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

[killerstorm]

Killerstorm is a pussy.  He has worked his ass off for Colored Coins - and it is worth nothing.

Nice try. Well, colored coins are not supposed to be worth anything, it's just a concept, a technology.

When people will issue securities using this approach, those securities will be worth something. But I won't get anything from it, of course.

It isn't about "market cap".

FYI currently I'm financing colored coins project out of my own pocket now. And it costs a lot. Say, developers got 7.5 BTC for the last week. A problem with funding just doesn't exist. (I have to thank Bitcoin price for it: it wasn't possible when it was $100.)

And it is going nowhere.

I've spent two months on making a new client, and it is almost ready...

FYI at some point J.R. proposed to make Mastercoin-style colored coins, and I killed that proposal.

[1715017699]

1715017699

[1715017699]

1715017699

[1715017699]

1715017699

[1715017699]

1715017699

[aTriz]

How about we keep this thread to making MasterCoin better, not calling each other names and being childish.

[bitexch]

killerstorm, why don't you just ignore DGulari? He hasn't made a substantive attack against Colored coins (which, from what I know of it, seems like a very interesting technology, and I find it admirable that you're not seeking a proft), and you guys are just flooding the thread...

[rbdrbd]

Guys, here’s my pie in the sky proposal. I wanted to throw it out there as a starting point in how to get this project back on the tracks and moving forward. I invested time into this proposal, as well as discussing it with my business partner, so I would highly appreciate if someone from the board would take 10 minutes and speak to me directly about it, even if the answer is a "no".
---------------
I think we can pretty much all agree that the 900lb problem with things at the current point is that there is no dedicated dev team, and there is a lack of process control/procedure. The current devs we have have done a great job getting us to this point, but they are only working part time (due to their perfectly understandable need to sustain themselves and pay their bills). We sorely need a dedicated team that can work on the core part of Mastercoin, and serve as a lynchpin over which the community ecosystem can form.

Our background

I happen to be an entrepreneur that runs a 15-20 person company (exact size fluctuates and it’s been rapidly growing lately) that both provides services and software for medium to large enterprises. My company has a demonstrable and proven history -- which I can disclose at the proper time, if this gains interest -- in developing software products for numerous Fortune 100 companies and the government, and managed services that we sell for 400-600K per year per client, with very high quality and up-time requirements, and very stringent process control (we play with the big boys). We have a dedicated dev team of 3 developers, and around 10 other engineers. We are entirely self-funded and profitable, with no debt.

I have over 18 years of professional software development experience, and have experience building and running numerous development teams (both on-site and distributed). I have written and sold software and IP that is in use by companies like Samsung, Nestle Waters, US FAA, US DOD, Cisco, etc. (the latter being an actual Cisco product that I developed for them). My business partner, with whom I have worked with for over 14 years in a variety of capacities, is a Cisco CCIE with experience as a CTO for a 1000+ person company, as well as at a number of startups. We have been watching and have both formed quite an interest in virtual currencies.

The proposal

In the interests of taking action and keeping Mastercoin at the forefront, I’m going to put forward a somewhat aggressive proposal here to the community and the board. For the right incentive (which I will get into), we will do the following:

• Hire and incubate a small dev team. Probably start with one team of 2-5, then grow. I have a highly qualified dev I could assign over full-time from my ranks immediately (as well as another one I could enlist as-needed). I am also in touch with a highly talented bitcoin developer in the community that is interested, plus we could utilize the existing mastercoin developers if they are interested (Tachikoma, zathras, etc). My company has a talented in-house recruiter as well if we need to bring in other folks. The goal is NOT to take over mastercoin development, or shut out the current developers, but to give Mastercoin that dedicated "core-team-in-a-box" it needs at least at this time, to allow it to move forward. Like I said, existing developers are welcome to join, if full-time makes sense for them.
• Dev team would utilize scrum (e.g. sprint.ly and github). I could serve as the team lead if the board and community desired. We could fold the PM that Ron is bringing on into this team, or if necessary assign one of our own existing PMs over to it.
• We take my masterdaemon I'm working on, convert zathras or tachikoma's code to python and strap it in (or use the integration with zathras’ library itself that’s already built-in), and make that the reference client. It would work just like bitcoind for bitcoin -- docs in development are at http://masterdaemon.readthedocs.org/en/latest/index.html, code is on github).  Existing library development would continue as-is, but I believe the team needs a reference library/client to focus on at least for now, to avoid duplication of efforts (do not confuse this with me trying to pick favorites among the developers - the choice would be purely what makes the most technical and time sense)
• The team will focus on this client/library and other core tools first, and whatever else makes sense second.
• We would institute coding standards and QA standards, have 2-4 week dev cycles, burndown chart, community feedback procedures/policy to get and order items on the task backlog, etc.
• We would also implement the recommendations killerstorm made (in our client and working in conjunction with the other devs). I noticed the same problems he did and they are good recommendations.
• It would take probably around 3-4 weeks to get this in place if doing it full-time. I have a lot of it already done for our existing dev team.
• A separate LLC would probably be formed to do this. Team salaries could be paid for from the existing Mastercoin fund, or we may even pay our own internal guys ourselves for this initial period, if the incentive was generous enough.
• Our team would work off of the task list ordered by the community and the Mastercoin foundation members, in a democratic process. Beyond this, we would have final say over the running of our own team (as well as the people chosen). This is non-negotiable -- we need latitude to best run our team without a heap of politics -- let the performance speak for itself. However, what we work on is largely dictated by the community and board, and the Mastercoin foundation would of course be free to form a second dev team to work on complementary efforts, as they see fit. Our teams would coordinate via the PMs.

We actually specialize in getting into really messed up multi-million dollar projects/situations and getting a handle on them. I can point to several examples, with large hospital chains, commercial banks, etc. I have made all of these recommendations earlier, but it fell on deaf ears. I am bringing this up again now because I look at where this project is at, and straightening things out is something that could easily be handled with the right approach. We should have a bitcoin expert on the team, but beyond that, we can utilize developers with more commodity skillsets, since they will be building on standard interfaces such as JSON-RPC and SQL. We deal with this stuff every day, day in and day out.

What do we get out of it?

As part of doing this, we would commit to at least 6 months to 1 year of working on Mastercoin, and, upon the condition of this period being fulfilled, as well as multiple established milestones set by the community being reached during that period, our group would be entitled to some amount of MSC (and possibly BTC) from the dev MSC fund and/or JR as a reward. Depending on where things are at after this period, we can continue to move things along for much more modest pay, or collect our check and transition out of it -into the Mastercoin's foundations own dev teams and/or the community development community (which will be much more mature by that time, no doubt).

If there are any 3rd party devs on our team, a similar deal could be set up with them.

According to this link: http://mastercoin-explorer.com/addresses/15WrQhYhHts7jTMoGJ9rDCD12JuCTKy7MM

JR received around 53,000 mastercoins as a bonus alone (which, in itself is controversial to some members of the community – given he controlled the wallet he sent the funds to and thus had an arguably lower risk). Moreover, the Mastercoin dev fund will have 50-something thousand vesting on top of that. There is both ample Mastercoin and bitcoin here to carry this out and ensure that that Mastercoin retains and grows value in the long run. JR will still have way too many mastercoins () and the community gets a solid effort with a good chance of success.

As entrepreneurs, we are motivated by upside. This is risky, and I am potentially putting the health of my company up for grabs because I so believe in this idea. Thus, I want a large upside.


Benefits

The benefit from the community is clear:

• A dedicated dev team backed by individuals with proven experience is immediately formed
• The team quickly moves forward on keeping Mastercoin’s first-mover advantage
• If the team does not perform, it does not get paid
• The risk to the community is quite low (definitely much lower than the alternative of doing nothing)
• The community retains say over the order of features implemented, and the general development direction of Mastercoin

At the right time (i.e. if the board is interested in this proposal), I would be open to naming my company, and allowing the community to look us up.

-Robby

[rbdrbd]

I've been following and invested in Mastercoin from the start and you've summed up exactly what this project needs and no one yet involved is capable of/ willing to provide for it to survive and flourish. I hope this proposition is given serious consideration.

I appreciate the positive feedback. Like I said, we build products and services for a living. Mastercoin is not magical. The same approaches used to successfully complete a project for a large financial or healthcare client, for instance, can be employed here. In the end, it's about having solid people, process and tools (in that order).

[jquinn]

...you've summed up exactly what this project needs and no one yet involved is capable of/ willing to provide for it to survive and flourish. I hope this proposition is given serious consideration.

Agreed. +1 for serious consideration

[aTriz]

...you've summed up exactly what this project needs and no one yet involved is capable of/ willing to provide for it to survive and flourish. I hope this proposition is given serious consideration.

Agreed. +1 for serious consideration

Agreed. +1

[JohnnyBTCSeed]

*pop*!

That was my head exploding trying to follow the last few pages of posts...

Jeeze people smoke a spliff already, this thread is turning into a circus. Oh wait, it's been a circus from day one, hell of a ride!

[crazy_rabbit]

Guys, here’s my pie in the sky proposal. ........

-Robby

Brilliant. As a mastercoin owner from the exodus address myself, this read like exactly what we need, and something I was thinking about from earlier today. Run this like a company, there is certainly enough money in the fund, and paying a hefty chunk out to a real company that can get it working and thus make everyones mastercoin's more valuable is priceless.

+1

[W2014]

Guys, here’s my pie in the sky proposal. I wanted to throw it out there as a starting point in how to get this project back on the tracks and moving forward. I invested time into this proposal, as well as discussing it with my business partner, so I would highly appreciate if someone from the board would take 10 minutes and speak to me directly about it, even if the answer is a "no".
---------------
I think we can pretty much all agree that the 900lb problem with things at the current point is that there is no dedicated dev team, and there is a lack of process control/procedure. The current devs we have have done a great job getting us to this point, but they are only working part time (due to their perfectly understandable need to sustain themselves and pay their bills). We sorely need a dedicated team that can work on the core part of Mastercoin, and serve as a lynchpin over which the community ecosystem can form.

Our background

I happen to be an entrepreneur that runs a 15-20 person company (exact size fluctuates and it’s been rapidly growing lately) that both provides services and software for medium to large enterprises. My company has a demonstrable and proven history -- which I can disclose at the proper time, if this gains interest -- in developing software products for numerous Fortune 100 companies and the government, and managed services that we sell for 400-600K per year per client, with very high quality and up-time requirements, and very stringent process control (we play with the big boys). We have a dedicated dev team of 3 developers, and around 10 other engineers. We are entirely self-funded and profitable, with no debt.

I have over 18 years of professional software development experience, and have experience building and running numerous development teams (both on-site and distributed). I have written and sold software and IP that is in use by companies like Samsung, Nestle Waters, US FAA, US DOD, Cisco, etc. (the latter being an actual Cisco product that I developed for them). My business partner, with whom I have worked with for over 14 years in a variety of capacities, is a Cisco CCIE with experience as a CTO for a 1000+ person company, as well as at a number of startups. We have been watching and have both formed quite an interest in virtual currencies.

The proposal

In the interests of taking action and keeping Mastercoin at the forefront, I’m going to put forward a somewhat aggressive proposal here to the community and the board. For the right incentive (which I will get into), we will do the following:

• Hire and incubate a small dev team. Probably start with one team of 2-5, then grow. I have a highly qualified dev I could assign over full-time from my ranks immediately (as well as another one I could enlist as-needed). I am also in touch with a highly talented bitcoin developer in the community that is interested, plus we could utilize the existing mastercoin developers if they are interested (Tachikoma, zathras, etc). My company has a talented in-house recruiter as well if we need to bring in other folks. The goal is NOT to take over mastercoin development, or shut out the current developers, but to give Mastercoin that dedicated "core-team-in-a-box" it needs at least at this time, to allow it to move forward. Like I said, existing developers are welcome to join, if full-time makes sense for them.
• Dev team would utilize scrum (e.g. sprint.ly and github). I could serve as the team lead if the board and community desired. We could fold the PM that Ron is bringing on into this team, or if necessary assign one of our own existing PMs over to it.
• We take my masterdaemon I'm working on, convert zathras or tachikoma's code to python and strap it in (or use the integration with zathras’ library itself that’s already built-in), and make that the reference client. It would work just like bitcoind for bitcoin -- docs in development are at http://masterdaemon.readthedocs.org/en/latest/index.html, code is on github).  Existing library development would continue as-is, but I believe the team needs a reference library/client to focus on at least for now, to avoid duplication of efforts (do not confuse this with me trying to pick favorites among the developers - the choice would be purely what makes the most technical and time sense)
• The team will focus on this client/library and other core tools first, and whatever else makes sense second.
• We would institute coding standards and QA standards, have 2-4 week dev cycles, burndown chart, community feedback procedures/policy to get and order items on the task backlog, etc.
• We would also implement the recommendations killerstorm made (in our client and working in conjunction with the other devs). I noticed the same problems he did and they are good recommendations.
• It would take probably around 3-4 weeks to get this in place if doing it full-time. I have a lot of it already done for our existing dev team.
• A separate LLC would probably be formed to do this. Team salaries could be paid for from the existing Mastercoin fund, or we may even pay our own internal guys ourselves for this initial period, if the incentive was generous enough.
• Our team would work off of the task list ordered by the community and the Mastercoin foundation members, in a democratic process. Beyond this, we would have final say over the running of our own team (as well as the people chosen). This is non-negotiable -- we need latitude to best run our team without a heap of politics -- let the performance speak for itself. However, what we work on is largely dictated by the community and board, and the Mastercoin foundation would of course be free to form a second dev team to work on complementary efforts, as they see fit. Our teams would coordinate via the PMs.

We actually specialize in getting into really messed up multi-million dollar projects/situations and getting a handle on them. I can point to several examples, with large hospital chains, commercial banks, etc. I have made all of these recommendations earlier, but it fell on deaf ears. I am bringing this up again now because I look at where this project is at, and straightening things out is something that could easily be handled with the right approach. We should have a bitcoin expert on the team, but beyond that, we can utilize developers with more commodity skillsets, since they will be building on standard interfaces such as JSON-RPC and SQL. We deal with this stuff every day, day in and day out.

What do we get out of it?

As part of doing this, we would commit to at least 6 months to 1 year of working on Mastercoin, and, upon the condition of this period being fulfilled, as well as multiple established milestones set by the community being reached during that period, our group would be entitled to some amount of MSC (and possibly BTC) from the dev MSC fund and/or JR as a reward. Depending on where things are at after this period, we can continue to move things along for much more modest pay, or collect our check and transition out of it -into the Mastercoin's foundations own dev teams and/or the community development community (which will be much more mature by that time, no doubt).

If there are any 3rd party devs on our team, a similar deal could be set up with them.

According to this link: http://mastercoin-explorer.com/addresses/15WrQhYhHts7jTMoGJ9rDCD12JuCTKy7MM

JR received around 53,000 mastercoins as a bonus alone (which, in itself is controversial to some members of the community – given he controlled the wallet he sent the funds to and thus had an arguably lower risk). Moreover, the Mastercoin dev fund will have 50-something thousand vesting on top of that. There is both ample Mastercoin and bitcoin here to carry this out and ensure that that Mastercoin retains and grows value in the long run. JR will still have way too many mastercoins () and the community gets a solid effort with a good chance of success.

As entrepreneurs, we are motivated by upside. This is risky, and I am potentially putting the health of my company up for grabs because I so believe in this idea. Thus, I want a large upside.


Benefits

The benefit from the community is clear:

• A dedicated dev team backed by individuals with proven experience is immediately formed
• The team quickly moves forward on keeping Mastercoin’s first-mover advantage
• If the team does not perform, it does not get paid
• The risk to the community is quite low (definitely much lower than the alternative of doing nothing)
• The community retains say over the order of features implemented, and the general development direction of Mastercoin

At the right time (i.e. if the board is interested in this proposal), I would be open to naming my company, and allowing the community to look us up.

-Robby

Agreed, this is something that should be considered. The board should engage you and do some further due diligence on your background and qualifications. 

Cheers

[Bebopzzz]

Guys, here’s my pie in the sky proposal. I wanted to throw it out there as a starting point in how to get this project back on the tracks and moving forward. I invested time into this proposal, as well as discussing it with my business partner, so I would highly appreciate if someone from the board would take 10 minutes and speak to me directly about it, even if the answer is a "no".
---------------
I think we can pretty much all agree that the 900lb problem with things at the current point is that there is no dedicated dev team, and there is a lack of process control/procedure. The current devs we have have done a great job getting us to this point, but they are only working part time (due to their perfectly understandable need to sustain themselves and pay their bills). We sorely need a dedicated team that can work on the core part of Mastercoin, and serve as a lynchpin over which the community ecosystem can form.

Our background

I happen to be an entrepreneur that runs a 15-20 person company (exact size fluctuates and it’s been rapidly growing lately) that both provides services and software for medium to large enterprises. My company has a demonstrable and proven history -- which I can disclose at the proper time, if this gains interest -- in developing software products for numerous Fortune 100 companies and the government, and managed services that we sell for 400-600K per year per client, with very high quality and up-time requirements, and very stringent process control (we play with the big boys). We have a dedicated dev team of 3 developers, and around 10 other engineers. We are entirely self-funded and profitable, with no debt.

I have over 18 years of professional software development experience, and have experience building and running numerous development teams (both on-site and distributed). I have written and sold software and IP that is in use by companies like Samsung, Nestle Waters, US FAA, US DOD, Cisco, etc. (the latter being an actual Cisco product that I developed for them). My business partner, with whom I have worked with for over 14 years in a variety of capacities, is a Cisco CCIE with experience as a CTO for a 1000+ person company, as well as at a number of startups. We have been watching and have both formed quite an interest in virtual currencies.

The proposal

In the interests of taking action and keeping Mastercoin at the forefront, I’m going to put forward a somewhat aggressive proposal here to the community and the board. For the right incentive (which I will get into), we will do the following:

• Hire and incubate a small dev team. Probably start with one team of 2-5, then grow. I have a highly qualified dev I could assign over full-time from my ranks immediately (as well as another one I could enlist as-needed). I am also in touch with a highly talented bitcoin developer in the community that is interested, plus we could utilize the existing mastercoin developers if they are interested (Tachikoma, zathras, etc). My company has a talented in-house recruiter as well if we need to bring in other folks. The goal is NOT to take over mastercoin development, or shut out the current developers, but to give Mastercoin that dedicated "core-team-in-a-box" it needs at least at this time, to allow it to move forward. Like I said, existing developers are welcome to join, if full-time makes sense for them.
• Dev team would utilize scrum (e.g. sprint.ly and github). I could serve as the team lead if the board and community desired. We could fold the PM that Ron is bringing on into this team, or if necessary assign one of our own existing PMs over to it.
• We take my masterdaemon I'm working on, convert zathras or tachikoma's code to python and strap it in (or use the integration with zathras’ library itself that’s already built-in), and make that the reference client. It would work just like bitcoind for bitcoin -- docs in development are at http://masterdaemon.readthedocs.org/en/latest/index.html, code is on github).  Existing library development would continue as-is, but I believe the team needs a reference library/client to focus on at least for now, to avoid duplication of efforts (do not confuse this with me trying to pick favorites among the developers - the choice would be purely what makes the most technical and time sense)
• The team will focus on this client/library and other core tools first, and whatever else makes sense second.
• We would institute coding standards and QA standards, have 2-4 week dev cycles, burndown chart, community feedback procedures/policy to get and order items on the task backlog, etc.
• We would also implement the recommendations killerstorm made (in our client and working in conjunction with the other devs). I noticed the same problems he did and they are good recommendations.
• It would take probably around 3-4 weeks to get this in place if doing it full-time. I have a lot of it already done for our existing dev team.
• A separate LLC would probably be formed to do this. Team salaries could be paid for from the existing Mastercoin fund, or we may even pay our own internal guys ourselves for this initial period, if the incentive was generous enough.
• Our team would work off of the task list ordered by the community and the Mastercoin foundation members, in a democratic process. Beyond this, we would have final say over the running of our own team (as well as the people chosen). This is non-negotiable -- we need latitude to best run our team without a heap of politics -- let the performance speak for itself. However, what we work on is largely dictated by the community and board, and the Mastercoin foundation would of course be free to form a second dev team to work on complementary efforts, as they see fit. Our teams would coordinate via the PMs.

We actually specialize in getting into really messed up multi-million dollar projects/situations and getting a handle on them. I can point to several examples, with large hospital chains, commercial banks, etc. I have made all of these recommendations earlier, but it fell on deaf ears. I am bringing this up again now because I look at where this project is at, and straightening things out is something that could easily be handled with the right approach. We should have a bitcoin expert on the team, but beyond that, we can utilize developers with more commodity skillsets, since they will be building on standard interfaces such as JSON-RPC and SQL. We deal with this stuff every day, day in and day out.

What do we get out of it?

As part of doing this, we would commit to at least 6 months to 1 year of working on Mastercoin, and, upon the condition of this period being fulfilled, as well as multiple established milestones set by the community being reached during that period, our group would be entitled to some amount of MSC (and possibly BTC) from the dev MSC fund and/or JR as a reward. Depending on where things are at after this period, we can continue to move things along for much more modest pay, or collect our check and transition out of it -into the Mastercoin's foundations own dev teams and/or the community development community (which will be much more mature by that time, no doubt).

If there are any 3rd party devs on our team, a similar deal could be set up with them.

According to this link: http://mastercoin-explorer.com/addresses/15WrQhYhHts7jTMoGJ9rDCD12JuCTKy7MM

JR received around 53,000 mastercoins as a bonus alone (which, in itself is controversial to some members of the community – given he controlled the wallet he sent the funds to and thus had an arguably lower risk). Moreover, the Mastercoin dev fund will have 50-something thousand vesting on top of that. There is both ample Mastercoin and bitcoin here to carry this out and ensure that that Mastercoin retains and grows value in the long run. JR will still have way too many mastercoins () and the community gets a solid effort with a good chance of success.

As entrepreneurs, we are motivated by upside. This is risky, and I am potentially putting the health of my company up for grabs because I so believe in this idea. Thus, I want a large upside.


Benefits

The benefit from the community is clear:

• A dedicated dev team backed by individuals with proven experience is immediately formed
• The team quickly moves forward on keeping Mastercoin’s first-mover advantage
• If the team does not perform, it does not get paid
• The risk to the community is quite low (definitely much lower than the alternative of doing nothing)
• The community retains say over the order of features implemented, and the general development direction of Mastercoin

At the right time (i.e. if the board is interested in this proposal), I would be open to naming my company, and allowing the community to look us up.

-Robby

+1

SOMEBODY GIVE THIS MAN A PIE!!!

I absolutely agree with this proposal and think that this exactly what we need. J.R.was very open on having somebody run this project in the beginning and this is probably the best opportunity he will ever get...

[Ola]

Guys, here’s my pie in the sky proposal. I wanted to throw it out there as a starting point in how to get this project back on the tracks and moving forward. I invested time into this proposal, as well as discussing it with my business partner, so I would highly appreciate if someone from the board would take 10 minutes and speak to me directly about it, even if the answer is a "no".
---------------
I think we can pretty much all agree that the 900lb problem with things at the current point is that there is no dedicated dev team, and there is a lack of process control/procedure. The current devs we have have done a great job getting us to this point, but they are only working part time (due to their perfectly understandable need to sustain themselves and pay their bills). We sorely need a dedicated team that can work on the core part of Mastercoin, and serve as a lynchpin over which the community ecosystem can form.

Our background

I happen to be an entrepreneur that runs a 15-20 person company (exact size fluctuates and it’s been rapidly growing lately) that both provides services and software for medium to large enterprises. My company has a demonstrable and proven history -- which I can disclose at the proper time, if this gains interest -- in developing software products for numerous Fortune 100 companies and the government, and managed services that we sell for 400-600K per year per client, with very high quality and up-time requirements, and very stringent process control (we play with the big boys). We have a dedicated dev team of 3 developers, and around 10 other engineers. We are entirely self-funded and profitable, with no debt.

I have over 18 years of professional software development experience, and have experience building and running numerous development teams (both on-site and distributed). I have written and sold software and IP that is in use by companies like Samsung, Nestle Waters, US FAA, US DOD, Cisco, etc. (the latter being an actual Cisco product that I developed for them). My business partner, with whom I have worked with for over 14 years in a variety of capacities, is a Cisco CCIE with experience as a CTO for a 1000+ person company, as well as at a number of startups. We have been watching and have both formed quite an interest in virtual currencies.

The proposal

In the interests of taking action and keeping Mastercoin at the forefront, I’m going to put forward a somewhat aggressive proposal here to the community and the board. For the right incentive (which I will get into), we will do the following:

• Hire and incubate a small dev team. Probably start with one team of 2-5, then grow. I have a highly qualified dev I could assign over full-time from my ranks immediately (as well as another one I could enlist as-needed). I am also in touch with a highly talented bitcoin developer in the community that is interested, plus we could utilize the existing mastercoin developers if they are interested (Tachikoma, zathras, etc). My company has a talented in-house recruiter as well if we need to bring in other folks. The goal is NOT to take over mastercoin development, or shut out the current developers, but to give Mastercoin that dedicated "core-team-in-a-box" it needs at least at this time, to allow it to move forward. Like I said, existing developers are welcome to join, if full-time makes sense for them.
• Dev team would utilize scrum (e.g. sprint.ly and github). I could serve as the team lead if the board and community desired. We could fold the PM that Ron is bringing on into this team, or if necessary assign one of our own existing PMs over to it.
• We take my masterdaemon I'm working on, convert zathras or tachikoma's code to python and strap it in (or use the integration with zathras’ library itself that’s already built-in), and make that the reference client. It would work just like bitcoind for bitcoin -- docs in development are at http://masterdaemon.readthedocs.org/en/latest/index.html, code is on github).  Existing library development would continue as-is, but I believe the team needs a reference library/client to focus on at least for now, to avoid duplication of efforts (do not confuse this with me trying to pick favorites among the developers - the choice would be purely what makes the most technical and time sense)
• The team will focus on this client/library and other core tools first, and whatever else makes sense second.
• We would institute coding standards and QA standards, have 2-4 week dev cycles, burndown chart, community feedback procedures/policy to get and order items on the task backlog, etc.
• We would also implement the recommendations killerstorm made (in our client and working in conjunction with the other devs). I noticed the same problems he did and they are good recommendations.
• It would take probably around 3-4 weeks to get this in place if doing it full-time. I have a lot of it already done for our existing dev team.
• A separate LLC would probably be formed to do this. Team salaries could be paid for from the existing Mastercoin fund, or we may even pay our own internal guys ourselves for this initial period, if the incentive was generous enough.
• Our team would work off of the task list ordered by the community and the Mastercoin foundation members, in a democratic process. Beyond this, we would have final say over the running of our own team (as well as the people chosen). This is non-negotiable -- we need latitude to best run our team without a heap of politics -- let the performance speak for itself. However, what we work on is largely dictated by the community and board, and the Mastercoin foundation would of course be free to form a second dev team to work on complementary efforts, as they see fit. Our teams would coordinate via the PMs.

We actually specialize in getting into really messed up multi-million dollar projects/situations and getting a handle on them. I can point to several examples, with large hospital chains, commercial banks, etc. I have made all of these recommendations earlier, but it fell on deaf ears. I am bringing this up again now because I look at where this project is at, and straightening things out is something that could easily be handled with the right approach. We should have a bitcoin expert on the team, but beyond that, we can utilize developers with more commodity skillsets, since they will be building on standard interfaces such as JSON-RPC and SQL. We deal with this stuff every day, day in and day out.

What do we get out of it?

As part of doing this, we would commit to at least 6 months to 1 year of working on Mastercoin, and, upon the condition of this period being fulfilled, as well as multiple established milestones set by the community being reached during that period, our group would be entitled to some amount of MSC (and possibly BTC) from the dev MSC fund and/or JR as a reward. Depending on where things are at after this period, we can continue to move things along for much more modest pay, or collect our check and transition out of it -into the Mastercoin's foundations own dev teams and/or the community development community (which will be much more mature by that time, no doubt).

If there are any 3rd party devs on our team, a similar deal could be set up with them.

According to this link: http://mastercoin-explorer.com/addresses/15WrQhYhHts7jTMoGJ9rDCD12JuCTKy7MM

JR received around 53,000 mastercoins as a bonus alone (which, in itself is controversial to some members of the community – given he controlled the wallet he sent the funds to and thus had an arguably lower risk). Moreover, the Mastercoin dev fund will have 50-something thousand vesting on top of that. There is both ample Mastercoin and bitcoin here to carry this out and ensure that that Mastercoin retains and grows value in the long run. JR will still have way too many mastercoins () and the community gets a solid effort with a good chance of success.

As entrepreneurs, we are motivated by upside. This is risky, and I am potentially putting the health of my company up for grabs because I so believe in this idea. Thus, I want a large upside.


Benefits

The benefit from the community is clear:

• A dedicated dev team backed by individuals with proven experience is immediately formed
• The team quickly moves forward on keeping Mastercoin’s first-mover advantage
• If the team does not perform, it does not get paid
• The risk to the community is quite low (definitely much lower than the alternative of doing nothing)
• The community retains say over the order of features implemented, and the general development direction of Mastercoin

At the right time (i.e. if the board is interested in this proposal), I would be open to naming my company, and allowing the community to look us up.

-Robby

+1000 thanks for proposing this

[ripper234]

I don't have time to read anything above this point, and maybe never will, because we are working hard on migrating to another forum software.

Still, I wanted to share this:

Hello Ron
As someone who has invested a considerable amount of money in MSC, I have growing worries about the status and governance of Mastercoin project.

Reading all the material I've found on Bitcointalk, I have tried to find proper project plan, current status and short/medium-term roadmap, but haven't been able to find them. Now this could be because I've looked at the wrong places, but my concern is that no such material actually exist in a single place, properly documented and updated. That would mean there's no way of ensuring that we have common understanding about where we're heading, what are the current priorities and next steps.

I guess, Ron, my main concern is that the Board is losing focus, though I hope I'm laughably wrong. There's so many balls in the air, but comparing this to a corporation, the Board and Executive Director have to stay above trivial issues and focus on planning, the big picture and decision making. They are the only ones who can do that. I just can't see enough focus on that now. I worry that many people involved are confused, and don't have a clear picture what we're doing now, next and who's running the project and setting priorities.

Also, reading the Exodus thread, it becomes obvious that someone should freeze that and create proper sub-threads for different topics to help the project to communicate more effectively. It's just awful; there are several discussions on going on top of each other, and it's so long that new people just can't get understanding what's going on. I can't imagine how this is productive in anyone's eyes! Furthermore I'm afraid that it also reflects how the project is run in general (though I hope I'm wrong).

I would love to hear how you personally see this, and if you share my concerns? If we want to create something long-lasting in a short timeframe, this should be run like a professional, multimillion dollar company.
I believe a lot of people have similar thoughts and concerns than me. I know you have a busy schedule, but hopefully you'll take the time to think if these concerns are valid and what should be done about them, or explain to me how I'm wrong and have nothing to worry about.

If you wish, you can copy this to the thread and answer there.

Thank you for all your hard work on the Mastercoin project!

My reply:

Thanks for caring and letting us know - we love you too!
I have no time to reply properly, but things are moving super quickly.
As usual, we don't have the time to properly communicate how fast things are going ... but trust me, they are.

• There is a strategic partnership that we are going to announce at Vegas.
• We just completed hiring our first 3 full timers AKA Role Based Bounties! Formal announcements to be made on our blog soon.
• I agree with your analysis of the project, and am routing around any problems as I detect them. Lack of focus is not a problem that I have regarding this project.
• Having said that, we desperately need a full time project manager. If the community is concerned, please help us find it. There is already a job posting out there on Trello for ages. The pay would be 72 K USD per year (remember, this is a startup ... the best startup in the world actually ... not Google. We pay low but it's still the best place to work at).

Now I really must get some sleep. Need. To. Shut. Down. Brain.

Googbye Exodus Thread, it's been fun!

As far as I'm concerned, J.R can just lock this thread soon, because Aric is moving us to another forum and I'm personally never checking this thread again. It's been fun bitcointalk, thanks for having us!

[tlewis]

Guys, here’s my pie in the sky proposal. I wanted to throw it out there as a starting point in how to get this project back on the tracks and moving forward. I invested time into this proposal, as well as discussing it with my business partner, so I would highly appreciate if someone from the board would take 10 minutes and speak to me directly about it, even if the answer is a "no".
---------------
I think we can pretty much all agree that the 900lb problem with things at the current point is that there is no dedicated dev team, and there is a lack of process control/procedure. The current devs we have have done a great job getting us to this point, but they are only working part time (due to their perfectly understandable need to sustain themselves and pay their bills). We sorely need a dedicated team that can work on the core part of Mastercoin, and serve as a lynchpin over which the community ecosystem can form.

Our background

I happen to be an entrepreneur that runs a 15-20 person company (exact size fluctuates and it’s been rapidly growing lately) that both provides services and software for medium to large enterprises. My company has a demonstrable and proven history -- which I can disclose at the proper time, if this gains interest -- in developing software products for numerous Fortune 100 companies and the government, and managed services that we sell for 400-600K per year per client, with very high quality and up-time requirements, and very stringent process control (we play with the big boys). We have a dedicated dev team of 3 developers, and around 10 other engineers. We are entirely self-funded and profitable, with no debt.

I have over 18 years of professional software development experience, and have experience building and running numerous development teams (both on-site and distributed). I have written and sold software and IP that is in use by companies like Samsung, Nestle Waters, US FAA, US DOD, Cisco, etc. (the latter being an actual Cisco product that I developed for them). My business partner, with whom I have worked with for over 14 years in a variety of capacities, is a Cisco CCIE with experience as a CTO for a 1000+ person company, as well as at a number of startups. We have been watching and have both formed quite an interest in virtual currencies.

The proposal

In the interests of taking action and keeping Mastercoin at the forefront, I’m going to put forward a somewhat aggressive proposal here to the community and the board. For the right incentive (which I will get into), we will do the following:

• Hire and incubate a small dev team. Probably start with one team of 2-5, then grow. I have a highly qualified dev I could assign over full-time from my ranks immediately (as well as another one I could enlist as-needed). I am also in touch with a highly talented bitcoin developer in the community that is interested, plus we could utilize the existing mastercoin developers if they are interested (Tachikoma, zathras, etc). My company has a talented in-house recruiter as well if we need to bring in other folks. The goal is NOT to take over mastercoin development, or shut out the current developers, but to give Mastercoin that dedicated "core-team-in-a-box" it needs at least at this time, to allow it to move forward. Like I said, existing developers are welcome to join, if full-time makes sense for them.
• Dev team would utilize scrum (e.g. sprint.ly and github). I could serve as the team lead if the board and community desired. We could fold the PM that Ron is bringing on into this team, or if necessary assign one of our own existing PMs over to it.
• We take my masterdaemon I'm working on, convert zathras or tachikoma's code to python and strap it in (or use the integration with zathras’ library itself that’s already built-in), and make that the reference client. It would work just like bitcoind for bitcoin -- docs in development are at http://masterdaemon.readthedocs.org/en/latest/index.html, code is on github).  Existing library development would continue as-is, but I believe the team needs a reference library/client to focus on at least for now, to avoid duplication of efforts (do not confuse this with me trying to pick favorites among the developers - the choice would be purely what makes the most technical and time sense)
• The team will focus on this client/library and other core tools first, and whatever else makes sense second.
• We would institute coding standards and QA standards, have 2-4 week dev cycles, burndown chart, community feedback procedures/policy to get and order items on the task backlog, etc.
• We would also implement the recommendations killerstorm made (in our client and working in conjunction with the other devs). I noticed the same problems he did and they are good recommendations.
• It would take probably around 3-4 weeks to get this in place if doing it full-time. I have a lot of it already done for our existing dev team.
• A separate LLC would probably be formed to do this. Team salaries could be paid for from the existing Mastercoin fund, or we may even pay our own internal guys ourselves for this initial period, if the incentive was generous enough.
• Our team would work off of the task list ordered by the community and the Mastercoin foundation members, in a democratic process. Beyond this, we would have final say over the running of our own team (as well as the people chosen). This is non-negotiable -- we need latitude to best run our team without a heap of politics -- let the performance speak for itself. However, what we work on is largely dictated by the community and board, and the Mastercoin foundation would of course be free to form a second dev team to work on complementary efforts, as they see fit. Our teams would coordinate via the PMs.

We actually specialize in getting into really messed up multi-million dollar projects/situations and getting a handle on them. I can point to several examples, with large hospital chains, commercial banks, etc. I have made all of these recommendations earlier, but it fell on deaf ears. I am bringing this up again now because I look at where this project is at, and straightening things out is something that could easily be handled with the right approach. We should have a bitcoin expert on the team, but beyond that, we can utilize developers with more commodity skillsets, since they will be building on standard interfaces such as JSON-RPC and SQL. We deal with this stuff every day, day in and day out.

What do we get out of it?

As part of doing this, we would commit to at least 6 months to 1 year of working on Mastercoin, and, upon the condition of this period being fulfilled, as well as multiple established milestones set by the community being reached during that period, our group would be entitled to some amount of MSC (and possibly BTC) from the dev MSC fund and/or JR as a reward. Depending on where things are at after this period, we can continue to move things along for much more modest pay, or collect our check and transition out of it -into the Mastercoin's foundations own dev teams and/or the community development community (which will be much more mature by that time, no doubt).

If there are any 3rd party devs on our team, a similar deal could be set up with them.

According to this link: http://mastercoin-explorer.com/addresses/15WrQhYhHts7jTMoGJ9rDCD12JuCTKy7MM

JR received around 53,000 mastercoins as a bonus alone (which, in itself is controversial to some members of the community – given he controlled the wallet he sent the funds to and thus had an arguably lower risk). Moreover, the Mastercoin dev fund will have 50-something thousand vesting on top of that. There is both ample Mastercoin and bitcoin here to carry this out and ensure that that Mastercoin retains and grows value in the long run. JR will still have way too many mastercoins () and the community gets a solid effort with a good chance of success.

As entrepreneurs, we are motivated by upside. This is risky, and I am potentially putting the health of my company up for grabs because I so believe in this idea. Thus, I want a large upside.


Benefits

The benefit from the community is clear:

• A dedicated dev team backed by individuals with proven experience is immediately formed
• The team quickly moves forward on keeping Mastercoin’s first-mover advantage
• If the team does not perform, it does not get paid
• The risk to the community is quite low (definitely much lower than the alternative of doing nothing)
• The community retains say over the order of features implemented, and the general development direction of Mastercoin

At the right time (i.e. if the board is interested in this proposal), I would be open to naming my company, and allowing the community to look us up.

-Robby

Hey Robby. An excellent proposal and thanks for sharing.

If you're not yet talking with anyone on the Mastercoin team, will you please email me at taariq@mastercoin.org so that we can have a quick chat about your proposal?

I'm helping the Mastercoin team get a handle on operations and getting quality engineering support is key.

I want to make sure that no one is ignored and I'm trying to bring some focus/organization to the Mastercoin effort while I'm here.

Thanks and congratulations on your depth of expertise and generous offer to help..
Taariq
Smart Property Lead

[Nagan]

Guys, here’s my pie in the sky proposal. I wanted to throw it out there as a starting point in how to get this project back on the tracks and moving forward. I invested time into this proposal, as well as discussing it with my business partner, so I would highly appreciate if someone from the board would take 10 minutes and speak to me directly about it, even if the answer is a "no".
---------------
I think we can pretty much all agree that the 900lb problem with things at the current point is that there is no dedicated dev team, and there is a lack of process control/procedure. The current devs we have have done a great job getting us to this point, but they are only working part time (due to their perfectly understandable need to sustain themselves and pay their bills). We sorely need a dedicated team that can work on the core part of Mastercoin, and serve as a lynchpin over which the community ecosystem can form.

Our background

I happen to be an entrepreneur that runs a 15-20 person company (exact size fluctuates and it’s been rapidly growing lately) that both provides services and software for medium to large enterprises. My company has a demonstrable and proven history -- which I can disclose at the proper time, if this gains interest -- in developing software products for numerous Fortune 100 companies and the government, and managed services that we sell for 400-600K per year per client, with very high quality and up-time requirements, and very stringent process control (we play with the big boys). We have a dedicated dev team of 3 developers, and around 10 other engineers. We are entirely self-funded and profitable, with no debt.

I have over 18 years of professional software development experience, and have experience building and running numerous development teams (both on-site and distributed). I have written and sold software and IP that is in use by companies like Samsung, Nestle Waters, US FAA, US DOD, Cisco, etc. (the latter being an actual Cisco product that I developed for them). My business partner, with whom I have worked with for over 14 years in a variety of capacities, is a Cisco CCIE with experience as a CTO for a 1000+ person company, as well as at a number of startups. We have been watching and have both formed quite an interest in virtual currencies.

The proposal

In the interests of taking action and keeping Mastercoin at the forefront, I’m going to put forward a somewhat aggressive proposal here to the community and the board. For the right incentive (which I will get into), we will do the following:

• Hire and incubate a small dev team. Probably start with one team of 2-5, then grow. I have a highly qualified dev I could assign over full-time from my ranks immediately (as well as another one I could enlist as-needed). I am also in touch with a highly talented bitcoin developer in the community that is interested, plus we could utilize the existing mastercoin developers if they are interested (Tachikoma, zathras, etc). My company has a talented in-house recruiter as well if we need to bring in other folks. The goal is NOT to take over mastercoin development, or shut out the current developers, but to give Mastercoin that dedicated "core-team-in-a-box" it needs at least at this time, to allow it to move forward. Like I said, existing developers are welcome to join, if full-time makes sense for them.
• Dev team would utilize scrum (e.g. sprint.ly and github). I could serve as the team lead if the board and community desired. We could fold the PM that Ron is bringing on into this team, or if necessary assign one of our own existing PMs over to it.
• We take my masterdaemon I'm working on, convert zathras or tachikoma's code to python and strap it in (or use the integration with zathras’ library itself that’s already built-in), and make that the reference client. It would work just like bitcoind for bitcoin -- docs in development are at http://masterdaemon.readthedocs.org/en/latest/index.html, code is on github).  Existing library development would continue as-is, but I believe the team needs a reference library/client to focus on at least for now, to avoid duplication of efforts (do not confuse this with me trying to pick favorites among the developers - the choice would be purely what makes the most technical and time sense)
• The team will focus on this client/library and other core tools first, and whatever else makes sense second.
• We would institute coding standards and QA standards, have 2-4 week dev cycles, burndown chart, community feedback procedures/policy to get and order items on the task backlog, etc.
• We would also implement the recommendations killerstorm made (in our client and working in conjunction with the other devs). I noticed the same problems he did and they are good recommendations.
• It would take probably around 3-4 weeks to get this in place if doing it full-time. I have a lot of it already done for our existing dev team.
• A separate LLC would probably be formed to do this. Team salaries could be paid for from the existing Mastercoin fund, or we may even pay our own internal guys ourselves for this initial period, if the incentive was generous enough.
• Our team would work off of the task list ordered by the community and the Mastercoin foundation members, in a democratic process. Beyond this, we would have final say over the running of our own team (as well as the people chosen). This is non-negotiable -- we need latitude to best run our team without a heap of politics -- let the performance speak for itself. However, what we work on is largely dictated by the community and board, and the Mastercoin foundation would of course be free to form a second dev team to work on complementary efforts, as they see fit. Our teams would coordinate via the PMs.

We actually specialize in getting into really messed up multi-million dollar projects/situations and getting a handle on them. I can point to several examples, with large hospital chains, commercial banks, etc. I have made all of these recommendations earlier, but it fell on deaf ears. I am bringing this up again now because I look at where this project is at, and straightening things out is something that could easily be handled with the right approach. We should have a bitcoin expert on the team, but beyond that, we can utilize developers with more commodity skillsets, since they will be building on standard interfaces such as JSON-RPC and SQL. We deal with this stuff every day, day in and day out.

What do we get out of it?

As part of doing this, we would commit to at least 6 months to 1 year of working on Mastercoin, and, upon the condition of this period being fulfilled, as well as multiple established milestones set by the community being reached during that period, our group would be entitled to some amount of MSC (and possibly BTC) from the dev MSC fund and/or JR as a reward. Depending on where things are at after this period, we can continue to move things along for much more modest pay, or collect our check and transition out of it -into the Mastercoin's foundations own dev teams and/or the community development community (which will be much more mature by that time, no doubt).

If there are any 3rd party devs on our team, a similar deal could be set up with them.

According to this link: http://mastercoin-explorer.com/addresses/15WrQhYhHts7jTMoGJ9rDCD12JuCTKy7MM

JR received around 53,000 mastercoins as a bonus alone (which, in itself is controversial to some members of the community – given he controlled the wallet he sent the funds to and thus had an arguably lower risk). Moreover, the Mastercoin dev fund will have 50-something thousand vesting on top of that. There is both ample Mastercoin and bitcoin here to carry this out and ensure that that Mastercoin retains and grows value in the long run. JR will still have way too many mastercoins () and the community gets a solid effort with a good chance of success.

As entrepreneurs, we are motivated by upside. This is risky, and I am potentially putting the health of my company up for grabs because I so believe in this idea. Thus, I want a large upside.


Benefits

The benefit from the community is clear:

• A dedicated dev team backed by individuals with proven experience is immediately formed
• The team quickly moves forward on keeping Mastercoin’s first-mover advantage
• If the team does not perform, it does not get paid
• The risk to the community is quite low (definitely much lower than the alternative of doing nothing)
• The community retains say over the order of features implemented, and the general development direction of Mastercoin

At the right time (i.e. if the board is interested in this proposal), I would be open to naming my company, and allowing the community to look us up.

-Robby

I wasn't deeply following the Mastercoin developement these days, just reading above I get this gut feeling that it's exactly not the thing Mastercoin requires right now.

Bitcoin is so successful just because it was never ever connected to a company, no matter how smart and successful that company is.

[Pouncer]

Bitcoin is so successful just because it was never ever connected to a company, no matter how smart and successful that company is.

The proposal is about engaging a company for a specified period to complete a specific task. Beyond that, there is no string attached. It's like the foundation sub contracting a specific dev task to a company. It is not like Ripple being "connected" to Opencoin.

I support Robby's proposal.

[Ola]

Guys, here’s my pie in the sky proposal. I wanted to throw it out there as a starting point in how to get this project back on the tracks and moving forward. I invested time into this proposal, as well as discussing it with my business partner, so I would highly appreciate if someone from the board would take 10 minutes and speak to me directly about it, even if the answer is a "no".
---------------
I think we can pretty much all agree that the 900lb problem with things at the current point is that there is no dedicated dev team, and there is a lack of process control/procedure. The current devs we have have done a great job getting us to this point, but they are only working part time (due to their perfectly understandable need to sustain themselves and pay their bills). We sorely need a dedicated team that can work on the core part of Mastercoin, and serve as a lynchpin over which the community ecosystem can form.

Our background

I happen to be an entrepreneur that runs a 15-20 person company (exact size fluctuates and it’s been rapidly growing lately) that both provides services and software for medium to large enterprises. My company has a demonstrable and proven history -- which I can disclose at the proper time, if this gains interest -- in developing software products for numerous Fortune 100 companies and the government, and managed services that we sell for 400-600K per year per client, with very high quality and up-time requirements, and very stringent process control (we play with the big boys). We have a dedicated dev team of 3 developers, and around 10 other engineers. We are entirely self-funded and profitable, with no debt.

I have over 18 years of professional software development experience, and have experience building and running numerous development teams (both on-site and distributed). I have written and sold software and IP that is in use by companies like Samsung, Nestle Waters, US FAA, US DOD, Cisco, etc. (the latter being an actual Cisco product that I developed for them). My business partner, with whom I have worked with for over 14 years in a variety of capacities, is a Cisco CCIE with experience as a CTO for a 1000+ person company, as well as at a number of startups. We have been watching and have both formed quite an interest in virtual currencies.

The proposal

In the interests of taking action and keeping Mastercoin at the forefront, I’m going to put forward a somewhat aggressive proposal here to the community and the board. For the right incentive (which I will get into), we will do the following:

• Hire and incubate a small dev team. Probably start with one team of 2-5, then grow. I have a highly qualified dev I could assign over full-time from my ranks immediately (as well as another one I could enlist as-needed). I am also in touch with a highly talented bitcoin developer in the community that is interested, plus we could utilize the existing mastercoin developers if they are interested (Tachikoma, zathras, etc). My company has a talented in-house recruiter as well if we need to bring in other folks. The goal is NOT to take over mastercoin development, or shut out the current developers, but to give Mastercoin that dedicated "core-team-in-a-box" it needs at least at this time, to allow it to move forward. Like I said, existing developers are welcome to join, if full-time makes sense for them.
• Dev team would utilize scrum (e.g. sprint.ly and github). I could serve as the team lead if the board and community desired. We could fold the PM that Ron is bringing on into this team, or if necessary assign one of our own existing PMs over to it.
• We take my masterdaemon I'm working on, convert zathras or tachikoma's code to python and strap it in (or use the integration with zathras’ library itself that’s already built-in), and make that the reference client. It would work just like bitcoind for bitcoin -- docs in development are at http://masterdaemon.readthedocs.org/en/latest/index.html, code is on github).  Existing library development would continue as-is, but I believe the team needs a reference library/client to focus on at least for now, to avoid duplication of efforts (do not confuse this with me trying to pick favorites among the developers - the choice would be purely what makes the most technical and time sense)
• The team will focus on this client/library and other core tools first, and whatever else makes sense second.
• We would institute coding standards and QA standards, have 2-4 week dev cycles, burndown chart, community feedback procedures/policy to get and order items on the task backlog, etc.
• We would also implement the recommendations killerstorm made (in our client and working in conjunction with the other devs). I noticed the same problems he did and they are good recommendations.
• It would take probably around 3-4 weeks to get this in place if doing it full-time. I have a lot of it already done for our existing dev team.
• A separate LLC would probably be formed to do this. Team salaries could be paid for from the existing Mastercoin fund, or we may even pay our own internal guys ourselves for this initial period, if the incentive was generous enough.
• Our team would work off of the task list ordered by the community and the Mastercoin foundation members, in a democratic process. Beyond this, we would have final say over the running of our own team (as well as the people chosen). This is non-negotiable -- we need latitude to best run our team without a heap of politics -- let the performance speak for itself. However, what we work on is largely dictated by the community and board, and the Mastercoin foundation would of course be free to form a second dev team to work on complementary efforts, as they see fit. Our teams would coordinate via the PMs.

We actually specialize in getting into really messed up multi-million dollar projects/situations and getting a handle on them. I can point to several examples, with large hospital chains, commercial banks, etc. I have made all of these recommendations earlier, but it fell on deaf ears. I am bringing this up again now because I look at where this project is at, and straightening things out is something that could easily be handled with the right approach. We should have a bitcoin expert on the team, but beyond that, we can utilize developers with more commodity skillsets, since they will be building on standard interfaces such as JSON-RPC and SQL. We deal with this stuff every day, day in and day out.

What do we get out of it?

As part of doing this, we would commit to at least 6 months to 1 year of working on Mastercoin, and, upon the condition of this period being fulfilled, as well as multiple established milestones set by the community being reached during that period, our group would be entitled to some amount of MSC (and possibly BTC) from the dev MSC fund and/or JR as a reward. Depending on where things are at after this period, we can continue to move things along for much more modest pay, or collect our check and transition out of it -into the Mastercoin's foundations own dev teams and/or the community development community (which will be much more mature by that time, no doubt).

If there are any 3rd party devs on our team, a similar deal could be set up with them.

According to this link: http://mastercoin-explorer.com/addresses/15WrQhYhHts7jTMoGJ9rDCD12JuCTKy7MM

JR received around 53,000 mastercoins as a bonus alone (which, in itself is controversial to some members of the community – given he controlled the wallet he sent the funds to and thus had an arguably lower risk). Moreover, the Mastercoin dev fund will have 50-something thousand vesting on top of that. There is both ample Mastercoin and bitcoin here to carry this out and ensure that that Mastercoin retains and grows value in the long run. JR will still have way too many mastercoins () and the community gets a solid effort with a good chance of success.

As entrepreneurs, we are motivated by upside. This is risky, and I am potentially putting the health of my company up for grabs because I so believe in this idea. Thus, I want a large upside.


Benefits

The benefit from the community is clear:

• A dedicated dev team backed by individuals with proven experience is immediately formed
• The team quickly moves forward on keeping Mastercoin’s first-mover advantage
• If the team does not perform, it does not get paid
• The risk to the community is quite low (definitely much lower than the alternative of doing nothing)
• The community retains say over the order of features implemented, and the general development direction of Mastercoin

At the right time (i.e. if the board is interested in this proposal), I would be open to naming my company, and allowing the community to look us up.

-Robby

Hey Robby. An excellent proposal and thanks for sharing.

If you're not yet talking with anyone on the Mastercoin team, will you please email me at taariq@mastercoin.org so that we can have a quick chat about your proposal?

I'm helping the Mastercoin team get a handle on operations and getting quality engineering support is key.

I want to make sure that no one is ignored and I'm trying to bring some focus/organization to the Mastercoin effort while I'm here.

Thanks and congratulations on your depth of expertise and generous offer to help..
Taariq
Smart Property Lead

thank you for this Taariq

[rbdrbd]

Hey Robby. An excellent proposal and thanks for sharing.

If you're not yet talking with anyone on the Mastercoin team, will you please email me at taariq@mastercoin.org so that we can have a quick chat about your proposal?

I'm helping the Mastercoin team get a handle on operations and getting quality engineering support is key.

I want to make sure that no one is ignored and I'm trying to bring some focus/organization to the Mastercoin effort while I'm here.

Thanks and congratulations on your depth of expertise and generous offer to help..
Taariq
Smart Property Lead

Taariq,

I really appreciate the response, and thank you for showing interest. I understand that Ron and the board members are busy people, but for something as big as the future direction of Mastercoin development, I had honestly hoped that someone from the board would have reached out to me and given me 30 minutes of their time. So far this has not happened yet.

I wrote this proposal. I've spent about a week so far developing masterdaemon (and working with zathras to lend suggestions on enhancing his library). I've spent hours and hours commenting and trying to add value to the forum posts and plan for Mastercoin growth. I even volunteered to fly out to Las Vegas to meet Ron and David at the conference on my own dime. And I am a busy person as well, already working 50 hour weeks on growing my own business. I emailed info@mastercoin.org ...twice I believe. Ron's last reply totally ignored what I had written, along with the community feedback provided in support of it. No reply in the forums, no PM, nothing... not even anything to say "let's talk later, I'm exhausted". You have to understand the risk that I was willing to take on to see this project successful. However, based on this (lack of) response from the board, I can't say I'm very interested anymore at this point in time.

That being said, I will be stopping masterdaemon development until I see something that helps me regain my faith in this project's ability and interest in leading a professional development effort. Ron calling me would be a good start. He has my number. I'm sure he can find 10 minutes in his schedule.

Nonetheless, the current (largely written and largely not tested) masterdaemon code is at: https://github.com/rbdrbd/masterdaemon
The documentation is at: http://masterdaemon.readthedocs.org/en/latest/index.html

Someone can feel free to fork it and continue development (I will even do knowledge transfer). I really think Mastercoin needs this project to really build a basis of a solid ecosystem, for reasons I have outlined at https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=344229.0. Hopefully the board sees this too, although I am not sure that's the case, to be honest.

You have to understand that I still do want this project to be successful very much, and I believe in the idea behind Mastercoin. However, at this point, my faith in the ability of the leadership to handle this task is lacking, although I would absolutely love to be proven wrong. I'm not upset, just disappointed.

Thank you again for reaching out. I will be monitoring developments and may become involved again at some point. Best of luck.

-Robby

[junsha]

Robby,

Give them some time please.

Somebody can reach the board?

[bitexch]

Robby,

Give them some time please.

Somebody can reach the board?

The fact that that question needs to be asked is indicative of the problem.

This project has quickly become hierarchical to a startling degree. Robby has been actively developing Mastercoin and contributing to policy discussions; he's a central member of the community. It is entirely unacceptable that the board (which was chosen without much community engagement) is unable to devote 20 minutes to reading Robby's proposal and responding either positively or negatively.

Also, does anyone else find it strange that the Mastercoin Executive Director is spending his time working on things like migrating to another forum software? One would usually expect a lower level employee to work on such things, and the fact that Ron has chosen to do this *to the exclusion of* reading the main Mastercoin thread, shows that he (a) lacks time management skills and (b) has trouble prioritizing tasks.

I would also go so far as to say that Ron, like JR, allows himself to get sidetracked by things that are simply not of immediate and essential importance. It's indeed probable that new forum software will be good for the project, but the question is whether it will help more *today* than engaging with the community. Unfortunately we currently lack the security to think about things otherwise.

I don't know how many times our management needs to prove its incompetency before we actively try to do something about it. I am reiterating my support for rbdrbd as a board member, and whoever agrees should explicitly say so.

Ron, I'd recommend reading the posts that precede yours. Robby has made a very serious proposal which the community is in support of.

+1 this if you agree. It's important that at least *someone* from the board sees it so he can notify the other board members, and if enough people show their agreement, we might actually get the board to engage.