MasterCoin: New Protocol Layer Starting From “The Exodus Address”

[superfluouso]

Perhaps Killerstorm would be interested.  As it is, he appears to already be dedicating more time to mastercoin than colored coins anyways.

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[Tachikoma]

"Mastercoin is a joke": http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1rpx26/mastercoin_is_a_joke/

Would someone knowledgeable please care to limit damage?

Seriously this is so childish. Mastercoin is one big experience and we are still trying to figure everything out as we go. I really don't get why you, Killerstorm, are on such a witch-hunt to bring so much negative attention to the project. What do you think to gain by this?

I'm out. I just want to build cool technologies, I don't feel like being sucked in to your negative spiral of attention. I have enough going on in my life not to be soaked in by internet-drama.

[killerstorm]

Killerstorm had some valid concerns around it. Unfortunately, this project seems to lack the technical leadership at this time to have adequately responded to his questions and factored his concerns into the development process. He probably got a bit miffed and then took it publicly.

You're one of few people who gets it.

[rbdrbd]

"Mastercoin is a joke": http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1rpx26/mastercoin_is_a_joke/

Would someone knowledgeable please care to limit damage?

Seriously this is so childish. Mastercoin is one big experience and we are still trying to figure everything out as we go. I really don't get why you, Killerstorm, are on such a witch-hunt to bring so much negative attention to the project. What do you think to gain by this?

I'm out. I just want to build cool technologies, I don't feel like being sucked in to your negative spiral of attention. I have enough going on in my life not to be soaked in by internet-drama.

Tachikoma I agree that his execution was in poor form. Try not to let the negativity get to you. This project just seems to be going through its first crisis. Most any startup will have this experience. What matters is not as much that it happened, but how the leadership reacts, pivots, and adapts in response to it. If the board is open to outside views, bringing in some experienced hands, and listening to the community, then I am fully on board with a bright future for Mastercoin. If it does not change or adapt, then this will have been an interesting, but failed, experiment. Ball is in their court right now.

And what I said about the project lacking technical leadership has nothing to do with you or any of the other devs. You guys are doing about as great a job as part-time volunteer devs could do. I am more speaking about the fact that it needs a full-time team. That full-time person that executes along on a solid quality control process for the core components is lacking right now. That's all.

[killerstorm]

Perhaps Killerstorm would be interested.

I'm not interested, but I have few recommendations on how to fix the immediate problem, see below.

As it is, he appears to already be dedicating more time to mastercoin than colored coins anyways.

I was temporary distracted by mastercoin for a couple of days (I wasn't very productive with code anyway, for a couple of reasons). But three other developers are working on colored coin software now (NGCCC), so it's not like we aren't making progress...

So, recommendations... First of all, try to hire security people (practicing cryptographers, basically) and ask them to help to fix surface problems.

Something like this:

1. disable everything except simple send and decentralized exchange. as few as possible things need to be enabled
2. if possible, restrict decentralized exchange
3. compartmentalize distributed exchange feature: people should be able to tell whether coins came to them only through simple sends, or whether decentralized exchange was involved. paranoid people would want coins of the first kind.
4. introduce a notion of a reference implementation, say, Tachikoma's one. if people disagree about how to implement the spec, they should look into how it is implemented in the reference one. (This is how it works for Bitcoin: Satoshi's implementation is the reference, and people who make other implementations had to read its source code.)
5. make it versioned. Say, current rules are guaranteed to be valid until block 300000. At that point old version of instalable clients will stop and ask user to upgrade. This way you can enable more and more features gradually without compromising the security.

Then it is at least workable...

HTH

[Tachikoma]

Perhaps Killerstorm would be interested.

I'm not interested, but I have few recommendations on how to fix the immediate problem, see below.

As it is, he appears to already be dedicating more time to mastercoin than colored coins anyways.

I was temporary distracted by mastercoin for a couple of days (I wasn't very productive with code anyway, for a couple of reasons). But three other developers are working on colored coin software now (NGCCC), so it's not like we aren't making progress...

So, recommendations... First of all, try to hire security people (practicing cryptographers, basically) and ask them to help to fix surface problems.

Something like this:

1. disable everything except simple send and decentralized exchange. as few as possible things need to be enabled

Everything is already disabled.

2. if possible, restrict decentralized exchange

How would you propose restricting it? Currently none of the clients allow it. That should be restriction enough. I opened it up once to get some test results into the blockchain, this gave us a lot of valuable information and I'm still happy I did it.

3. compartmentalize distributed exchange feature: people should be able to tell whether coins came to them only through simple sends, or whether decentralized exchange was involved. paranoid people would want coins of the first kind.

We should have done this from the start. Register a handful of MSC addresses that are 'allowed' to do these transactions before the protocol officially supports it. It's the only way to safely develop new features.

4. introduce a notion of a reference implementation, say, Tachikoma's one. if people disagree about how to implement the spec, they should look into how it is implemented in the reference one. (This is how it works for Bitcoin: Satoshi's implementation is the reference, and people who make other implementations had to read its source code.)

Full transparency; I already suggested this to J.R. I asked him if somebody, perhaps even me, could get the rights to make the decision on trivial things that are unclear in the spec and if I (or somebody else) would be allowed to create a portable reference implementation that could be comparable to bitcoind.  

5. make it versioned. Say, current rules are guaranteed to be valid until block 300000. At that point old version of instalable clients will stop and ask user to upgrade. This way you can enable more and more features gradually without compromising the security.

I believe this was always the plan.

I will give you one thing. We are quickly getting to the point that we need more leadership. I've tried to fill in where I could but it's just not doable anymore. The worst thing about Mastercoin is that it already has value. If it was up to me I probably would have done that differently but it's too late for that now. It is out there, people gave it value and we have to work with what we got. If Mastercoin wouldn't have any monetory value nobody would have given a rat's ass about how it was all handled.

[rbdrbd]

Something like this:

1. disable everything except simple send and decentralized exchange. as few as possible things need to be enabled
2. if possible, restrict decentralized exchange
3. compartmentalize distributed exchange feature: people should be able to tell whether coins came to them only through simple sends, or whether decentralized exchange was involved. paranoid people would want coins of the first kind.
4. introduce a notion of a reference implementation, say, Tachikoma's one. if people disagree about how to implement the spec, they should look into how it is implemented in the reference one. (This is how it works for Bitcoin: Satoshi's implementation is the reference, and people who make other implementations had to read its source code.)
5. make it versioned. Say, current rules are guaranteed to be valid until block 300000. At that point old version of instalable clients will stop and ask user to upgrade. This way you can enable more and more features gradually without compromising the security.

Then it is at least workable...

HTH

All good recommendations.

[killerstorm]

Seriously this is so childish.

Sorry, but it's you being childish. It was the only way to get your attention, otherwise you just dismissed me.

Also, it was a very bad idea to enable distributed exchange on real MSC. Now there are transactions in the wild, so you can't retroactively enable the rule like "only simple sends are allowed before block 300000, other Mastercoin transactions are ignored" without pissing somebody off.

I hope you understand that enabling something on mastercoin-explorer.com can have dire consequences, as it's probably the first site people look at. You're playing with other people's money.

I really don't get why you, Killerstorm, are on such a witch-hunt to bring so much negative attention to the project. What do you think to gain by this?

Most likely I won't get anything, but Mastercoin project now has a chance to make security the top priority, which can prevent people from being scammed, and thus can prevent PR disaster.

Let me tell you something: there is a lot of very clever hackers, finding a way how to scam people using this distributed exchange thingie is pretty much trivial for them. What they normally do is much, much more complex.

There are people who know both the tech side and social engineering. It is only a matter of time before they notice this.

[Ola]

"Mastercoin is a joke": http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1rpx26/mastercoin_is_a_joke/

Would someone knowledgeable please care to limit damage?

Killerstorm had some valid concerns around it. Unfortunately, this project seems to lack the technical leadership at this time to have adequately responded to his questions and factored his concerns into the development process. He probably got a bit miffed and then took it publicly.

There is development process control that is sorely lacking on this project currently (and I say that as a dev with 18+ years professional experience that has been working with the existing mastercoin code as I structure a new tool around it). I have several ideas how this can be improved, and would be happy to speak with David or Ron, or anyone else on the board about it if they are interested.

Basically, in the end it's reason #5,490 for hiring a full-time team. On the operational side, this comes down to effective delegation...hiring decisions are the absolute most important decisions one can make. How Ron is running around clearly overwhelmed reminds me of how I used to be before I learned how to effectively hire, delegate, and train new employees. Now my business largely runs itself. Not a critique of Ron himself, and I cannot assume I know exactly what is going on on his end...more just saying that the board needs more dedicated folks with previous operational-level business leadership to help Ron scale out, which I see as Mastercoin's main problem right now. The fact that he just ran off and found someone additional for the board and mentioned it in passing on this thread really irks me. And, if there are people on the board that are "too busy", why are they on the board to begin with?

Anyhow, we need someone like killerstorm leading the charge on the core protocol implementation, to ensure stable growth and backwards compatibility as required. With the budget of this project, why is this so hard to do? If it is really that hard to find people to work for MSC, then offer fiat or BTC at first. At this point, we just need the right talent. It's good to see David in there attempting to diffuse the situation, but we're playing reactive damage control here.

EDIT: I was asked my bitexch if I would be interested in applying for a board seat. Initially, my response was no, however at this point I would be open to it. I do have an active business, but I could contribute around 15 or so hours a week most weeks, and act as an advisor if there is value seen in that. My goal would be to help get things back on track in a solid way, and then look to reducing my involvement/stepping out. Ron has my resume/linkedin. If there is interest, feel free to reach out. That, or I'd be more than happy to not be on the board, and just volunteer my services in an advisory/sounding board manner. I would even potentially be up to meeting you guys in person in Vegas on the 10-12th, however, let me know in the next few days.

And, I must say that any criticisms I offer on this project come with the intention of making it better. I still strongly support this project, I think it just needs a few more experienced hands to help the existing dedicated devs and board members.

+100000000000000000

JR, however, has publicly stated he will spend more time with his family.

That's his complete right.

Who doubted JR's right to spend time with his family? Of course he can spend time with his family, but that certainly does mean he will spend less time on Mastercoin. Rather than invoking high-flown words like "rights", just ask yourself the following question: if there are two developers of comparable skill who are competing for the same job and salary, and one of them says he is willing to work 60 hours and the other says he is willing to work 40 hours, which one will you choose?

In general when I'm hiring people for Mastercoin, I never state any expectations of hours, just the expectation of a "50% position", "100% position", or whatever. It is up to J.R to manage how much he believes his 100% should be in terms of hours, according to his preferences.

This is absurd. Traditionally, one's boss does not ask one how many hours he would like to work, why should Mastercoin be an exception to this?!

This is also why I am uncomfortable with your suggestion that you and JR not get paid; if there is no salary involved than expectations become less rigorous. I would love for both of you to continue to work on the project, but I think that only salaried employees should be counted as full-time developers, as it will make things less ambiguous.

Many venture capitalist and private equity firms expect 60-80 hours a week from their employees, and they often have much less money and much less room for growth than Mastercoin.

I can't emphasize enough that Mastercoin is *not* the only project of its kind, and that the other projects are catching up!

Mastercoin is a $100 million project with lots of room for growth. It's absolutely ludicrous that we should have to beg an important member of the community to devote time to it.

EDIT: Ron, my general point is that you are not considering things as wholly from the perspective of the success of the Mastercoin project as you ought to. You are certainly entitled to the belief that Mastercoin devs don't have to commit to working a minimum number of hours each week, but it's possible that one of the projects competing with Mastercoin *does* have more stringent demands of its developers, and will accordingly complete its development first. If you are willing to maintain your principles, even when they endanger the success of the Mastercoin project, that is your decision. However, you (and the rest of the board) owe it to the investors to say so explicitly, that way we can decide whether we want to invest our money elsewhere.

EDIT 2: I am sorry to double-post, but so far only vokain has answered rbdrbd's question, and I think it is in the interest of the Mastercoin community to know the background of its board: "Do we have anyone on the board that has "boot on the ground" operational experience growing profitable software/tech startups with more than 5-10 employees?"

+1000000000000000000


I am just going to echo and support all the point of view I believe now, because writing is getting a lil futile...maybe this little flame will get the board in general moving on hiring, organization and efficiency. Like it was stated on that thread: "First and foremost you need to improve your process, not the spec and not software." we need a better structure even Tachikoma is getting tired of the harp hazard process. Even killerstorm is working against his best interest to help out. Listen, we can take the criticism use it to learn and build to improve what we are doing or we can.....do the opposite is not even an option. Again Ron...If other things need to be forfeited for a little to organize hire and structure please do so.


and this----------->"The fact that he just ran off and found someone additional for the board and mentioned it in passing on this thread really irks me. And, if there are people on the board that are "too busy", why are they on the board to begin with?" 

I think we deserve to know.

[grishnakh]

The thing is to learn from the community. Learn what is wrong and do something about it. The Bitcoin community is quite negative about Mastercoin at the moment. Some are openly hostile. The thing is to not get stuck on the FUD, but real concerns like some things killerstorm has pointed out.

[bitexch]

Tachikoma's decision to quit further once again proves that we need to have a developer who wants to engage with the political side of the project and represent the developers as a community, so that those who are not interested in politics and managing can simply develop. Tachikoma just wanted to create cool programs, but instead he had to, at least indirectly, get involved in a political debate, and this has made him decide to quit.

Tachikoma's decision to quit also shows why we absolutely need salaried workers: if a full-time developer quit, we would have two weeks to find new developers and mitigate the damage, whereas now the damage is immediate and probably much more serious.

JR's last post was November 27, and that was only to champion his pet-project of selling 5000 of our Bitcoins to buy Mastercoins! His last post that directly addressed the Mastercoin protocol was November 25! The fact that anyone needs to be convinced that JR is not fulfilling his duties as a board member just shows that the point has not been seriously enough addressed.

rbdrbd is consistently engaged and alert regarding both the managerial and tecnhical aspects of the Mastercoin project. I fully support his nomination to the board. I recommend we have a formal - though unofficial - vote on it. If the community is interested, I will set it up.

[Patel]

Tachikoma's decision to quit further once again proves that we need to have a developer who wants to engage with the political side of the project and represent the developers as a community, so that those who are not interested in politics and managing can simply develop. Tachikoma just wanted to create cool programs, but instead he had to, at least indirectly, get involved in a political debate, and this has made him decide to quit.

Tachikoma's decision to quit also shows why we absolutely need salaried workers: if a full-time developer quit, we would have two weeks to find new developers and mitigate the damage, whereas now the damage is immediate and probably much more serious.

JR's last post was November 27, and that was only to champion his pet-project of selling 90% of our Bitcoins to buy Mastercoins! His last post that directly addressed the Mastercoin protocol was November 25! The fact that anyone needs to be convinced that JR is not fulfilling his duties as a board member just shows that the point has not been seriously enough addressed.

rbdrbd is consistently engaged and alert regarding both the managerial and tecnhical aspects of the Mastercoin project. I fully support his nomination to the board. I recommend we have a formal - though unofficial - vote on it If the community is interested, I will set it up.

He hasn't quit. Or maybe I missed something?

[Ola]

Tachikoma's decision to quit further once again proves that we need to have a developer who wants to engage with the political side of the project and represent the developers as a community, so that those who are not interested in politics and managing can simply develop. Tachikoma just wanted to create cool programs, but instead he had to, at least indirectly, get involved in a political debate, and this has made him decide to quit.

Tachikoma's decision to quit also shows why we absolutely need salaried workers: if a full-time developer quit, we would have two weeks to find new developers and mitigate the damage, whereas now the damage is immediate and probably much more serious.

JR's last post was November 27, and that was only to champion his pet-project of selling 90% of our Bitcoins to buy Mastercoins! His last post that directly addressed the Mastercoin protocol was November 25! The fact that anyone needs to be convinced that JR is not fulfilling his duties as a board member just shows that the point has not been seriously enough addressed.

rbdrbd is consistently engaged and alert regarding both the managerial and tecnhical aspects of the Mastercoin project. I fully support his nomination to the board. I recommend we have a formal - though unofficial - vote on it If the community is interested, I will set it up.

+10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

I too support rbdrbd nomination as long as he promises to continue to be persistent, transparent with his efforts

[bitexch]

and this----------->"The fact that he just ran off and found someone additional for the board and mentioned it in passing on this thread really irks me. And, if there are people on the board that are "too busy", why are they on the board to begin with?" 

I think we deserve to know.

+1!

[bitexch]

Tachikoma's decision to quit further once again proves that we need to have a developer who wants to engage with the political side of the project and represent the developers as a community, so that those who are not interested in politics and managing can simply develop. Tachikoma just wanted to create cool programs, but instead he had to, at least indirectly, get involved in a political debate, and this has made him decide to quit.

Tachikoma's decision to quit also shows why we absolutely need salaried workers: if a full-time developer quit, we would have two weeks to find new developers and mitigate the damage, whereas now the damage is immediate and probably much more serious.

JR's last post was November 27, and that was only to champion his pet-project of selling 90% of our Bitcoins to buy Mastercoins! His last post that directly addressed the Mastercoin protocol was November 25! The fact that anyone needs to be convinced that JR is not fulfilling his duties as a board member just shows that the point has not been seriously enough addressed.

rbdrbd is consistently engaged and alert regarding both the managerial and tecnhical aspects of the Mastercoin project. I fully support his nomination to the board. I recommend we have a formal - though unofficial - vote on it If the community is interested, I will set it up.

He hasn't quit. Or maybe I missed something?

I believe the following comment is pretty unambiguous, though if I have misinterpreted it, I apologize.

I'm out. I just want to build cool technologies, I don't feel like being sucked in to your negative spiral of attention. I have enough going on in my life not to be soaked in by internet-drama.

[Ola]

"Mastercoin is a joke": http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1rpx26/mastercoin_is_a_joke/

Would someone knowledgeable please care to limit damage?

Seriously this is so childish. Mastercoin is one big experience and we are still trying to figure everything out as we go. I really don't get why you, Killerstorm, are on such a witch-hunt to bring so much negative attention to the project. What do you think to gain by this?

I'm out. I just want to build cool technologies, I don't feel like being sucked in to your negative spiral of attention. I have enough going on in my life not to be soaked in by internet-drama.

I'm out. I just want to build cool technologies, I am not sure what this means...but this is what happens when bounties are our core competency...our make shift lead cannot not take the chaos anymore...

Tachikoma will you reconsider under a better structured organization comprising of a lead, a more organized dev team, salary, perks and clear goals??

[W2014]

"Mastercoin is a joke": http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1rpx26/mastercoin_is_a_joke/

Would someone knowledgeable please care to limit damage?

Isn't the thread starter the same guy that is developing colored coins, the competitor? LOL

I suppose we should create a thread "Colorcoins is a joke" but we are better than that.

People are simply jealous of the funding and/or implied market cap of Mastercoin. Otherwise, why pay attention to us?

Having said that, I think it is abundantly clear that we need to get our leadership in order. We cannot lose developers like Tachikoma. He's been doing a fantastic job.

We have the funds. Now we need to execute on the promise. The board needs to be decisive and make decisions for the good of the project and all Mastercoin holders/investors. I am confident that they will do so.

First order of business is to hire someone to manage the technical side of the project.

 

[bitexch]

Killerstorm is a pussy.  He has worked his ass off for Colored Coins - and it is worth nothing.  And it is going nowhere.  In the meantime, a few rag-tag programmers are building the coolest thing in the world.  It is valued at about 100 million already.  Of course killerstorm is pissed and he is going to be flinging shit around like a gorilla at the zoo who just had his wife raped.  So what?!  Killerstorm can point to some of our problems?  Big deal.  Mastercoin does have some struggles.  Did anyone think this was going to work straight out of the box?  No way.  No one.  

Mastercoin has some stuff which needs to be worked out.  But don't go crazy because jealous bitches like Killerstorm and Hearn and others are freaking out about the cool kickstarter success JR managed to pull off.  The core of the project is still excellent and exciting.  Do we have programming struggles?  Sure - we will for many months to come.  So what - lets tackle them.  But the naysayers are all simply bummed they didn't bet on the right horse.  It is nothing.  Carry on making a great project.  

While I agree with the generally hopeful sentiment of your post, I think it is couched in gratuitously crude terms. Even if killerstorm's posts were unnecessarily aggressive, he made concrete criticisms of the Mastercoin project, which regardless of how they were phrased, need to be addressed.

That said, I don't think you should be completely certain in the success of the Mastercoin project. Even if the technical difficulties we run into are ultimately surmountable, we will still need effective management in order to deal with them, and that is precisely what we are lacking now.

[killerstorm]

Isn't the thread starter the same guy that is developing colored coins, the competitor? LOL

I mentioned it in the last paragraph, didn't I?

If I was mean I would not write an article, I would write code and demonstrate exploit in practice.

You gotta understand the context: I tried to explain this politely first. See here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=106373.msg3734731#msg3734731

If I was malicious, why would I explain how to fix issues? Note that it was 1 day ago.

I suppose we should create a thread "Colorcoins is a joke" but we are better than that.

Well, you should try, that would be hilarious.

[bitexch]

Killerstorm is pointing out flaws - as if we have a battle ready system to be released to the public tomorrow.  We don't Big deal.  Our current state is disheveled and disorderly.  It was not intended to be 'rad' hard - yet.  Killer storm can say all day long how our management is bad, our security is low, et cetera.  The bottom line is Mastercoin is worth 100million because people believe in it.  Nobody believes that garbage he is working on.  Colored Coins isn't worth anything. 

If I were a very smart guy who worked my ass off for many years - and they got usurped by a project like mastercoin - I'd point to all the flaws too.  Mastercoin has flaws- big deal.  Don't let killerstorm shit on Tachikoma. Our project if VERY new.  It is incomplete.  If Colored coins guys come around pointing to flaws - who cares.  It is a badge.  They aer so fucking seriously jealous of Mastercoin's success to date.  It is not done.  It is not ready for release.  They should just shut up - and join the guys already going down a great path. 

JR - maybe you can kick down a few MSC to guys like killerstorm to get him to shut up and join the effort.  Colored Coins is a very dumb model with nowhere to go as the funding mechanism is non-existent.  Mastercoin has the opposite problem and we are throwing $70,000/month to each of our developers. 

Is it any surprise killerstorm is pissed?  He can't stand the fact that Tachikoma, zathras and bitboy are getting 2X his yearly salary every month.  I'll say it again, killerstorm is a pussy.  Every day he continues to throw shit around and bad mouth our project - he is even deeper in that stupid shit hole he was in yesterday.  He should just abandon colored coin and join a winning project.  If he had any brains, he could ourcode our guys and win an appreciable part of the pie in no time.  Pride is a bitch.

I don't think it's constructive to psychologize as to why killerstorm is pointing out flaws with Mastercoin. The point is that those flaws are real.

And, incidentally, whether Colored coins is a bad idea has nothing to do with whether Mastercoin is a good idea.