TIL Bitcoin is NOT open source software

[ELI85]

Hmm...

This is an entire, global market you are playing with, not a piece of open
source software.
--
Tom Zander

I'm new here, but this guy's scary.

https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-ml/2017-October/000353.html

[merve10495]

I do not believe that you fully understand what is being said in the article.

Bitcoin is open source, you can find the Bitcoin core repository at https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin.
Although I only read the section which you linked and not the entire transcript I believe what is being said is that bitcoin should no longer be treated as an 'open source project' allowing drastic changes (example; fork after fork with bitcoin cash, bitcoin gold etc.) as it is now a global economy with a healthy market.

^Not my views above, just what I believe the speaker is trying to get across.

[ELI85]

I think I correctly interpret Tom Zander's comment as an admission that he thinks Bitcoin will have greater value if it is Centralized, Censurable, not Anonymous, and subject to diktat.

I think he may be nothing more than an elitist snake-oil salesman whose interest in others' opinions is solely for the purpose of virtue signalling.

At the very least he completely ignores the fact that there would not be a "entire, global market" for bitcoin if it were NOT open source.

He may as well assert that the price of gold would be higher if it wasn't so damn shiny.

[BillyBobZorton]

Looks like an /r/btc nutjob. Who is this guy anyway? Can't be bothered to read across his world salads, but it doesn't sound good in principle. The whole point of bitcoin is that it is open source, and it follows certain rules, which cannot be broken without 100% consensus otherwise you are creating an altcoin, everything else is a waste of time and im not bothering reading these walls of text so if you want to give a TL;DR go for it.

[Bolt Brownie]

I think bitcoin is one of the most secure and stable crypto currencies out there. Bitcoin is not number 1 just because it was the first to appear. We never have any major issues with it, and I trust the dev team that is working on it. Things that are done, and fixes that are done, need to be "approved" by the community by showing their support of use, and I think it should continue like that. It looks like that guy suggest that bitcoin development should be handled by a private company or something like that, but I don't agree with it.

[pitham1]

The millions of alts out there, the forks which are being created every month, this is proof about Bitcoin being open source software. People are free to modify it as they choose. Right from Litecoin, most alts are cheap rip offs of Bitcoin. The ones which carry 'Bitcoin' in their name are no different.

[ImHash]

I think I correctly interpret Tom Zander's comment as an admission that he thinks Bitcoin will have greater value if it is Centralized, Censurable, not Anonymous, and subject to diktat.

I think he may be nothing more than an elitist snake-oil salesman whose interest in others' opinions is solely for the purpose of virtue signalling.

At the very least he completely ignores the fact that there would not be a "entire, global market" for bitcoin if it were NOT open source.

He may as well assert that the price of gold would be higher if it wasn't so damn shiny.

Gold is not valuable just because it shines. imagine dollar being a free currency for every person to print and spend with everyone else accept the printed dollars from others but something you'll have to add to your imagination is: There are only 21,000,000 piece of papers which are accepted by the printing machines, those who print earlier than others will have more dollar bills and with an economy thirsty for freedom from governments, you'll have many people trying to use these dollars. What bitcoin developers are doing for years, they are well aware of these concerns and they do everything considering those concerns.