Why isn't Gavin Andersen excited about our project?

[kolinko]

Guys. We posted the whitepaper ( http://github.com/orisi/wiki/wiki/Orisi-White-Paper ) about distributed oracles monday morning u.s. time - as far as I know we were the first ones ever to publish more than a few sentences about the subject. Three hours later Gaving Andersen posted an article that explains a concept eerily similar to ours - bit-thereum ( http://gavintech.blogspot.com/2014/06/bit-thereum.html ).

I assumed that he didn't see our paper on /r/bitcoin, nor on bitcointalk before publishing his post. So I tweeted him info that this thing is already being implemented, and that there's a whole whitepaper on the subject. And e-mailed him. And sent a bitcointalk message. And someone posted a link to our paper in his blog comments. We got no reply from him, but perhaps he missed all of this.

So now when I explain Orisi project to people, some of them ask me "so, this is Gavin's idea, right?", and "is it like bit-thereum"? If I were a bigger person, I'd probably say: "who cares who's idea is it". But I'm not that great, so I'll just start forwarding people to this thread.

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[jl2012]

What you have described in your paper could be implemented without any change in bitcoin protocol. You don't need any endorsement from the so-called "core dev". Just do it if you think it's a good idea. If it's useful, people will adopt it. Don't sound like an attention-seeking kid.

[ljudotina]

What you have described in your paper could be implemented without any change in bitcoin protocol. You don't need any endorsement from the so-called "core dev". Just do it if you think it's a good idea. If it's useful, people will adopt it. Don't sound like an attention-seeking kid.

All what he said + some competition is always healthy for users and competitors. It sounds like you want to be only one in that field. So what if he posted shortly after. I'm sure there will be even more similar ideas in the future, and users will give rats ass who came first with idea. Let the best service win!

[kolinko]

All what he said + some competition is always healthy for users and competitors.

It's an open source software, there will be competition. And ultimately it really only matters who implements it.

I just think that unfair actions by community members should be published. Even if he thought of this first, it's unfair of him to not give us a credit afterward. So when someone sends me Gavin's blogpost again, I'll be directing people here.

[TooDumbForBitcoin]

And someone posted a link to our paper in his blog comments. We got no reply from him, but perhaps he missed all of this.

He replied to the link in the blog comments.  He said, "Interesting, thanks for the link."

[kolinko]

He replied to the link in the blog comments.  He said, "Interesting, thanks for the link."

Oh, didn't notice that, thanks. That's why I like to put things like this in open - perhaps someone will now come and say that we didn't invent the thing and it's we who should credit someone completely different

[edmundedgar]

Guys. We posted the whitepaper ( http://github.com/orisi/wiki/wiki/Orisi-White-Paper ) about distributed oracles monday morning u.s. time - as far as I know we were the first ones ever to publish more than a few sentences about the subject. Three hours later Gaving Andersen posted an article that explains a concept eerily similar to ours - bit-thereum ( http://gavintech.blogspot.com/2014/06/bit-thereum.html ).

I assumed that he didn't see our paper on /r/bitcoin, nor on bitcointalk before publishing his post. So I tweeted him info that this thing is already being implemented, and that there's a whole whitepaper on the subject. And e-mailed him. And sent a bitcointalk message. And someone posted a link to our paper in his blog comments. We got no reply from him, but perhaps he missed all of this.

So now when I explain Orisi project to people, some of them ask me "so, this is Gavin's idea, right?", and "is it like bit-thereum"? If I were a bigger person, I'd probably say: "who cares who's idea is it". But I'm not that great, so I'll just start forwarding people to this thread.

Your paper is arguing against a straw man. People have been talking about oracles for a long time, and nobody has ever thought users should limit themselves to a single one. Of course you have various risks when using a single authority, which can be mitigated by combining m of n, preferably with diversity where you have risk. (So if you have regulatory risk, you want diverse jurisdictions, if you have a risk of software security bugs, you want diverse software platforms, etc.) When I present on Reality Keys I always talk about combining our keys with the keys of other authorities. That's just the obvious way to do it.

The interesting thought in Gavin's piece isn't that he's just invented m of n oracles, it's that if you're going to be reliant on some external authority to provide real-world data, which is already required for a lot of the use-cases people are talking about with Ethereum and some of the other new platforms, you don't lose much by stuffing the contract logic in there as well. That means you can get a lot of what these new platforms are supposed to provide using bitcoin without a big loss of security, even though bitcoin doesn't have all those features.

Your contribution, IIUC, is that you've written an open source implementation that anybody can run and made some infrastructure for tracking nodes that use it. That's great - don't worry about who came up with what idea, just make the implementation work well, and the whole community will appreciate it.

[BitCoinDream]

Guys. We posted the whitepaper ( http://github.com/orisi/wiki/wiki/Orisi-White-Paper ) about distributed oracles monday morning u.s. time - as far as I know we were the first ones ever to publish more than a few sentences about the subject. Three hours later Gaving Andersen posted an article that explains a concept eerily similar to ours - bit-thereum ( http://gavintech.blogspot.com/2014/06/bit-thereum.html ).

I assumed that he didn't see our paper on /r/bitcoin, nor on bitcointalk before publishing his post. So I tweeted him info that this thing is already being implemented, and that there's a whole whitepaper on the subject. And e-mailed him. And sent a bitcointalk message. And someone posted a link to our paper in his blog comments. We got no reply from him, but perhaps he missed all of this.

So now when I explain Orisi project to people, some of them ask me "so, this is Gavin's idea, right?", and "is it like bit-thereum"? If I were a bigger person, I'd probably say: "who cares who's idea is it". But I'm not that great, so I'll just start forwarding people to this thread.

Dont u think that your idea is already implemented by Ethereum and both U & Gavin are actually inspired by them ?

Ethereum White Paper: https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/%5BEnglish%5D-White-Paper

[kolinko]

@BitcoinDream: the concept is inspired by Ethereum, but it's not implemented in it - nor it can be in any blockchain currency really. Ethereum cannot reference outside world (e.g. track weather in Berlin to decide whether the contract goes through)

@edmundedgar: interesting insight, you're right. (edit: OTOH how many times did you hear about oracles being used as a way to implement sidechains functionality? before we posted about that? and gavin posted 3 hours later?)

[ljudotina]

...Even if he thought of this first, it's unfair of him to not give us a credit afterward...

Credit for what? For thinking same as he does (in case you two got to this idea seperatly and about same time)? Even if he got to the idea after you, and he posted it without even ever hearing of you and your project, what kind of credit should he give? Credit for what? You didint do anything that would influence (in that case) him or his project, there is nothing to be credited.

IF he read your post, and if he was influenced by your post, than OFC he should give you credit.

[kolinko]

Well, if he knows of previous research in the area he should say so - even after the fact. Just like we're now telling everyone that realitykeys worked on very similar stuff before us.

[edmundedgar]

edit: OTOH how many times did you hear about oracles being used as a way to implement sidechains functionality? before we posted about that? and gavin posted 3 hours later?)

I remember people bringing up the idea of using an oracle to do bitcoin 2.0 things when I released back in January. They wouldn't have mentioned sidechains in particular since they weren't being very prominently discussed back then, but sidechains are an obvious application.

More generally, this community is absolutely swarming with ideas. It's like nothing on earth. It's got to the point that when I think I've invented something, I take that as a sign that I don't understand it yet...

[Elwar]

Competition is healthy.

As is said time and again. Having an idea is great but the execution is key.

Implement it and do it well.

[shawshankinmate37927]

So now when I explain Orisi project to people, some of them ask me "so, this is Gavin's idea, right?", and "is it like bit-thereum"? If I were a bigger person, I'd probably say: "who cares who's idea is it". But I'm not that great, so I'll just start forwarding people to this thread.

Thankfully, ideas can't be owned.  Quit complaining and start implementing.

[kolinko]

Happy ending - Gavin put up a link to our whitepaper at the end of the post

Now, back to work.