Is Bitcoin still experimental?

[n0nce]

FYI, you should quote @20kevin20 since he's the one who made the statement (while the other one simply copy/paste his post and add few enter).

Fixed. Wanted to report in the plagiarism thread but you already did

[1715471993]

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[takuma sato]

The "This is experimental software" line is probably a disclaimer in order to protect from people suing the developers in case something went wrong and loss of funds happened due a glitch in the code.

[pooya87]

The "This is experimental software" line is probably a disclaimer in order to protect from people suing the developers in case something went wrong and loss of funds happened due a glitch in the code.

You can't sue developers of an application that is released under MIT license if something went wrong because when you started using that software you agreed to accept it "as is" and without warranty of any kind. Whether it is experimental or not has nothing to do with it.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.

[BlackHatCoiner]

The "This is experimental software" line is probably a disclaimer in order to protect from people suing the developers in case something went wrong and loss of funds happened due a glitch in the code.

As said by pooya87 above, once you install it, you agree on the terms written in the MIT License. Although, it is, indeed, a disclaimer. It's telling you that you should be aware and responsible for any actions you take. That it's a new, innovative type of money. Nothing the society had ever seen before.

This experimental line is not going to be removed any time soon.

[Wind_FURY]

Give it about another 20 to 50 years. Until then, people will continue to call it experimental. One could say fiat money is experimental and is failing, but it lasted a hundred years. There are plenty of science experiments with people that have been going on for decades.

Good point. Because the Core Developers, and only the Core Developers are in cryptocurrency development for the science. All of the other coins, the shitcoins, are in it for profit. MAYBE EXCEPT for a HANDFUL of altcoins.

[ABCbits]

The "This is experimental software" line is probably a disclaimer in order to protect from people suing the developers in case something went wrong and loss of funds happened due a glitch in the code.

You can't sue developers of an application that is released under MIT license if something went wrong because when you started using that software you agreed to accept it "as is" and without warranty of any kind. Whether it is experimental or not has nothing to do with it.

But it's more complicated if he meant the protocol (which covered on BIP) rather than implementation. Few BIP use different license (such as BSD, CC or doesn't include license). AFAIK most license prevent developer/author getting sued, but i've no idea what could happen if someone sue author of BIP without license.

[n0nce]

The "This is experimental software" line is probably a disclaimer in order to protect from people suing the developers in case something went wrong and loss of funds happened due a glitch in the code.

You can't sue developers of an application that is released under MIT license if something went wrong because when you started using that software you agreed to accept it "as is" and without warranty of any kind. Whether it is experimental or not has nothing to do with it.

But it's more complicated if he meant the protocol (which covered on BIP) rather than implementation. Few BIP use different license (such as BSD, CC or doesn't include license). AFAIK most license prevent developer/author getting sued, but i've no idea what could happen if someone sue author of BIP without license.

I don't see how you'd sue someone for a protocol specification though. Since for losing funds you need to use an implementation of that protocol, and as was mentioned Core implementation is under MIT, so you accept any faults etc. when using Bitcoin Core, even if they're coded to spec. At least that's how it would work in my mind, but I'd like to hear other opinions of course!

[Dabs]

I think you can only sue developers of closed sourced wallets or custodial wallets. You can't sue open source code devs because you should be able to compile it yourself.

Really, people should learn about cold storage and multi-signature wallets no matter how much value they plan to hodl.

[NotATether]

P.S. BIP 143 actually use PD license, it's just dumb example.

But you can't sue the author of a public domain work because the author has legally waived all their ownership from it (so there is no warranty that can apply to them in any case).

[a.a]

Well, lets say I write a malicious BIP with Copyright to myself, were I propose to store the privatekeys on my private email address. Some on Bitcoin Team think it is very neat solution, and implement it. Now the Network adapts it and now I get the privatekeys. I steal now the privatekeys and make the great fire-sale. Are now the devs my accomplices? Or is my action of stealing the BitCoins the criminal act and the bitcoin devs just negligent?

Or in German law, you can not exclude any liability. So for example, you make an online lottery... you can exclude any liability by declaring that you can not sue if you not win. But you can not exclude e.g. the liability for bodily harm, even if it is not in the possibilities to get bodily harmed by a online lottery.

Is Bitcoin money? Or is it something else? Can it be actually stolen?

And last but not least:
Who do you sue, if they(the node owners) disable the whole bitcoin network? Participation in the bitcoin network is not obligatory. So you can not sue anybody if there suddenly a 51% attack is possible and somebody is running the whole bitcoin network on his raspi with McDonalds Wifi.

[20kevin20]

Even then, you could argue it's still an ongoing experiment (like literally capitalism and communism themselves; both are mass adopted and in a way still experimental).

Let me explain: every time a milestone is reached, like 'legal tender', 'mass adoption', 'global reserve currency', ..., the circumstances are completely changed and we're in a new kind of experiment.

A very interesting food for thought. Yeah, we're definitely going experimental with every single new addition. Anything new could turn into opposition or support from certain parties, and stuff like SegWit is definitely a new atmosphere, a new environment and a new experiment. Thanks for your input. If so, since Bitcoin can be easily changed by just modifying its codelines unlike for example physical materials such as lead or gold, it might in fact be experimental at all times and will be even 100 years from now.

[NotATether]

Well, lets say I write a malicious BIP with Copyright to myself, were I propose to store the privatekeys on my private email address. Some on Bitcoin Team think it is very neat solution, and implement it. Now the Network adapts it and now I get the privatekeys. I steal now the privatekeys and make the great fire-sale. Are now the devs my accomplices? Or is my action of stealing the BitCoins the criminal act and the bitcoin devs just negligent?

It is not a practical scenario. BIPs are peer-reviewed almost as rigorously as academic papers so the chances of anyone with brains (dev or otherwise) of even moving the BIP to the debate stage is zero.

[Syke]

You can't sue open source code devs because you should be able to compile it yourself.

Sure you can. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/uk-court-let-craig-wright-194612053.html
Releasing code as open source does not absolve it of other laws, i.e. copyright/trademark/patent/etc. laws.

[NotATether]

You can't sue open source code devs because you should be able to compile it yourself.

Sure you can. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/uk-court-let-craig-wright-194612053.html
Releasing code as open source does not absolve it of other laws, i.e. copyright/trademark/patent/etc. laws.

Except the link you posted isn't about a copyright, trademark, or patent lawsuit, and the legal claims are not about the open source software.

The claims are specifically in the allegation that those devs are stopping Craig Wright from accessing [what he thinks is] his coins.

This is different from an accusation such as: You merged some code that violates my rights (such as a multimedia codec or an algorithm that someone has patents for, or using logos from a parent project that are protected, or contributing reverse engineered code to open-source projects)