Devcoin Venture

[Unthinkingbit]

Propose your open source projects which either make money, or help devcoin, or help the world a lot, in this thread.

Devcoin citizens (people who received generation devcoins in this round or the previous one), except the venture bounty almoner (Unthinkingbit until we get another almoner), can propose up to 2 projects each. After two weeks, all citizens who want to will vote on them over four days with 0 to 99 range voting:
http://rangevoting.org/Why99.html

The top five projects will get bounties of twelve shares, with six shares for second. A twelve share bounty is sufficient to get developers to chance a week of work. Also whoever proposes a bounty which is later awarded gets 2 shares. The projects can be modified until the voting starts.

If at least one of the projects is successful and there is not too much controversy over awards, we'll have another round if devcoin market capitalization goes over 5 million dollars.

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[termhn]

So does this actually have to be helpful or can it be something fun like a game?

[Unthinkingbit]

So does this actually have to be helpful or can it be something fun like a game?

Since games aren't helpful, the game would have to make money in some way.

[termhn]

What do you mean by that exactly... it's supposed to be open source/free correct?

[Unthinkingbit]

What do you mean by that exactly... it's supposed to be open source/free correct?

Yup everything has to be open source. I added that to the top post.

[FinShaggy]

I got SOOO many, I'm gonna give you a few

[FinShaggy]

Devbook- A Mix between Facebook and a Genealogy website.

Devxchange- A Devcoin exchange website, possibly with a section where people can post projects that need funding through donations and loans

Devtest- Surveys and Contests for devcoin

Devlist- Craigslist, but things are for sale for Devcoins

Devsino- Devcoin Gambling

DevATM- An ATM where you can insert cash and get Devcoins on a USB (even just a machine that is constantly hooked up to a Devxchange that accepts credit card as USD funding)

Devblog- A place to post blogs and vlogs, like blogger for Devtomers

Adev- A 'company' that puts ads in videos and on websites and pays the host in devcoin.

Devseed- A program to freeze seeds of all the Earth's plant species for preservation through an "apocalypse" scenario

[FinShaggy]

DevIsland- An island that is rented out, and Devcoins are bought with the money to stimulate the Devcoin economy, and Devcoin events can be held there for free

Devid Card- A Machine that can aaccept USBs, allowing for payment in Devcoins in regular stores

Devtel- A Hotel that is half free, half paid, paid customers pay in Devcoin which stimulate the devcoin economy

Devtome Brick & Mortar- A place that is half library, half bookstore. Purchases and fees are paid in Devcoin

Devcoach- A Half free half paid "Greyhound" type bus service

Devy Awards- Winners get coins and trophy, awards go to great achievements in the Devcoin community

[FinShaggy]

Devpower- A Company that uses solar and wind technology to offer a FREE energy alternative

Devercise- Workout powered mining machines

DTV- Devcoin Television network, commercials and actors/writers are paid for in Devcoins which stimulates the Devcoin economy

Devair- Devcoin radio, same as DTV but radio

[FinShaggy]

DevPAC- A Devcoin funded political ad campaign

Dev for Humanity- Apartments built that are completely free, but some of the rooms will contain just mining servers to fund it

Devstate- A university, and eventually city/township, then eventually county, and maybe even a state one day

DevINC- A company that gives out free mining machines and asks that people donate coins back if they have extra money after mining

DevSA- Devcoin NASA

[metazilla]

FinShaggy, he said each user can propose two projects. Maybe you should choose your two favorite ideas.

---

My 1st proposal:

An official Devcoin site with several functions related to Devcoin:

1) A bounty proposal/voting section. This would basically serve the same function as this thread, where users can submit ideas, and vote on them using range voting.

2) A section dedicated to showing how the Devcoin shares have been distributed in the past (maybe call it "Share Explorer"). This way people could see what kind of projects were awarded shares in the past, and how much the shares were worth at the time (maybe through integration with something like Cryptocoin Charts). Also, this section should include a front-end for the current round of shares - showing how many shares are awarded so far, with an estimation of how many coins each share will be worth. This could also include an administration section for automatically generated the bounty_x.csv and account.csv files.

3. A nicely designed and simply-explained homepage (eg. like bitcoin.org or litecoin.org) that explains what Devcoin is, has links to the latest wallets, block-explorers, etc. Emphasis should be on the site being newbie friendly.


2nd Proposal:

Integration of the account/bounty csv files into the Devcoin blockchain, so that Devcoin is truly distributed and not reliant on the few people that are kindly hosting these files as of now. (Imagine Devcoin had the popularity of Bitcoin, those hosts could be easily DDOS'd and no one would be able to download the files.)
Bonus for coming up with a better system, maybe something like incorporating voting on which projects get shares into the actual blockchain, doing away with the need for administration entirely. I can imagine there being some difficulty in making this fair, since many users of devcoin are not necessarily miners, so voting shouldn't be done with hashing power. (I guess a simple way to handle this is that only people who have received shares in the past can vote, and there is proof of share receipt in the block chain.)

---

Unthinkingbit, is it allowed to change or update our proposals in the future? Also what about suggesting improvements/modifications to others ideas?

[Unthinkingbit]

..
Unthinkingbit, is it allowed to change or update our proposals in the future?

Yes, up, until the voting starts, in two weeks. That's a good question, so I added it to the top post.

Also what about suggesting improvements/modifications to others ideas?

Yes, but it is up to them to incorporate your suggestions.

[markm]

I would really like to see a button to accept payment or donations. I used https://bitmerch.com/ to create buttons for a website and it was extremely easy to use.

Any chance we can get a payment button......please?  

Now that I have some dedicated servers, I can start working with Cyclos again. It is a full banking system. It is probably much easier for merchants to put up buttons when the buttons do not require them to run a coin daemon. Cyclos will make it more like existing third party solutions for accepting coins, in that what the merchant really gets is a balance at a payment processor aka bank.

Cyclos provides apps for phones of many types too, so it should let us reach out to all the folk who do not want to or do not have the skills to deal with actual on the blockchain coins, by having a kind of "devpal" or "paydev" (paypal-like) banking system where accounts can be denominated in devcoins.

(Most likely such Cyclos based systems will use the Digitalis Open Transactions server as "central bank", basically palming off on Digitalis the whole cold wallets / coin-reserves thing, so that the Cyclos systems need only deal with holding digiDeVCoins on the Open Transactions server instead of having to deal with blockchains at all.)

Basically Cyclos should let us do normal banking that normal people are used to, denominated in devcoins (and/or any other coins/assets) without actually exposing the users to blockchains at all.)

-MarkM-

[FinShaggy]

FinShaggy, he said each user can propose two projects. Maybe you should choose your two favorite ideas.

I don't care about the bounties, just submitting ideas And giving ideas for others to expand on (or get more specific on)
But I'll underline my favorite 2
Eventually I plan on getting ALL of these off the ground myself, or with help.

[psybits]

My first proposal is a Devcoin.org website in the vein of Litecoin.org, Bitcoin.org etc.

I think a site with a contemporary image slider and icons underneath with little explanations of how Devcoin works and breaks down the vision of Devcoin as crypto project on a mission to change the world, and sponsor such necessary developments as advanced fabricators and even a spaceship! This information needs to be presented in a contemporary way

I can't remember if it was already agreed there would be a bounty for this (if so please remind me how much this particular bounty is) - but I believe this is a necessity for Devcoin to gain more exposure and legitimacy.

The site could include the current bounties which are available to be worked on and what Devcoin has achieved thus far, and this list can be updated monthly.

I have quite a few ideas for the second one let me get back to you

[psybits]

Ok, this second one is a little more ambitious.

I propose we offer a bounty to the first store like Bitcoinstore, but which accepts Devcoin as a payment method.

This can either be an existing store with also accepts Devcoin, or can be a Devcoin store built for this very purpose (preferred).

Must stock 100+ items, items must be physical and shipped to the customers.

With dropshipping this wouldn't be too hard for someone to set up - I'd personally love to do it but I have too many projects on!

PREFERRED: Store to sell 3D Printers and accessories, computer accessories, laptops etc

[FinShaggy]

Ok, this second one is a little more ambitious.

I propose we offer a bounty to the first store like Bitcoinstore, but which accepts Devcoin as a payment method.

This can either be an existing store with also accepts Devcoin, or can be a Devcoin store built for this very purpose (preferred).

Must stock 100+ items, items must be physical and shipped to the customers.

With dropshipping this wouldn't be too hard for someone to set up - I'd personally love to do it but I have too many projects on!

PREFERRED: Store to sell 3D Printers and accessories, computer accessories, laptops etc

If someone else doesn't get this one, I will. We're making a forum/shop, and the store will be nothing but DVC priced products. (but we will accept cash, that will just be translated if they choose)

[markm]

Check out http://dvcstable02.devcoin.org:8080

It is the Cyclos banking system, but that includes an advertising system for people to advertise things they want to buy and sell, and it includes stuff for webmasters to use on their websites for payment buttons and such.

I have it set up with DeVCoins as its currency, so basically it is a DVCbank, a bank in which accounts are denominated in DeVCoins.

So webmasters could "accept devcoins" similar to how one "accepts fiat" with things like Paypal; that is, by having your account added to, instead of by having to deal with actual coins or notes/bills or, in the case of cryptocurrencies, actual blockchains.

It has no blockchain interfaces at all, it knows nothing of blockchains.

But that just means it might be worthwhile to figure out exactly what kind of modules that do somehow do something with blockchains Cyclos needs and making some bounties to get them made...

When you create an account it apparently says the admin has to validate you. That'd be me so I guess I will have to manually verify people's email addreses, or something. As I have not even looked into how sendmail is set up on that machine but I think by default sendmail on Fedora only sends to local users on the machine not out onto the internet so likely the machine has no outgoing email ability.

-MarkM-

[MosinNagant]

I propose a record label. All music produced from this label would be entirely free -- with each artist being able to accept devcoin donations, as well as being paid a flat fee for releasing albums under the label. I'd be more than happy to manage such a venture.

Hopefully, provided the project goes well there would be the opportunity to set up tours for artists under the label in the future. This would earn them much more money considering creating an album (or any kind of art indeed) is unquantifiable in monetary terms.

Artists who feel they earn more than they need can put money back into the label or just donate their devcoins elsewhere.

It would also give me an outlet; I'd rather not just spam up devtome with my own lyrics.

[FinShaggy]

I propose a record label. All music produced from this label would be entirely free -- with each artist being able to accept devcoin donations, as well as being paid a flat fee for releasing albums under the label. I'd be more than happy to manage such a venture.

Hopefully, provided the project goes well there would be the opportunity to set up tours for artists under the label in the future. This would earn them much more money considering creating an album (or any kind of art indeed) is unquantifiable in monetary terms.

Artists who feel they earn more than they need can put money back into the label or just donate their devcoins elsewhere.

It would also give me an outlet; I'd rather not just spam up devtome with my own lyrics.

That is an awesome idea, are you attempting to make it now or when would you start trying to manage it? Do you know any artists, I know some people... As long as the contracts were flexible, and especially if we allowed them to sell it to other people as well as have it free on the DVC site.

[MosinNagant]

I propose a record label. All music produced from this label would be entirely free -- with each artist being able to accept devcoin donations, as well as being paid a flat fee for releasing albums under the label. I'd be more than happy to manage such a venture.

Hopefully, provided the project goes well there would be the opportunity to set up tours for artists under the label in the future. This would earn them much more money considering creating an album (or any kind of art indeed) is unquantifiable in monetary terms.

Artists who feel they earn more than they need can put money back into the label or just donate their devcoins elsewhere.

It would also give me an outlet; I'd rather not just spam up devtome with my own lyrics.

That is an awesome idea, are you attempting to make it now or when would you start trying to manage it? Do you know any artists, I know some people... As long as the contracts were flexible, and especially if we allowed them to sell it to other people as well as have it free on the DVC site.

I've been attempting to make it for a while. I think any artist with some wisdom about the industry would prefer to give their music out for free anyway, they tend to earn not much more than a pittance for CD sales. I know many artists, too. As for letting them sell it themselves? I think that would go south rather quickly. It would complicate the image of the label as well as what the artist is actually trying to achieve by giving out free music. I am planning on implementing a system where you can buy real 'collectors edition' CDs/Vinyls from certain artists that garner a certain amount of downloads.

If the idea is successful, naturally I will develop a solid business plan for it; and begin speaking to other people. But I do have to bear in mind, even if this idea was to win, 12 generation shares can only go so far -- so I don't want to say anything 'big' is in the works. [rant]But I'd like to make some waves. Too much shit music gets produced these days because the general populace love to listen to garbage. I'd like to get some attention focused on those who just want to be heard, and understood. [/rant]

[FinShaggy]

I've been attempting to make it for a while. I think any artist with some wisdom about the industry would prefer to give their music out for free anyway, they tend to earn not much more than a pittance for CD sales. I know many artists, too. As for letting them sell it themselves? I think that would go south rather quickly. It would complicate the image of the label as well as what the artist is actually trying to achieve by giving out free music. I am planning on implementing a system where you can buy real 'collectors edition' CDs/Vinyls from certain artists that garner a certain amount of downloads.

If the idea is successful, naturally I will develop a solid business plan for it; and begin speaking to other people. But I do have to bear in mind, even if this idea was to win, 12 generation shares can only go so far -- so I don't want to say anything 'big' is in the works. [rant]But I'd like to make some waves. Too much shit music gets produced these days because the general populace love to listen to garbage. I'd like to get some attention focused on those who just want to be heard, and understood. [/rant]

I think some artists don't give out free music just to give out free music, they give out free music so that people will spread the word about their songs without having to buy an album. So letting them sell their music at their concerts, with or without our label on them wouldn't be a bad thing. If we restrict them, we are just like every other record label, controlling them and their music, just for less payment for them...

And about the shares not being able to go too far, I think we should make not only a bounty list for this stuff, but a thread/website or something so that we can accept and give donations to fund stuff like this over time. I think if we had a board of like 5-20 writers on a "charity board" we could get a lot done

[termhn]

My first proposal is a global exchange built into the wallet application.
It would include:
1. Exchange from DVC to all other coins
2. Built in, customize-able automatic escrow service for PPUSD (PayPal) direct transfers.

This exchange should be P2P so that it can not easily be DoS/DDoSed.

[markm]

My first proposal is a global exchange built into the wallet application.
It would include:
1. Exchange from DVC to all other coins
2. Built in, customize-able automatic escrow service for PPUSD (PayPal) direct transfers.

This exchange should be P2P so that it can not easily be DoS/DDoSed.

PayPal's problem is the 180-day reversal of transfers, which actually originates with the credit cards many people use to fund PayPal.

So escrow of PayPal funds would need to be 180 days...

-MarkM-

[psybits]

My first proposal is a global exchange built into the wallet application.
It would include:
1. Exchange from DVC to all other coins
2. Built in, customize-able automatic escrow service for PPUSD (PayPal) direct transfers.

This exchange should be P2P so that it can not easily be DoS/DDoSed.

I really like the idea of an exchange built into the DVC client!

It would be cool if it was qt client as well.

[markm]

As long as it only exchanges between cryptocoins, and uses the other coin's *coind or *coin-qt in -server mode to handle the other chain's side of the exchange, it might be do-able.

-MarkM-

[termhn]

My first proposal is a global exchange built into the wallet application.
It would include:
1. Exchange from DVC to all other coins
2. Built in, customize-able automatic escrow service for PPUSD (PayPal) direct transfers.

This exchange should be P2P so that it can not easily be DoS/DDoSed.

PayPal's problem is the 180-day reversal of transfers, which actually originates with the credit cards many people use to fund PayPal.

So escrow of PayPal funds would need to be 180 days...

-MarkM-

Huh. I thought it was some amount of hours that you had to start disputing the transaction... that's I thought it said when I was using it yesterday at least.

[markm]

45 days I think for a PayPal dispute.

-MarkM-

[psybits]

As long as it only exchanges between cryptocoins, and uses the other coin's *coind or *coin-qt in -server mode to handle the other chain's side of the exchange, it might be do-able.

-MarkM-

Otherwise I suppose Open Transactions is already doing something similar? Any way to integrate that?

[markm]

Open Transactions is supposed to be a system service, so you would not integrate it itself into anything, otherwise everything would end up with its own copy of Open Transactions inside it.

Instead it will be a service, probably using URI, that browsers and instant message clients and skype type apps and basically anything that wants or needs any kind of financial services will all make calls to.

That approach also prevents multiple things all trying to write the financial data at the same time. They will al go through the Open Transactions daemon aka system service aka system-tray-app to do everything.

Meanwhile, I am seeing that maybe the idea of using a real banking system is not popular at all... Last time I set up Cyclos it was behind Tor so there was a tendency to claim it was the Tor part that led to no-oine bothering to look at it. This time it is right out in the open at http://dvcstable02.devcoin.org:8080 yet only one person so far has bothered to create an account so they can look inside it.

So maybe the idea of having Cyclos modules built that will interface to blockchains is a no-go from the get-go. A pity since it has apps for the major phones and fun stuff that like that seemed like they could be quite useful, especially in places like Africa where apparently everyone use phones.

See https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=193312.0

-MarkM-

[MosinNagant]

I think some artists don't give out free music just to give out free music, they give out free music so that people will spread the word about their songs without having to buy an album.

This is true, but that's only half of the artist I'd be trying to attract with such a venture. It's not a publicity stunt, it's a philosophy of an idea. I'm trying to appeal to the musician who has to make music. And they'd put all their energies into creating that music, whether they got paid for it or not.

So letting them sell their music at their concerts, with or without our label on them wouldn't be a bad thing. If we restrict them, we are just like every other record label, controlling them and their music, just for less payment for them...

It's true, letting them sell their music in such a situation wouldn't hurt much, but again, the kind of artist I'm looking for doesn't really want to sell their music in the first place. They'd just do so because we live in a world where rent exists.

And about the shares not being able to go too far, I think we should make not only a bounty list for this stuff, but a thread/website or something so that we can accept and give donations to fund stuff like this over time. I think if we had a board of like 5-20 writers on a "charity board" we could get a lot done

Yeah, I'd like to hear from Unthinkingbit on this one. I.E do devcoin funded ventures only get a one time payment? Can they re-apply until they are self-sufficient? I'd really like to make such a thing a reality, but I don't know how much hype I can generate for these artists from a month's worth of pay. Naturally the aim would be to make the venture self-sufficient as quickly as possible, mind. Running something at a loss isn't worth running.

[FinShaggy]

I think some artists don't give out free music just to give out free music, they give out free music so that people will spread the word about their songs without having to buy an album.

This is true, but that's only half of the artist I'd be trying to attract with such a venture. It's not a publicity stunt, it's a philosophy of an idea. I'm trying to appeal to the musician who has to make music. And they'd put all their energies into creating that music, whether they got paid for it or not.

So letting them sell their music at their concerts, with or without our label on them wouldn't be a bad thing. If we restrict them, we are just like every other record label, controlling them and their music, just for less payment for them...

It's true, letting them sell their music in such a situation wouldn't hurt much, but again, the kind of artist I'm looking for doesn't really want to sell their music in the first place. They'd just do so because we live in a world where rent exists.

And about the shares not being able to go too far, I think we should make not only a bounty list for this stuff, but a thread/website or something so that we can accept and give donations to fund stuff like this over time. I think if we had a board of like 5-20 writers on a "charity board" we could get a lot done

Yeah, I'd like to hear from Unthinkingbit on this one. I.E do devcoin funded ventures only get a one time payment? Can they re-apply until they are self-sufficient? I'd really like to make such a thing a reality, but I don't know how much hype I can generate for these artists from a month's worth of pay. Naturally the aim would be to make the venture self-sufficient as quickly as possible, mind. Running something at a loss isn't worth running.

1) Whether or not they want to, they need to sell their music to survive, and since the label would give away their music for free, they would have to sell it themselves on the side. Or else we would just have a bunch of McDonalds employees trying to be musicians, instead of straight up artists.

2) Again, whether or not they want to sell it, something has to be sold somewhere.

3) Just because something needs initial funding doesn't mean that it won't make money in the future. Everything takes capitol though, that's just simply how capitalism works...

[metazilla]

My first proposal is a global exchange built into the wallet application.
It would include:
1. Exchange from DVC to all other coins
2. Built in, customize-able automatic escrow service for PPUSD (PayPal) direct transfers.

This exchange should be P2P so that it can not easily be DoS/DDoSed.

1. Seems doable, using the APIs of the exchanges. You'd just have to register at the exchange and put in your API key. Although I'm curious how you would want it integrated with the other *coins. Say you did something like convert 100000 DVC to BTC, should it just do the conversion and then say "coins converted" and they show up in your BTC client? Or should the DVC client list your BTC balance (as well as the balance for all the other coins)?

2. Not a huge fan of this idea for the same reasons mark said.

---

I'm also a big fan of the record label idea, or at least some way for musicians to get paid in DVC for making free/open-source music apart from posting lyrics on devtome (what about instrumental music!?). Maybe you could do a pay-what-you-want model like Bandcamp does. Or have digital downloads free, and charge for physical copies of the album (only a slight markup on production, that goes straight to the artists).

Ideally though, I'd like to see musicians be able to earn generation shares for creating free and remixable music. There already is a lot of free (as in beer) music out there, but there is _not_ a lot of free (as in open source) music out there. The only big band I can think of that releases open source music is Nine Inch Nails - and I could see them being interested in a project like this.

And FinShaggy, a lot of artists will give away their music for free and rely on things like t-shirt sales, playing shows, and donations to make money. I think the ideal form of this is the pay-what-you-want model. Radiohead released their album In Rainbows as a pay-what-you-want thing and still made millions, even though you could just download it for free.

[MosinNagant]

1) Whether or not they want to, they need to sell their music to survive, and since the label would give away their music for free, they would have to sell it themselves on the side. Or else we would just have a bunch of McDonalds employees trying to be musicians, instead of straight up artists.

2) Again, whether or not they want to sell it, something has to be sold somewhere.

3) Just because something needs initial funding doesn't mean that it won't make money in the future. Everything takes capitol though, that's just simply how capitalism works...

You're missing my point somewhat; the amount of money you make from CD sales after a label takes their cut is basically zero. Because in the days of piracy -- nobody can be bothered. Tours, performing is how an artist makes his money from his music. Giving out the music just takes one problem out of the equation, namely; 'How do I get these people to buy my music?' the answer my label would put out is, 'You don't even have to sell your music. Just be yourself.'

If an artist really feels he needs to sell his CDs as well as make tour money, then there are other labels for them. No good business doesn't have a basic philosophy behind it.

Ideally though, I'd like to see musicians be able to earn generation shares for creating free and remixable music. There already is a lot of free (as in beer) music out there, but there is _not_ a lot of free (as in open source) music out there. The only big band I can think of that releases open source music is Nine Inch Nails - and I could see them being interested in a project like this.

That's really true, and resonates with me a lot. As well as the part about instrumental music. Ideally the label would become a platform for all of these things to succeed; I'm just trying to start with the basics. Too much too soon would likely kill it in action.

[FinShaggy]

1) Whether or not they want to, they need to sell their music to survive, and since the label would give away their music for free, they would have to sell it themselves on the side. Or else we would just have a bunch of McDonalds employees trying to be musicians, instead of straight up artists.

2) Again, whether or not they want to sell it, something has to be sold somewhere.

3) Just because something needs initial funding doesn't mean that it won't make money in the future. Everything takes capitol though, that's just simply how capitalism works...

You're missing my point somewhat; the amount of money you make from CD sales after a label takes their cut is basically zero. Because in the days of piracy -- nobody can be bothered. Tours, performing is how an artist makes his money from his music. Giving out the music just takes one problem out of the equation, namely; 'How do I get these people to buy my music?' the answer my label would put out is, 'You don't even have to sell your music. Just be yourself.'

If an artist really feels he needs to sell his CDs as well as make tour money, then there are other labels for them. No good business doesn't have a basic philosophy behind it.

I totally forgot about ticket sales, we would need a marketing company too. Devertising or Devent Co...

[Unthinkingbit]

..
Yeah, I'd like to hear from Unthinkingbit on this one. I.E do devcoin funded ventures only get a one time payment?

Yes. The 12 share award is not enough for big projects. It's meant for stuff that can be developed in about a week of labor.

Can they re-apply until they are self-sufficient?

No. Bigger projects will have to wait until we get a bigger market capitalization.

[markm]

Ideally though, I'd like to see musicians be able to earn generation shares for creating free and remixable music. There already is a lot of free (as in beer) music out there, but there is _not_ a lot of free (as in open source) music out there.

A big problem with both graphic artists and musicians if the part about open SOURCE.

Both artists and musicians often either fail to grasp the concept of SOURCE or refuse to release SOURCE once they do understand it.

In music for example, a lot of digital music composers actually use proprietary programs and even proprietary "samples", and they not only cannot release those actual "sources" but also refuse to release their own layers of source that take those proprietary components and put them together.

So I suspect for instrumental music we first need free open source instruments, so that when someone composes a score that says "have the violin play this while the cello plays that, meanwhile this drum that drum and that drum play this that and the other drumbeats" kind of thing the SOURCE CODE can INCLUDE the (or at least a) violin, a cello, and the specific types of drums along with the specific impacts upon them that are called for by the piece.

With graphics you often get a similar problem. Someone takes a 3D model they do not want to release or that they cannot (because it is proprietary) release, and use it to create several "layers" of a multi-layer image, then they compile those layers irreversibly into a single layer that is all they are willing or able to release. The "source layers" are not provided, let along any "source model" that was used to compile the "source layers". They end up giving you the resulting compiled gif or jpg or whatever type of image file, the compiled result of using all those various sources.

They can get very irate about all this too, as making you have to go back to them to get any adjustments of the compiled image or compiled track(s) of music is probably how they plan to make their money. They give out a compiled track or image-file, holding back the actual samples and instrument-models in the case of sound or the actual multi-layer image files and actual models used to create them in the case of images.

In short, they refuse to release the "source". All you get is a compiled end-result, not the sources used to build it and the algorithm/procedure/script that does the building of it from those sources.

So a good place to start maybe would be sample libraries and instruments for musicians / sound-effects artists, and 3D models and other stock art that can be released freely with whatever an artist ends up building with it.

Then they won't be able to claim anymore "oh but there is no free open source version of the instruments I used, they are part of a proprietary package I use" because we will retort "then your product is not free open SOURCE, it is proprietary source, and thus is not eligible".

Eventually we can extend this beyond digital. Is a Stradivarius open source, as in all patents and copyrights etc on each individual one are expired so it can be freely replicated once we have replicators? Same with all physical instruments used by a band, etc: if we cannot run the sintruments through a replicator in principle, that is clone them freely, then they do not qualify...

...Remember that replicators, starting at our primitive technology level with so called "3D printers" are on our roadmap. Thus of course by free open source we mean we can freely replicate...

If your Gibson or whatever guitar is so great and makes such great music, lets get its specs down pat so we can churn them out so everyone who wants to compile/execute/perform/replicate the piece of music can do so ... by replicating that special instrument that is the source of that great sound...

-MarkM-

[metazilla]

In music for example, a lot of digital music composers actually use proprietary programs and even proprietary "samples", and they not only cannot release those actual "sources" but also refuse to release their own layers of source that take those proprietary components and put them together.

So I suspect for instrumental music we first need free open source instruments, so that when someone composes a score that says "have the violin play this while the cello plays that, meanwhile this drum that drum and that drum play this that and the other drumbeats" kind of thing the SOURCE CODE can INCLUDE the (or at least a) violin, a cello, and the specific types of drums along with the specific impacts upon them that are called for by the piece.

Yeah I can see this being an issue. I spent a bit of time making amateur electronic music, and this definitely does come up, even with a friend sending you their track. What often happens is the program will say "looking for X sample" and if you have the same sample pack you can just point the program to the files. I think a music track where the project file is entirely open source, but that uses proprietary samples (or VSTs, or whatever) should be okay, given that most people who make electronic music use proprietary programs at some point or another. That said, there are open source programs, but many musicians are familiar with a certain program, and prefer to make music in that, and like you said, they shouldn't necessarily be forced to change that. I'd say that projects that are entirely open source should get like double the shares, and if you made the samples you'd get shares for the samples as well.

I think it gets even more complicated when the music is made using physical instruments or hardware. Sure, we can open source the score, and the even 3D files allowing someone to reproduce the hardware exactly, but unless you can record the player's performance somehow, that part will be impossible to reproduce. In this case, I think as long as the actual audio is available to freely remix and sample, the artist should still be awarded shares.

And here's an idea: the devcoin music project could have its own "shares", basically it would distribute shares of its own value, that it gets from the Devcoin generation shares, donations, and selling physical albums/t-shirts/etc. This way, each round people could vote on how many shares should go to the music project, and then the music project admins, or even some sort of voting section on the music site, could decide how the music shares are given out.

[markm]

You and also maybe some earlier posts are almost getting ahead of us here, there are some things in the works that might be very relevant to some of the ideas people have mentioned but for technical reasons there has perforce been a slight technical delay in releasing the actual roadmap.

Hopefully the last of those technical delays are being taken care of right now so that very soon now some interesting new additions to the roadmap can be released.

-MarkM-

EDIT: As to musicians using proprietary programs, as long as they can in principle be duplicated in free open source, that is all the algorithms are simply algorithms, freely usable/implementable by any programmer in any programming language, I do not see a problem. Where problems arise is when people try to patent algorithms. As long as the samples are free open source, and the same algorithms / computation can be done on them in principle by simply making a free open source program that performs the same computation / algorithm there is no problem, I think. The problems tend to arise when people start claiming some particular sequence of bits, considered as a sound bite, or some particular algorithm or procedure, regardless of programming language in which it is implemented, cannot be freely used. Or even more abstract expressions of a waveform. "This waveform is proprietary, no noisemaker is allowed to make this exact noise as this noise is special and we own it" type stuff.

[AlexMerced]

Here's an idea:

Building Website CMS's that can easily be configured for toher currencies like Multicoin

- Shopping Cart CMS similar to CoingGig.com

- Exchange CMS (to easily create a BTC/XXX type exchange)

- Online Wallet CMS

etc.

Or even better make one that can support multiple currencies at the same time.

[psybits]

Here's an idea:

Building Website CMS's that can easily be configured for toher currencies like Multicoin

- Shopping Cart CMS similar to CoingGig.com

- Exchange CMS (to easily create a BTC/XXX type exchange)

- Online Wallet CMS

etc.

Or even better make one that can support multiple currencies at the same time.

Glad you posted this Alex - thanks

[FinShaggy]

CHECK OUT THE NEW DEVCOIN FORUMS
http://homegrownsouth.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=14

[FinShaggy]

We should bring more attention to the bounties, and getting people to start new projects. The more goods and services you can use DVC on, the more it will be worth

[killerstorm]

Sorry, perhaps I've missed something, have you already selected top five projects?

If not, when?

[FinShaggy]

Sorry, perhaps I've missed something, have you already selected top five projects?

If not, when?

They will get to it, don't worry. They are always working on tons of stuff.

[killerstorm]

How about a stock/share in a hosted ASIC miner? Merged mining preferably

Glari Mining Project works like that (GMP): https://cryptostocks.com/securities/9

There is also DVC security based on it (DVB): https://cryptostocks.com/securities/14

But relationship between two isn't clear. to be honest. I think DVB owns some of GMP shares.

[FinShaggy]

DevSeed Project:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=240703.msg2550718#msg2550718

[The Goat Master]

Is this still open?

[markm]

The delay in obtaining ASICs has been delaying one possible workaround for the lack of merged mining pool software that divides up the merged coins based on how much hashing was contributed.

The workaround I am thinking of is to divvy up the merged coins based on share of ownership of a mining operation that merged mines.

The overheads on such an operation are such that until ASICs are actually in hand and hashing the shares would not look particularly appealing to potential buyers of shares. For example so far i have two dedicated servers out on the net and have ordered a third, because running all the chains to be merged plus the p2pool instance to merge them all while still having all the chains responsive enough to keep the p2pool supplied with work from all the chains promptly takes quite a bit of resources especially with I0Coin and GeistGeld in the merge.

The puny amount of hashing I am currently able to direct at that p2pool instance results in the overhead costs eating a whole lot of the income, so shares of the whole operation at this time would not look very appealing, being largely a share of the overhead costs.

Once all the ASICs arrive (if any of them actually do arrive) the operation overall will look a lot more attractive, albeit by then maybe having absorbed all the overhead costs all these months and gone through all the overhead work of arranging space and power and cooling enough to accomodate them I won't find the idea of divvying the operation up appealing. But I will have the experience of what it takes to be able to seriously consider launching an entire new similar operation that is a divvied up by shares from its inception...

Also, divvying up the actual merged coins need not be how such a thing would operate. it could include trading too, selling all the coins for devcoins.

Then either pay dividends in devcoins or, which i actually prefer to using dividends, be a growth operation that just keeps on buying back shares people want to sell and buying more hashing gear to expand its mining operation.

I prefer a retained earnings operation that buys back shares (and sells them for more than it buys them back at, of course) because it makes people who want to cash out actually have to cash out instead of being able to sit on shares forever while still getting cash out; and also because dividends cause fluctuations in the market price of shares, usually some kind of sawtoothed wave effect.

It seems more reasonable to me that if someone wants cash out the act of cashing out should be an opportunity for someone else to put cash in, thus that cashing out should be by means of selling shares rather than by means of being issued dividends. Also of course all the overhead work and administration of doing dividends is thus avoided making the operation presumably to some extent more efficient than if it did have the whole dividends thing to deal with regularly.

-MarkM-

[skull88]

and 3D models and other stock art that can be released freely with whatever an artist ends up building with it.

Would be pretty great if there was a place you could download high quality opensource imagefiles and send a donation to the artist.
There are sites that offer for example vectorfiles and psd files but you don't always know if you can use them or there is no way to tip the creator.

I would love such a site. 

[The Goat Master]

and 3D models and other stock art that can be released freely with whatever an artist ends up building with it.

Would be pretty great if there was a place you could download high quality opensource imagefiles and send a donation to the artist.
There are sites that offer for example vectorfiles and psd files but you don't always know if you can use them or there is no way to tip the creator.

I would love such a site. 

Off topic, but I like your avatar skull, where did you get it?

[skull88]

and 3D models and other stock art that can be released freely with whatever an artist ends up building with it.

Would be pretty great if there was a place you could download high quality opensource imagefiles and send a donation to the artist.
There are sites that offer for example vectorfiles and psd files but you don't always know if you can use them or there is no way to tip the creator.

I would love such a site. 

Off topic, but I like your avatar skull, where did you get it?

Made it myself a long time ago.

http://bitcoin.nl/graphics

[The Goat Master]

when does voting start?
by the way, markm, you have some very intelligent ideas! 

[termhn]

when does voting start?
by the way, markm, you have some very intelligent ideas! 

Yeah, mark always goes super in depth, probably more so than is necessary