We need Alan/etotheipi (Armory) as a fulltime-developer! Now!

[Ente]

I feel it is not acceptable that Alan shares his valuable Armory-development-time with other things, like a money-earning daytimejob.

Bitcoin came a long way in the last years. We have a billion dollar economy now. We have foundations, proper companys, lobbying, paid developers, networking, mindboggling new projects every other day, everything is pointing up.
Armory is one of the most sophisticated and secure Bitcoin clients out there. With only one core developer. In his spare time, after work.
Come on, Bitcoin is no hobbyproject any more, and neither is Armory!

I want to 1) have Alan as a fulltime, paid Armory-developer, and 2) throw as many ressources at him as necessary, more developers come to mind here.

How to raise the funds for this?

a) There is kind of a sellout on Bitcoinqt-developers: Gavin at the Bitcoinfoundation, Jeff at BitPay. Probably more I don't remember. We could sell Alan to one of the bigger Bitcoincompanys (I can't believe he didn't get offers already)! That would be the most secure and least free way.

b) The community regularly raises huge amounts of funds for good causes. Bitcoin100 comes to mind, and the recent Satoshi Forest glory. This is of course highly volatile and not very tempting to quit a regular-paying job.

c) Pay-ware, ads-n-shit, payable modules or the like. I don't see the regular users financing a salary through this, but there will be high demand for secure, integrated, accountable software for companys. This might pay for a salary in one, two years.

d) Diversification: I see huge potential in a hardwarewallet which directly integrates into Armory. Both for users and companys. Throw an Android app, and (since there is no proper alternative!) an Iphone app in the mix. The community regularly throws mindboggling amounts of funds at the newest gadgets.


So, what can we do to help Alan out?

Alan, what do you think? Would you like to tell us a bit about the situation we are to "fix"? What would you need as minimum funds? How many months, years must be secured for you to happily quit an indefinite job?

I hope you, Alan, don't feel pushed or insulted on this. I want you to be paid for the awesome work you do. I want you to have more developingtime *and* more spare time. I want you to be not restrained by 'unimportant' things like money. Just like I wouldn't want Picasso to sell vegetables at the market to finance this painting thing he does in his spare time.

I decided to post this in /discussion instead of /Armory. This is an important topic for the whole community, for various reasons.

tl,dr:
How can we get Alan, the (only) core-dev of Bitcoinclient Armory, a full-time salary on this?

Ente

[xeroc]

count me in..

[greyhawk]

Satoshi Forest glory

lol.


Here's a thing to know about Pensacola Florida



It's swamp land.

[Ente]

Satoshi Forest glory

lol.
Here's a thing to know about Pensacola Florida
It's swamp land.

Well, the community collected funds to pay for the mortgage all the way to 2014. On the same day it was announced. By reddit tips alone.
I do find that remarkably.

Ente

[Ente]

Is it a bad thing that etothepi shares his time from a day job and armory? I view it as that less time, allows him to only take on the critical problem and top features. That is what makes armory the best I feel.

Are you saying "less time, less features, fixing only the most pressing problems" is better?
I feel different. The contrary, Bitcoin clients need to be more secure, more intuitive, with more features, and easier to use for less savy people. Not necessarily one and the same client, mind you ;-)

/edit: Maybe Henjix' SX is for you? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=291581
The more independent clients, the better!

A) Don't have a bitcoin company sell Alan out. Gavin whined and got a paycheck, and so has Jeff, they whined enough and got paychecks. Alan never complaints about that and I respect him a lot more for it. He rather help the community than get a paycheck.

B) I agree charity could be good for him.

C) This will make less people use it and won't pay a lot since I don't believe 100,000's use it. That kinda what you need to make salary money.

D) Don't let Alan get spread too thin in that space. Iphone app isn't worth the time they will never allow it. And hardly anyone jailbreaks anymore from what I have seen. He does have plans to add trezor and I can't wait!

I don't have a good solution, and don't really like any of my suggestions neither. Maybe we can come up with something better?

Ente

[crazy_rabbit]

Maybe you could run a bounty campaign if you could come up with some specific features you would like to see happen. So people have a tangible idea whats being worked on? I like what your saying, but it's likely still too soon to have this be a full time project for him. When Bitcoin hits 10 billion or 100 billion I think you will see that it makes more sense then to be a full time project.

Either way, what I would really support for Armory is a better GUI. Something that looks more user friendly. Also, I would really support something that could let me do accounting with Armory.

[crazy_rabbit]

Is it a bad thing that etothepi shares his time from a day job and armory? I view it as that less time, allows him to only take on the critical problem and top features. That is what makes armory the best I feel.

Are you saying "less time, less features, fixing only the most pressing problems" is better?
I feel different. The contrary, Bitcoin clients need to be more secure, more intuitive, with more features, and easier to use for less savy people. Not necessarily one and the same client, mind you ;-)

/edit: Maybe Henjix' SX is for you? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=291581
The more independent clients, the better!

Armory isn't really for non-tech savy people, it is extremely far from that if that is the vision. I haven't seen any of etothepi really talk about that as the vision for armory. Also armory is the most secure and has most features of any client I have seen, so I don't get how his time has not allowed him to still make it feature rich.

Last time I checked it runs on top of an existing Bitcoin installation. IT would be worth while to see a new implementation built from the ground up.

[Ente]

Armory isn't really for non-tech savy people, it is extremely far from that if that is the vision. I haven't seen any of etothepi really talk about that as the vision for armory. Also armory is the most secure and has most features of any client I have seen, so I don't get how his time has not allowed him to still make it feature rich.

Either way - I don't think Alan would run out of new features, enhancements, reworks for a year, programming fulltime on Armory.

I believe he is time-limited. This is a result of being funds-limited, which is no surprise for a FOSS project. That's what I want to change. I'm not even discussing software/feature related goals yet, I trust Alan enough on that ;-)

Ente

[superduh]

talk to friedcat - dude needs to do something to keep AM shares up. he has a good reputation too perhaps AM will take it on

[LightRider]

In a resource based economy, people wouldn't have to devote the majority of their productive life to the service of mundane busywork in order to support their lives. They would be free to reach their highest potential and contribute to society for the benefit of all.

[chriswilmer]

I don't want to spoil the surprise, but you guys are going to get what you want in the next few days without having to do anything at all

Exciting!

[mindtomatter]

Really hope alan doesn't sell out to Let's Talk Bitcoin, they been known to take bribes for positive stories and reviews. **COUGH** BFL **COUGH**

lol, yeah good point - Wait, what?  We've never reviewed ANY mining hardware, and have spent the last two months talking about whether ASICs as a whole are bad for Bitcoin.

What are you talking about?

[cypherdoc]

Really hope alan doesn't sell out to Let's Talk Bitcoin, they been known to take bribes for positive stories and reviews. **COUGH** BFL **COUGH**

lol, yeah good point - Wait, what?  We've never reviewed ANY mining hardware, and have spent the last two months talking about whether ASICs as a whole are bad for Bitcoin.

What are you talking about?

Nvm it was codinginmysleep's blog, so many bitcoin podcast and blogs, I lose track. Anyway still a bitcoin blog/podcast shouldn't have a developer in it's pocket, it justs looks bad. You really should be as independent as you can be.

yeah Adam.  so take that! lol! 

[mindtomatter]

Really hope alan doesn't sell out to Let's Talk Bitcoin, they been known to take bribes for positive stories and reviews. **COUGH** BFL **COUGH**

lol, yeah good point - Wait, what?  We've never reviewed ANY mining hardware, and have spent the last two months talking about whether ASICs as a whole are bad for Bitcoin.

What are you talking about?

Nvm it was codinginmysleep's blog, so many bitcoin podcast and blogs, I lose track. Anyway still a bitcoin blog/podcast shouldn't have a developer in it's pocket, it justs looks bad. You really should be as independent as you can be.

Why would it be right for a company like Bitpay or Bitinstant to hire a core developer, but inappropriate for a media outlet to support a developer?   I can flatly tell you that's not in the cards, but I'm totally not seeing your logic here.

[cypherdoc]

Really hope alan doesn't sell out to Let's Talk Bitcoin, they been known to take bribes for positive stories and reviews. **COUGH** BFL **COUGH**

lol, yeah good point - Wait, what?  We've never reviewed ANY mining hardware, and have spent the last two months talking about whether ASICs as a whole are bad for Bitcoin.

What are you talking about?

Nvm it was codinginmysleep's blog, so many bitcoin podcast and blogs, I lose track. Anyway still a bitcoin blog/podcast shouldn't have a developer in it's pocket, it justs looks bad. You really should be as independent as you can be.

Why would it be right for a company like Bitpay or Bitinstant to hire a core developer, but inappropriate for a media outlet to support a developer?   I can flatly tell you that's not in the cards, but I'm totally not seeing your logic here.

why don't we try a little experiment?

see that line over there to the left in his sig?  why don't you try putting him in your pocket for a little pocket change and see what happens?

[mindtomatter]

Really hope alan doesn't sell out to Let's Talk Bitcoin, they been known to take bribes for positive stories and reviews. **COUGH** BFL **COUGH**

lol, yeah good point - Wait, what?  We've never reviewed ANY mining hardware, and have spent the last two months talking about whether ASICs as a whole are bad for Bitcoin.

What are you talking about?

Nvm it was codinginmysleep's blog, so many bitcoin podcast and blogs, I lose track. Anyway still a bitcoin blog/podcast shouldn't have a developer in it's pocket, it justs looks bad. You really should be as independent as you can be.

Why would it be right for a company like Bitpay or Bitinstant to hire a core developer, but inappropriate for a media outlet to support a developer?   I can flatly tell you that's not in the cards, but I'm totally not seeing your logic here.

why don't we try a little experiment?

see that line over there to the left in his sig?  why don't you try putting him in your pocket for a little pocket change and see what happens?

Talking to me or gweedo lol?

[mindtomatter]

Really hope alan doesn't sell out to Let's Talk Bitcoin, they been known to take bribes for positive stories and reviews. **COUGH** BFL **COUGH**

lol, yeah good point - Wait, what?  We've never reviewed ANY mining hardware, and have spent the last two months talking about whether ASICs as a whole are bad for Bitcoin.

What are you talking about?

Nvm it was codinginmysleep's blog, so many bitcoin podcast and blogs, I lose track. Anyway still a bitcoin blog/podcast shouldn't have a developer in it's pocket, it justs looks bad. You really should be as independent as you can be.

Why would it be right for a company like Bitpay or Bitinstant to hire a core developer, but inappropriate for a media outlet to support a developer?   I can flatly tell you that's not in the cards, but I'm totally not seeing your logic here.

Well we are talking about two different things here. I am oppose of bitpay having a core developer on it's team no doubt about that. I feel that group should be independent as well. But clearly Gavin has paved that road already for them as being look, and whine for a paycheck. Alan is neither a core developer, so I have not oppose to him getting a paycheck. I am glad he can get a paycheck. Now a media outlet should be independent, granted I never really been to your site, or listened to your podcast. So now you pay Alan, and lets say Alan puts out a horrible feature. Are you going to report that? Are you going to give a negative report? Even though he is now on your payroll, you probably just ignore it or something, and that would make most people stop listening/reading. You see now, independence is something that is very important in this economy.

why don't we try a little experiment?

see that line over there to the left in his sig?  why don't you try putting him in your pocket for a little pocket change and see what happens?

See this would be really bad experiment. I am not trying to brag but bitcoins has made me a very wealthy person. I don't have to sell out for a paycheck and I understand that isn't true for everyone. Sometimes the lure of money is greater than the moral/ethic part of the job.

My record of work is out there for anyone interested.

[mindtomatter]

Really hope alan doesn't sell out to Let's Talk Bitcoin, they been known to take bribes for positive stories and reviews. **COUGH** BFL **COUGH**

lol, yeah good point - Wait, what?  We've never reviewed ANY mining hardware, and have spent the last two months talking about whether ASICs as a whole are bad for Bitcoin.

What are you talking about?

Nvm it was codinginmysleep's blog, so many bitcoin podcast and blogs, I lose track. Anyway still a bitcoin blog/podcast shouldn't have a developer in it's pocket, it justs looks bad. You really should be as independent as you can be.

Why would it be right for a company like Bitpay or Bitinstant to hire a core developer, but inappropriate for a media outlet to support a developer?   I can flatly tell you that's not in the cards, but I'm totally not seeing your logic here.

Well we are talking about two different things here. I am oppose of bitpay having a core developer on it's team no doubt about that. I feel that group should be independent as well. But clearly Gavin has paved that road already for them as being look, and whine for a paycheck. Alan is neither a core developer, so I have not oppose to him getting a paycheck. I am glad he can get a paycheck. Now a media outlet should be independent, granted I never really been to your site, or listened to your podcast. So now you pay Alan, and lets say Alan puts out a horrible feature. Are you going to report that? Are you going to give a negative report? Even though he is now on your payroll, you probably just ignore it or something, and that would make most people stop listening/reading. You see now, independence is something that is very important in this economy.

why don't we try a little experiment?

see that line over there to the left in his sig?  why don't you try putting him in your pocket for a little pocket change and see what happens?

See this would be really bad experiment. I am not trying to brag but bitcoins has made me a very wealthy person. I don't have to sell out for a paycheck and I understand that isn't true for everyone. Sometimes the lure of money is greater than the moral/ethic part of the job.

My record of work is out there for anyone interested.

You didn't answer the questions I posed to you.

Besides pointing you to my body of work, I don't know what I could say that could possibly convince you.  I take my work very seriously with the goal of providing a platform for the various viewpoints ideas and personalities who make up the cryptocurrency movement.  I view the most important pillar of my duties to be expectation management for the audience, so in the particular scenario you describe there, if it were an unusual thing for Armory to be buggy and warranted discussion (we only have two hours a week so tend to focus and discuss rather than try to cover everything briefly) we would cover it.   

In order to keep LTB from being influenced, we have routinely turned down sponsorship offers that involve on-air endorsements.  Our advertising spots are pre-recorded and distinctly segmented from the journalistic content, which has in fact made it more difficult to monetize but LTB is not and was never intended to make me wealthy, it is a platform to promote the conversation and lend a megaphone to people with good ideas but no way to share them.

If you're wealthy because of Bitcoin and want to empower ad free quality content we should talk, I'm much more looking for patrons with LTB than I am sponsors as I consider what we're doing a public service.

[mindtomatter]

Really hope alan doesn't sell out to Let's Talk Bitcoin, they been known to take bribes for positive stories and reviews. **COUGH** BFL **COUGH**

lol, yeah good point - Wait, what?  We've never reviewed ANY mining hardware, and have spent the last two months talking about whether ASICs as a whole are bad for Bitcoin.

What are you talking about?

Nvm it was codinginmysleep's blog, so many bitcoin podcast and blogs, I lose track. Anyway still a bitcoin blog/podcast shouldn't have a developer in it's pocket, it justs looks bad. You really should be as independent as you can be.

Why would it be right for a company like Bitpay or Bitinstant to hire a core developer, but inappropriate for a media outlet to support a developer?   I can flatly tell you that's not in the cards, but I'm totally not seeing your logic here.

Well we are talking about two different things here. I am oppose of bitpay having a core developer on it's team no doubt about that. I feel that group should be independent as well. But clearly Gavin has paved that road already for them as being look, and whine for a paycheck. Alan is neither a core developer, so I have not oppose to him getting a paycheck. I am glad he can get a paycheck. Now a media outlet should be independent, granted I never really been to your site, or listened to your podcast. So now you pay Alan, and lets say Alan puts out a horrible feature. Are you going to report that? Are you going to give a negative report? Even though he is now on your payroll, you probably just ignore it or something, and that would make most people stop listening/reading. You see now, independence is something that is very important in this economy.

why don't we try a little experiment?

see that line over there to the left in his sig?  why don't you try putting him in your pocket for a little pocket change and see what happens?

See this would be really bad experiment. I am not trying to brag but bitcoins has made me a very wealthy person. I don't have to sell out for a paycheck and I understand that isn't true for everyone. Sometimes the lure of money is greater than the moral/ethic part of the job.

My record of work is out there for anyone interested.

You didn't answer the questions I posed to you.

Besides pointing you to my body of work, I don't know what I could say that could possibly convince you.  I take my work very seriously with the goal of providing a platform for the various viewpoints ideas and personalities who make up the cryptocurrency movement.  I view the most important pillar of my duties to be expectation management for the audience, so in the particular scenario you describe there, if it were an unusual thing for Armory to be buggy and warranted discussion (we only have two hours a week so tend to focus and discuss rather than try to cover everything briefly) we would cover it.  

In order to keep LTB from being influenced, we have routinely turned down sponsorship offers that involve on-air endorsements.  Our advertising spots are pre-recorded and distinctly segmented from the journalistic content, which has in fact made it more difficult to monetize but LTB is not and was never intended to make me wealthy, it is a platform to promote the conversation and lend a megaphone to people with good ideas but no way to share them.

If you're wealthy because of Bitcoin and want to empower ad free quality content we should talk, I'm much more looking for patrons with LTB than I am sponsors as I consider what we're doing a public service.

So then you are on the same page as me, as that media should stick to being independent.

Independent yes, absolutely.  But I'm just saying I don't think independence means you can't have non-media projects in the bitcoin space, as you implied.

[mindtomatter]

Really hope alan doesn't sell out to Let's Talk Bitcoin, they been known to take bribes for positive stories and reviews. **COUGH** BFL **COUGH**

lol, yeah good point - Wait, what?  We've never reviewed ANY mining hardware, and have spent the last two months talking about whether ASICs as a whole are bad for Bitcoin.

What are you talking about?

Nvm it was codinginmysleep's blog, so many bitcoin podcast and blogs, I lose track. Anyway still a bitcoin blog/podcast shouldn't have a developer in it's pocket, it justs looks bad. You really should be as independent as you can be.

Why would it be right for a company like Bitpay or Bitinstant to hire a core developer, but inappropriate for a media outlet to support a developer?   I can flatly tell you that's not in the cards, but I'm totally not seeing your logic here.

Well we are talking about two different things here. I am oppose of bitpay having a core developer on it's team no doubt about that. I feel that group should be independent as well. But clearly Gavin has paved that road already for them as being look, and whine for a paycheck. Alan is neither a core developer, so I have not oppose to him getting a paycheck. I am glad he can get a paycheck. Now a media outlet should be independent, granted I never really been to your site, or listened to your podcast. So now you pay Alan, and lets say Alan puts out a horrible feature. Are you going to report that? Are you going to give a negative report? Even though he is now on your payroll, you probably just ignore it or something, and that would make most people stop listening/reading. You see now, independence is something that is very important in this economy.

why don't we try a little experiment?

see that line over there to the left in his sig?  why don't you try putting him in your pocket for a little pocket change and see what happens?

See this would be really bad experiment. I am not trying to brag but bitcoins has made me a very wealthy person. I don't have to sell out for a paycheck and I understand that isn't true for everyone. Sometimes the lure of money is greater than the moral/ethic part of the job.

My record of work is out there for anyone interested.

You didn't answer the questions I posed to you.

Besides pointing you to my body of work, I don't know what I could say that could possibly convince you.  I take my work very seriously with the goal of providing a platform for the various viewpoints ideas and personalities who make up the cryptocurrency movement.  I view the most important pillar of my duties to be expectation management for the audience, so in the particular scenario you describe there, if it were an unusual thing for Armory to be buggy and warranted discussion (we only have two hours a week so tend to focus and discuss rather than try to cover everything briefly) we would cover it.   

In order to keep LTB from being influenced, we have routinely turned down sponsorship offers that involve on-air endorsements.  Our advertising spots are pre-recorded and distinctly segmented from the journalistic content, which has in fact made it more difficult to monetize but LTB is not and was never intended to make me wealthy, it is a platform to promote the conversation and lend a megaphone to people with good ideas but no way to share them.

If you're wealthy because of Bitcoin and want to empower ad free quality content we should talk, I'm much more looking for patrons with LTB than I am sponsors as I consider what we're doing a public service.

So then you are on the same page as me, as that media should stick to being independent.

Independent yes, absolutely.  But I'm just saying I don't think independence means you can't have non-media projects in the bitcoin space, as you implied.

That is like if I started doing a podcast and commenting on the bitcoin economy. No one would listen cause my investments in the bitcoin space would overshadow my comments. And make it bias.

This is why I pointed you at my record of work - We are *all* invested in the Bitcoin economy so trying to find someone "unbiased" by that definition is the same as trying to find someone who doesn't know what they're talking about.   It's like demanding financial journalists not use their local currency, it's crazy and even the non-use implies bias just of a different type.

I continue to think it's better to be open about your bias so that the audience can make up their own mind about whether what you're saying is accurate or self serving.  Some things are highly political and that can cause problems, but on the broad points I think it's an impossible standard.

If we were talking about a show specifically dedicated to objectively determining the relative worth of different mining hardware, and you owned mostly one brand or were sponsored by one manufacturer than yeah, that would be a credibility problem.  But "I own bitcoins" does not disqualify you from commenting on Bitcoin, it actually means you're more likely to have some clue what you're talking about.