn't need the security of a 1 Exa-hash network.

its becoming obvious that they dont want bitcoin to be a useful currency for everyone/anyone.
sounds so much departed away from satoshi's reason for creating bitcoin and is moving closer to the corporate crap that the genesis quote was trying to highlight as being wrong with this planet

[bargainbin]

"We were one of the first companies that painted a vision for interoperable blockchains, that there wasn’t going to be one blockchain, but many of them, all building off the bitcoin codebase to deliver the technology."

No false modesty here. Just a dynamic, innovative company.

[alani123]

This isn't new. You see, in a free economy people can get hired by companies of even found them. Does that mean that they'll abuse their power over developing a project with perfectly open development procedures like bitcoin? Maybe. But if they're caught on the act it's very likely that their privileges will be stripped.

To me it seems like this argument is pushed by Gavin's supporters to make it seem like there's a conspiracy edging them out. But even if the theory is true, what evidence do you have to show that blockstream is not good for bitcoin, can you compare it to bitcoin XT or Classic o say that it is better or worst? No. It's not even out yet and as long as there is no urgent need for larger blocks (which there isn't) some people better stop pushing that narrative.

[franky1]

To me it seems like this argument is pushed by Gavin's supporters to make it seem like there's a conspiracy edging them out. But even if the theory is true, what evidence do you have to show that blockstream is not good for bitcoin, can you compare it to bitcoin XT or Classic o say that it is better or worst? No. It's not even out yet and as long as there is no urgent need for larger blocks (which there isn't) some people better stop pushing that narrative.

i dont support gavin.

but what if blockstreams agenda, all along was to make gavin and hearne the scapegoats to take peoples attention away from the blockstream corporatization.

we all know that gavin and hearn wouldnt succeed. even if us normal folk just wanted more capacity without the corporate bait and switches.. we knew gavin and hearne was not the solution.
but now we know blockstream isnt either.

so now you know it too.. what are you going to do to:

But if they're caught on the act it's very likely that their privileges will be stripped.

how will you strip their privileges?

[countryfree]

How much power do they have? If they choose to raise the block size to 4MB, could they make it just by snapping their fingers?

Also, being a member of Core development is certainly nice and honorific, but it doesn't bring much food on the table. Developers need to have a regular job.

[owm123]

This is nonsense. This has nothing to do with control. Only 1 developer from Blockstream has commit access and that is what matters. Stop reading biased sub-reddits such as "r/btc" as your source of news (i.e. take the news with a grain of salt).

So Tor's development is driven by the US government?

Apparently.

So what should I read? /r/Bitcoin only which is biased for Core? 

[alani123]

how will you strip their privileges?

If the majority of the community agrees that certain commits should not be followed, they won't. Kinda how Gavin and Mike dug their own holes.

[gentlemand]

So what should I read? /r/Bitcoin only which is biased for Core? 

r/btc is very much anti core, so much so that it's just as much of a fucking joke as r/bitcoin. I don't really think you'll find anywhere that's untarnished. You may as well pick and choose and come to your own conclusions.  

[iCEBREAKER]

If the majority of the community agrees that certain commits should not be followed, they won't. Kinda how Gavin and Mike dug their own holes.

Garzik is reportedly now using the same shovel as Gavin and Mike, as he attacks segwit for no good reason.

I wonder what make him lose enough self-respect to put up with being bossed around by a bigoted, copyright-trolling shitlord like Olivier Janssens?

You'd think Classic's (heavy-handed, top-down) steadfast commitment to 75% instead of the far more reasonable (and miner endorsed) 95% would clue Jeff in to the fact it's not a serious effort.  But no....

Oh well.  We needed a new Lolcow to replace Hearn anyway!   

[achow101]

The idea that blockstream controls core and has a secret agenda to manipulate core is complete and absolute bullshit.

How, exactly, does blockstream "drive" the development of Bitcoin Core? Only 1 out of the 7 people who have commit access work for blockstream. gmaxwell used to but he voluntarily gave up his commit access for personal reasons. 1 out of 7 certainly does not mean that they have control, in fact, that is very little control. The other 6 developers are not affiliated with blockstream and they would revoke the access rights of sipa if he decided to commit things for blockstream that is detrimental to Bitcoin.

Furthermore, blockstream was founded by several developers who worked on Bitcoin Core before blockstream existed and those people have contributed greatly to Bitcoin Core. This isn't some company that was founded by a bunch of people who then hired Core devs to do their work, this is Core devs who wanted to do something and founded a company for it.