Bitcoin is not really open source. Why not?

[calkob]

Just because you dont understand the code dos not mean that bitcoin is not open source

[BADecker]

Just because you dont understand the code dos not mean that bitcoin is not open source

No. The reason is because few people understand open source. Rather, they think that it means security (at least to some extent) when it doesn't mean nearly the security that they think it does.

The only Only ONLY thing that keeps Bitcoin secure is, the good intentions of the devs.

[cpfreeplz]

Just because you dont understand the code dos not mean that bitcoin is not open source

No. The reason is because few people understand open source. Rather, they think that it means security (at least to some extent) when it doesn't mean nearly the security that they think it does.

The only Only ONLY thing that keeps Bitcoin secure is, the good intentions of the devs.

I'm fine with that. I've never had a problem with email, have you? I sure as hell don't know how my microwave works, should I call black and decker and ask them if it's open source?

Ah! You, then, are one of the very few who understand the full extent of Qt programming in Bitcoin? All right! We have a winner. One person in thousands (hundreds 0f thousands) who understands Bitcoin programming. So, it is open source to you. I think that if you look at the full meaning of "open source," you will find that open source really says that it has to be available for understanding by anyone. Bitcoin source code is available for understanding only by a relatively few programmers.

That's illogical. Just because you can't understand the language(for lack of a better term) it's written in doesn't mean it's not open source.

Google it:

"Denoting software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified."

If you want to be able to contribute to bitcoin then maybe take a class or try to educate yourself some other way. Also if you want to compete and make a better microwave I'd say you'd better figure out how they work too.

[billybobmaryjoe]

Well the CEO of bitcoin is going to sue all the alt-coins for using his code. joking. The fact there are so many forks is proof that is open source.

[Xester]

Well the CEO of bitcoin is going to sue all the alt-coins for using his code. joking. The fact there are so many forks is proof that is open source.

Bitcoin is open source and that is why there are many altcoins that copies bitcoin and tried to modify it. That is just one fact. Though I am not one of the few that understand the source codes and that makes my opinion as only a hypothesis without someone knowledgeable to back-up my claims.

Well, to stop the arguments we must ask the few individuals that has full understanding and knowledge about open source, source codes and etc. So we can have a technical and close to truth answer.

[pooya87]

Just because you dont understand the code dos not mean that bitcoin is not open source

No. The reason is because few people understand open source. Rather, they think that it means security (at least to some extent) when it doesn't mean nearly the security that they think it does.

The only Only ONLY thing that keeps Bitcoin secure is, the good intentions of the devs.

double wrong. it is open source because everyone has access to the code. understanding it has nothing to do with being open source or not.

and the security also has nothing to do with intentions of the devs. if anything malicious is injected at some point it is going to get caught fast. bitcoin wasn't built yesterday it has been nearly 7 years.

[TomPlatz]

When you have code that is not open source, it is still "open source" to the person or company who made it. If it was a company, a person might be able to get a job there, learn the "passwords" for accessing the code, and make it open source to himself.

A layman might download a simple program that will give him an open-source look at some, general programming. Or he might be able to figure out how to access and view the code in a simple text program. But it is still useless for him. It tells him nothing (except if their are instruction line built right into the code, as franky1 said). He still needs to learn programming to figure out what the program is doing.

The point is, the average person hears the term "open source." He doesn't realize that this term isn't as useful to him as it is suggested to be. Why? Because he still doesn't know what is going on in the program. Very few people really know, even though it is open source.

A programmer might be able to figure this stuff out. But even a programmer might not find hidden things that are going on in a multiple hundred thousand line program, without some in-depth study of the program. "Open source" just might be a term that some programmers use to allay the suspicions and fears of other programmers (and, of course, lay people), while they stick some code in that does a bunch of other things that nobody else knows, and that most people would not want if they knew it.

I guess its a bit like a Rolls Royce Jet Engine, they take the cover off it and you can see all the bits inside it, they even invite you to pull it apart and put it back together in your own way, did somebody forget to explain how it all works including mechanical engineering, fluid dynamics, thermal dynamics and maybe the laws of physics, anything technical takes "Your" time to filter into your pea brain and it's nobody's fault that technically it is quite an accomplishment and nobody's fault that they don't convert it into Duplo blocks just for you. People think thru an entire concept with all the technical tools thrown in there at their disposal, you need to understand the tools first.
Anybody else's uncompiled source code is hard to follow even when it is quite documented as you don't understand always what they were thinking or why they would want to do a certain thing or perhaps some think a lot of what they see is unnecessary.
I find it hard to follow my own undocumented source code as well as some that I took the time to put comments on. Commenting takes time if you are intending to have someone else understand your thinking.
While I am a programmer who has never looked at the said source code, it would discover that "it is" open source and I would be pretty amazed that I was able to have it all in that format, then I would begin my long long journey of understanding the literature.
I guess open source "English Language" is only when you know how to speak, read and write it, at the beginning knowing English at all, what was it? Some effort I would say but certainly no secret.
Why don't you try a programming language to understand why your expectations are kindergarten like, I'd suggest GWBASIC would be perfect for you !

[Yakamoto]

Bitcoin is not open source because only a relatively small cross section of Bitcoin users understand the programming.

I use Bitcoin Core for Windows found through the link at https://bitcoin.org/en/download. The name of the current version file that I download is "bitcoin-0.13.1-win64-setup.exe." The download screen says that the size of the file is 12.5 MB (megabytes). The Windows (zip) of the same program says it is 22.6 MB. I use the smaller of these two.

While I really don't know what the difference is between these downloads, the smaller of the two installed to my "Program Files" directory in my computer, at 41 MB. (The whole blockchain is well over 100 GB (gigabytes).)

Do you know how many lines of code you could write to fill 41 MB of computer hard drive memory? Thousands!

What do all these lines of code do? What do they do to your computer? How do they work with your Internet connection, and what is really being sent over the Internet when you have Bitcoin running? Is there really anybody who knows the whole thing?

The point is, Bitcoin is not really open source, because it is not open to the vast majority of minds that use it. The average person could understand the whole Encyclopedia Britannica easier than he could understand what goes on with the Bitcoin programming in his computer. And probably fewer than 99% of programmers understand it, to say nothing of lay people.

Your entire argument is based on the thesis that everyone who doesn't understand the code, start to finish, makes the entirety of the course code no longer open source.

How do you even break it down so people can understand it in the same way? You can't. You can't have code explain itself, you have to go and see it for yourself.

I hope this is some kind of bait, because this makes absolutely zero sense as to how it can be a topic to discuss.

[Gimpeline]

Just because you dont understand the code dos not mean that bitcoin is not open source

No. The reason is because few people understand open source. Rather, they think that it means security (at least to some extent) when it doesn't mean nearly the security that they think it does.

The only Only ONLY thing that keeps Bitcoin secure is, the good intentions of the devs.

....and the ones that bother to learn coding.
It's open if you put some effort into it.
I guess to someone that lives in the iron age it seems like magic

[stark101]

Bitcoin uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority or banks; managing transactions and the issuing of bitcoins is carried out collectively by the network. Bitcoin is open-source;its design is public, nobody owns or controls bitcoin and everyone can take part. Through many of its unique properties, Bitcoin allows exciting uses that could not covered by any previous payment system.

[sportis]

I read almost all the answers had given above to OP. I would like to answer him asking some questions:

Since OP considers that bitcoin is not open source software which according his opinion is open?
Suppose that bitcoin is not open source. What he proposes to do? Stop using it and return to fiat money only? Maybe using an alt coin? Something else?

[MCWey8]

W  T  F

 


so linux isn't open source ? how many people understand kernel programming ?

so decss wasn't open source ? decrypting DVDs isnt something everyone understands.


This motherfucker is pretty much saying that Spanish isn't a REAL language because he doesn't speak it.


Bitcoin is open source .. your argument is not logical.

[Cereberus]

The only Only ONLY thing that keeps Bitcoin secure is, the good intentions of the devs.

So what happens to bitcoin if the devs switch to bad intentions for example ? I have heard bitcoin is secured by the laws of universe which in my view are pretty secure but that sentence of yours is making me think , what if any of the insiders(devs) decides to destroy bitcoin by revealing bugs or implementing malwares and cracking the code of bitcoin ? What can the bitcoin community can do in such scenario to save bitcoin ?

[QuestionAuthority]

The only Only ONLY thing that keeps Bitcoin secure is, the good intentions of the devs.

So what happens to bitcoin if the devs switch to bad intentions for example ? I have heard bitcoin is secured by the laws of universe which in my view are pretty secure but that sentence of yours is making me think , what if any of the insiders(devs) decides to destroy bitcoin by revealing bugs or implementing malwares and cracking the code of bitcoin ? What can the bitcoin community can do in such scenario to save bitcoin ?

There are roughly 100 people that have worked on bitcoin or are currently working on bitcoin and thousands more looking at the code. University professors have talked about it in lectures and reviewed the code attempting to criticize what it does. Dozens of businesses worldwide are currently reviewing the bitcoin blockchain to see if it's useful for their business. Do you honestly believe there's not one honorable person among them that would stand up and tell about the problems?

https://bitcoin.org/en/development

[deisik]

The only Only ONLY thing that keeps Bitcoin secure is, the good intentions of the devs.

So what happens to bitcoin if the devs switch to bad intentions for example ? I have heard bitcoin is secured by the laws of universe which in my view are pretty secure but that sentence of yours is making me think , what if any of the insiders(devs) decides to destroy bitcoin by revealing bugs or implementing malwares and cracking the code of bitcoin ? What can the bitcoin community can do in such scenario to save bitcoin ?

You have been utterly misinformed

The ones who matter are the Bitcoin miners. Whatever the devs might be up to, it will be irrelevant until the miners accept the changes proposed by the developers. And major changes and updates to Bitcoin should be agreed upon by the consensus of the miners, i.e. at least by 95% of them, if I'm not mistaken. So even if Bitcoin developers are up to something nasty, it has little-to-no chance of being accepted

[dearbesz1219]

You are totally wrong in your question, Bitcoin is really kind of an open source for everybody who are open minded on this kind of an opportunity. Just like what happen to me right now my mindset at the present time now was that bitcoin is my only job in my daily routine in life,

[digaran]

What do you care about bitcoin being open source or not? all you need is mining and then selling or just buying low and selling high.
Or you can spend 6 years to learn computer and programming.
Of course I know this same problem is why bitcoin never going to be trusted by general population.
Bitcoin is actually meant for 2 next generation and ones after them not in an era where people think God was a person and died for a few million people at that time.
Yes cryptocurrency is still too early for people to understand but even so bitcoin doing a hell of a job.

[raja2sumi]

Does it really matter? And u are confusing by telling that 'open source' .well u can see all the transactions in the blockchain ,they can earn whatever they want .yah in case of dark market they are not so better they are just like ghosts .

[buwaytress]

OP is having issues with:
updated documentation that actually explain it properly
code lacking comments.
signposting to the best source of code, comments, documentation.

though it is open source, the organisation of HOW its open is missing.
back in my day nearly every line of code had comments to explain what it does.
back in my day nearly every line of code had namespaces/variables with WORDS that explained what it does not just characters

there are many modules that do have comments and variables with understandable names. but there are some without.

EG https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/src/secp256k1/src/ecdsa_impl.h (grabbed randomly)
if you see a module assign variables 'b1' 'rs' 'rr' 's1' 'u1' 'u2' 'sn' 'pr' without commenting what they do. it helps no one.

yes with a couple re reads and running it through your mind in what used to be called 'pseudocode' you get the gist of it eventually. but its still badly organised

the funnier part is that many core devs get very snobby if forum posts are not wrote in 100% white paper approved level of English grammar, even when knowing forums are just for common/social communication where only 10% of the planet deem English to be their first language. but their own code lacks the basic coding etiquette

Franky I have liked your previous posts just want to get that out of the way.

OP clearly as many posters are not able to articulate their points well in white paper English but yes I think I also can empathise with the issues inferred.

We can agree the code is open source, but not in the complete spirit of btc's core principles.

I have noticed as well on the sometimes elitist and auto-defensive attitudes of some who completely disregard any kind of idea that questions or criticises.

And that English is invariably brought into question is also another excluding factor.

Adoption, openness, inclusiveness and all that? *shrug*

[franky1]

Franky I have liked your previous posts just want to get that out of the way.

OP clearly as many posters are not able to articulate their points well in white paper English but yes I think I also can empathise with the issues inferred.

We can agree the code is open source, but not in the complete spirit of btc's core principles.

I have noticed as well on the sometimes elitist and auto-defensive attitudes of some who completely disregard any kind of idea that questions or criticises.

And that English is invariably brought into question is also another excluding factor.

Adoption, openness, inclusiveness and all that? *shrug*

i think if the OP wrote this topic as
'is bitcoin truly an open concept, open minded,' then people wouldnt attack the OP for the literal meaning of 'open source'
bitcoin has become very band-campy/boysclub. where it requires a hop, skip and a jump just to get a dev to not ignore you.
it then takes a few twerking/lapdances to convince the devs to try something different.

and if you tried to go at it alone. your slapped in the face and called an altcoin even if your code actually works on the mainnet

though the code is 'publicly available' the openness for contribution and allowing positive critisism to help bitcoin grow. seems to be equally met with doors shutting in your face. and rdirected through their maze of hops, skips and jumps.

let alone the publicly available source not being clearly laid out.
its much like saying court transcripts are publicly available. but what they hand you is wrote in short-hand. lacking human commenting/documentation

bitcoin is not really open community minded. unless your in the boysclub