Bitcoin Core Developers Should Be Paid

[H.Badger]

In its February 21, 2014 edition, CoinDesk published an observation made by Gavin Andresen regarding the work performed by the Bitcoin core developers.  More precisely, he contrasted the effort expended by the core developers with the lack of effort expended by users of the network, particularly by those companies that extract financial gain. He strongly suggested that "... if you are making a profit using the software, you should help develop, debug, test and review it."  His comments in this article have brought to light an issue fundamental to the future success of the Bitcoin economy. 

However, Mr. Andresen did not go far enough.  His admonition and goad to action will most likely fall upon deaf ears.

The multitude of benefits of a digital currency is known and has been rightly noted.  A cheap method of money transfer portends a new realm of economic activity, i.e. microtransactions.  In the poor regions of the world, immigrants will be able to send money to their families in their home country for pennies on the dollar.  Family businesses in the backwaters of the world can sell their goods to the world because they trade in a universal currency.  Utilization of the Bitcoin economy by these folks will increase as their access to BTC increases.

An inexpensive payment system beneficial to the common man is also an efficient means of money transfer for commerce.  There are businesses profiting from the expansion of the Bitcoin economy.  There will be more in the future. 

The potential of Bitcoin mentioned above merely reiterates what enthusiasts already know.  The point is, as the Bitcoin economy grows, as more people and businesses come to rely upon it, the importance of maintaining the underlying network and protocol grows in the same degree.

It is untenable for a system used by millions of people to transfer massive amounts of money all over the world to rely on essentially unpaid volunteers.  The psychological and/or emotional rewards afforded to the core developers for creating and maintaining this system will understandably diminish as they see the users of the system profit from the developers' work.

The Bitcoin network must be built upon a free market.  It is not likely to receive government subsidies or corporate sponsorship.  Nor should the largess be accepted if offered.  BTC must rely on itself, on the users, the miners and of primary importance, on those who keep the system functional.  It must rely on the uncoerced exchange of productive effort applied to the maintenance of the network in exchange for some form of remuneration paid by the network.  We must create some type of feedback system that rewards those who maintain and improve the Bitcoin network.

In short, Bitcoin core developers should be paid!

The not-for-profit purists among us will cringe at this suggestion; but please put yourself in the developer's position.  How long would you willing to work as a volunteer while others profited from your work.  Miners are paid to mine.  Users save money by using the network.  Likewise, the system must provide incentives to keep a cadre of core developers interested.
 
This feedback mechanism need not violate the open source, distributed paradigm.  Perhaps a coin similar to Devcoin could be merge-mined along with BTC and funded by a percentage of the transaction fees.  This coin could in turn fund network maintenance and implementation of new features.  The amount awarded for work procured could be voted upon by users/miners.
 
Not offering remuneration to the keepers of the system is a flaw in the system.
We need to seriously consider rewarding those who keep the network up and running.

[Holliday]

Remember everyone working on bitcoins holds bitcoins

While that may or may not be true, it doesn't need to be true.

[porcupine87]

Gavin gets paid, by the foundation, the reward is that they get rich. Remember everyone working on bitcoins holds bitcoins, so why get paid if you are just increasing your own wealth but making a better product? Also bitcoins is a startup currency just like a startup you don't get paid you get stock and your own work can dictate if that is worth $2 Billion or $200.

hm but what is with the free rider problem? This devs work hard and make every coin holder richer. Someone might have 100 000 coins and just contribute nothing.

But who should pay the devs and what amount?

[Mrrr]

Remember everyone working on bitcoins holds bitcoins

What that may or may not be true, it doesn't need to be true.

Same idea still goes. Bitcoin becomes an even bigger success: holders will reap and coinless core devs won't have to worry about their carreer.

Don't pay. As long as there are still USD out there ready to enter the crypto economy this whole thing pays for itself.

[DeathAndTaxes]

As Bitcoin matures this will be a problem that is solved because it IS in the best interest of bitcoin related companies to have open source developers on their payroll.  The same concern existing for the Linux project and today the majority of the commits (both kernel and major repos) are from 100% paid full time developers.  They are on the payroll of companies which depend on Linux.   It is a solid investment.  It gives those companies insight into the future development, a subject matter expert, and influence over direction of future development.  

Case in point imagine if MtGox had an core protocol developer on the payroll.  He would work 90% of the time on the open source project improving the core protocol and reference client, and 10% of the time advising and consulting MtGox internal development team.  They probably wouldn't have been "surprised" by the changes in signatures (v0., tried to spend immature coins (v0.1), or the countless other things they did wrong. Someone could have explained to their internal development team a year ago they were running the risk of being exploited by relying solely on tx ids.  Even if MtGox survives this event, it has already cost them (damaged brand, lost future profits, possible litigation) more than the salary of a dozen protocol developers for the next decade.

[jr3951]

I hate to say but I think the spirit of bitcoin is that if the devs all quit, or died in a plane crash, or whatever- it shouldnt matter, someone else will (hopefully) step in and take their place, it is all built on a system that at least maintains the status quo in the meantime.

That said, the devs are a valuable asset to the community, the dirt for our roots, they should have no shame in making the bitcoin foundation for-profit (I'm assuming its not since they are bringing up pay), and collecting a set salary from what they raise.

But they SHOULD NOT, implement such a thing in the protocol, how does the protocol decide who is a developer? if the community chooses a different direction how does the protocol recognize this? does a community member get paid if he issues or suggest a vital fix? Is it taken from miners or increase transaction fees to the user?

we always need to be as decentralized as possible, its our strength

[Cubic Earth]

hm but what is with the free rider problem? This devs work hard and make every coin holder richer. Someone might have 100 000 coins and just contribute nothing.

Holding 100,000 coins is a massive contribution to the exchange value of bitcoin.  At current rates, it would be $60m that the holder is choosing to keep invested in the ecosystem.  A high exchange rate allows developers to sell a few of their coins to pay themselves, allows miners to sell coins to keep investing in the security of the network and contributes to exchange rate stability, which many people think is important.

Do you still think investor are 'free riders'?

[browep]

would need some sort of distributed paying system.  Open source dev is already an exercise in herding cats.  Adding financial incentives there would not make things any easier to manage.  Donating to the Bitcoin Foundation is a good start as that value will probably be returned to you in way of better software which will increase the coins worth.

[Armis]

In its February 21, 2014 edition, CoinDesk published an observation made by Gavin Andresen regarding the work performed by the Bitcoin core developers.  More precisely, he contrasted the effort expended by the core developers with the lack of effort expended by users of the network, particularly by those companies that extract financial gain. He strongly suggested that "... if you are making a profit using the software, you should help develop, debug, test and review it."  His comments in this article have brought to light an issue fundamental to the future success of the Bitcoin economy. 

However, Mr. Andresen did not go far enough.  His admonition and goad to action will most likely fall upon deaf ears.

The multitude of benefits of a digital currency is known and has been rightly noted.  A cheap method of money transfer portends a new realm of economic activity, i.e. microtransactions.  In the poor regions of the world, immigrants will be able to send money to their families in their home country for pennies on the dollar.  Family businesses in the backwaters of the world can sell their goods to the world because they trade in a universal currency.  Utilization of the Bitcoin economy by these folks will increase as their access to BTC increases.

An inexpensive payment system beneficial to the common man is also an efficient means of money transfer for commerce.  There are businesses profiting from the expansion of the Bitcoin economy.  There will be more in the future. 

The potential of Bitcoin mentioned above merely reiterates what enthusiasts already know.  The point is, as the Bitcoin economy grows, as more people and businesses come to rely upon it, the importance of maintaining the underlying network and protocol grows in the same degree.

It is untenable for a system used by millions of people to transfer massive amounts of money all over the world to rely on essentially unpaid volunteers.  The psychological and/or emotional rewards afforded to the core developers for creating and maintaining this system will understandably diminish as they see the users of the system profit from the developers' work.

The Bitcoin network must be built upon a free market.  It is not likely to receive government subsidies or corporate sponsorship.  Nor should the largess be accepted if offered.  BTC must rely on itself, on the users, the miners and of primary importance, on those who keep the system functional.  It must rely on the uncoerced exchange of productive effort applied to the maintenance of the network in exchange for some form of remuneration paid by the network.  We must create some type of feedback system that rewards those who maintain and improve the Bitcoin network.

In short, Bitcoin core developers should be paid!

The not-for-profit purists among us will cringe at this suggestion; but please put yourself in the developer's position.  How long would you willing to work as a volunteer while others profited from your work.  Miners are paid to mine.  Users save money by using the network.  Likewise, the system must provide incentives to keep a cadre of core developers interested.
 
This feedback mechanism need not violate the open source, distributed paradigm.  Perhaps a coin similar to Devcoin could be merge-mined along with BTC and funded by a percentage of the transaction fees.  This coin could in turn fund network maintenance and implementation of new features.  The amount awarded for work procured could be voted upon by users/miners.
 
Not offering remuneration to the keepers of the system is a flaw in the system.
We need to seriously consider rewarding those who keep the network up and running.

That's fancy pants speak for TAX, Tax, and more tax.


Yep, sooner or later we all come to the realization that free isn't.

[LiteCoinGuy]

i think most of the core devs hold thousand of btc. they dont need that money anymore.

[Armis]

i think most of the core devs hold thousand of btc. they dont need that money anymore.

hahahahaha  ...  you tell em,

count their money, dismiss their bills, disregard their skills, ignore their contributions, and then demand that they continue working,

yep, that's the ticket .... hahahhahahaa

[MineForeman.com]

i think most of the core devs hold thousand of btc. they dont need that money anymore.

hahahahaha  ...  you tell em,

count their money, dismiss their bills, disregard their skills, ignore their contributions, and then demand that they continue working,

yep, that's the ticket .... hahahhahahaa

Shhhh you and go make me coffee, WTF don't I pay you for?  There are plenty of others out there that will kill to serve me in this fashion, go find one of them.


[it's the eternal problem with open source stuff]

[Armis]

Case in point imagine if MtGox had an core protocol, developer on the payroll.  We would work full time on improving the core protocol and reference client at MtGox's expense.  They probably wouldn't have been "surprised" by the changes in allowed signatures in v0.8, they might have gotten a warning that their custom client was horribly broken.   Someone could have explained to their internal development team that they were running the risk of being attacked by relying solely on tx ids.  Even if MtGox survives this the amount it has cost the company in damaged brand, and lost future profits would have paid for a dozen developers for a decade.

great argument right there

[Sheldor333]

Best solution I see here is make it all open source, more transparency and no need to pay developers, community will take care of it because it benefits most from it. That is the way I see it at least.

[whtchocla7e]

Who controls the core developers? Whose wishes are they implementing? How do we know they're not already getting paid by some party that wants to control Bitcoin?

Too much power in the hands of the few...

[Armis]

Gavin gets paid, by the foundation, the reward is that they get rich. Remember everyone working on bitcoins holds bitcoins, so why get paid if you are just increasing your own wealth but making a better product? Also bitcoins is a startup currency just like a startup you don't get paid you get stock and your own work can dictate if that is worth $2 Billion or $200.

So paying core devs is a worthless thing, and if they all left which must of us hopeful, since they are corrupted by greed, we would get a new team.

Not offering remuneration to the keepers of the system is a flaw in the system.

Also this is very upsetting we are all keepers of the system not just the core dev team, EVERYONE!

so you volunteer to do the job for nothing?  you volunteer to use your millions to help "increase your own wealth by making a better BTC product"?  


you are so kind, so gracious, we appreciate you so much, now go code, code like the wind, you will be known around the world for eternity,  go now ... errr ah, what's your name again?

hahahahaaaaa

[bg002h]

The Bitcoin Foundation was started, in part, to fund the position of chief scientist...to fund a core dev to work on it full time. 

[markjamrobin]

i think most of the core devs hold thousand of btc. they dont need that money anymore.

hahahahaha  ...  you tell em,

count their money, dismiss their bills, disregard their skills, ignore their contributions, and then demand that they continue working,

yep, that's the ticket .... hahahhahahaa

Shhhh you and go make me coffee, WTF don't I pay you for?  There are plenty of others out there that will kill to serve me in this fashion, go find one of them.


[it's the eternal problem with open source stuff]

All BTC devs also act in their personal interests, by propelling Bitcoin forward, and increasing the value of their fortunes.

[WuttWutt]

Imo they should just be discarded

Bitcoin doesnt need expansion it's perfect already

Btw if they start getting paid then bitcoin is doomed because they will do what the highest bidder offers them and ruin the coin (probably in a hard-to-notice way until its too late)

[Armis]

Best solution I see here is make it all open source, more transparency and no need to pay developers, community will take care of it because it benefits most from it. That is the way I see it at least.

really?, and where exactly do we find 'Mr or Mrs. community, with the skills and experiences to get the job done for no pay? [tapping toe]


people want people to do development for free, to do management for free, to do design for free, to do marketing for free, to do outreach for free, to do distribution for free,  
to do websites for free, to do faucets for free, to do forums for free ... essentially everything but mining for free; then they want the people who did all of the free work to compete on the same level as everyone else for the scarce rewards.  


Amazing!