Topic: [ANN] Bitcoin Foundation - page 11. (Read 127559 times)

A little late to add nuance to your statement, don't you think?


And who is to be the judge of what is "honest criticism" and what is "paranoia unsupported by evidence"? You almost sound like someone who would join an organisation to govern the very definition and certification of those terms...


If only it were like that.
Maybe you should really read through this topic. Read and try to understand what is actually being said, rather than dismiss it as trolls and paranoia unsupported by evidence.


Voluntary? What is voluntary by demanding to get paid for the providing of resources?
Edit: NVM, I misunderstood the "voluntary" part. It means something different in my native language. 

After...
   ...we shouldn't expect that he will write something in defence.

If the organization is hiring the development, it's the organization who specifies priorities. By putting developers in high positions inside this organization, these developers get to influence these priorities. I don't see a conflict of interest.


Why are they locked?


Again, I insist, praxeologically speaking, every organization, every individual, seek profit. From an economical POV, it makes no sense saying this organization is not for profit. And every organization may run out of business.
Plus, if somebody with deep enough pockets wants to save a business - whatever business - he will always be able too.
The real danger is not somebody buying up this organization and then get things developed for them - this "danger" exist right now, nothing's stopping rich people from buying Bitcoin development from its main developers.
The real danger - and in that, the lie that is their name may play a role - is people trusting this organization more than they should.

There's no reason to believe this organization would accomplish their goals better if they tried to sell stuff/services instead of asking for donations. I think the best approach is mixing both of them.

You know what your arguing premise reminds me of? Chastising the lone critics (I'm sure there must have been some) of the Federal Reserve Act in 1913.

From Jim Grant:

"If one reads the Federal Reserve Act, you will be struck by how little the 21st Century model resembles the projected central bank - as in fact the founders advocated for a De-Centralized system."

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/what-does-fed-do

Being labeled a troll isn't as disturbing as an out right attack on ones persona:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1231368

and here: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1231715

And the second attack happened even after my post replying to the first one here: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1231439

Does Gavis have a blog or website where he defends his position? I realise he doesn't think highly of this forum, but I really was hoping he would write something somewhere. Does he?

critic != troll

There is a clear difference in this thread between honest criticism and paranoia unsupported by evidence.

All the evidence to date is that the Gavin-led dev team encourages a more-decentralized ecosystem than even Satoshi did.  A voluntary organization has been organized to help provide resources to continue that work.

Absolutely there will be bugs and problems at startup.  It is better to start, and fix those bugs, than to endlessly debate about what is the perfect form that satisfies everybody.

What makes me wonder is why do the foundation founders think that everything is just "perfect" with their child ?
Why can't things outside software world have bugs, just as software ?

Aren't the "trolls" just people who see bugs and submit them to a bugzilla (which is what this topic actually is) ?

OK, the foundation is a good idea, but it has some bugs which need fixing before pushing clearly unfinished alpha-grade product to everybody around the world...

@Core team
You are supposed to be programmers, so think like one.

You know what's disturbing to me? That the opposing side are labeled "trolls".

No matter which side you're on, which views you have, is that really indicative of honest debate?

This thread has 51 pages, over 13K views in about 72 hours... And everything from the opposing side were troll posts?

It wasn't meant to be a part of the argument, I was just pointing out that some people are concerned that members of TBF would be arrested as being terrorists, because they gave up their anonymity, while others don't like the idea of a depoliticized bitcoin.

Bitcoin is full of non-anonymous users, politicizing bitcoin will be throwing them under the bus.

Well, to be 100% clear, only 3 or 4 of the points are mine, the rest are somebody's elses.


...but you cannot guarantee that.

So this counter-argument is useless.

The anti-TBF or at least the paranoid can't seem to agree on a lot of issues. I guess you guys aren't really a "side" yet.

Some people are calling it THEIR money, and how dare the devs try to mess with it. Some people are saying it is a social experiment, and how dare TBF try to depoliticize it.

Also, if TBF tries to depoliticize bitcoin and they succeed... I highly doubt bitcoin users will be labeled terrorists.

For as many reasons to like something, I guess there are just as many reasons not to like something. (not trying to say this is a two-sides issue)

First, I would like to thank you very much, ShadowOfHarbringer, for collating this list of the numerous issues surrounding the launch of "The Bitcoin Foundation".

I would like to add my name to the list of those having grave concerns about this initiative. I am surprised and disappointed that so few people have expressed their concern so far about TBF.

I agree fully with all your points so far, and would like to add my feelings.

Personally I strongly feel that the fact that all founder members are from the USA, or based there, with the sole exception of Mark Karpeles, and the fact that the Foundation is registered in the USA, not only exposes Bitcoin itself to problems with US law, but denies the international, decentralised nature of Bitcoin. As a non-USA citizen, I already feel excluded, and that this Foundation is presenting itself, and therefore Bitcoin, as an exclusively US venture. There is very little in their slick corporate PR on the website which mentions of the International nature of the Bitcoin community.

I am surprised that no International Bitcoin users have expressed their dismay about this.

Secondly, I find it extremely naive of them in their "Mission statement" to announce that Bitcoin is "a non-political online money". Or perhaps this is actually a clear indication of their cynical plans to "legitimise" and depoliticise Bitcoin. The use of Bitcoin is extremely political in many ways, and can in the future become even more so as it grows. It can, and will, in my opinion, influence and undermine the control that the corrupt banking institutions have over everyone's lives. It can be or become a tool for citizens in repressive regimes to use currency without state control. It deeply concerns me that the Bitcoin Foundation cabal seem to be actively and aggresively pushing Bitcoin into the corporate arena, and seeking to undermine the potential for personal choice and freedom from corporate oppression. A clear recent example has been the possibility to donate to organisations such as Wikileaks which the US/ Corporate machine tried to suppress.

Again, I am surprised that so few Bitcoiners seem worried about this slide into apathetic, apolitical corporate compliance.

I appeal to all Bitcoin users to carefully consider all of these issues, and to register their rejection of this cynical attempt to hijack our wonderful social experiment in it's infancy.

Forget it.  I'm done reading all this black helicopter crap.
I'm glad to see a group willing to put an effort into improving Bitcoin's visibility and viability as a [more]mainstream economy.  Done!

Actually the control of the operating system can be used to control Bitcoin and also fiat at the same time and Microsoft's control over Windows poses a very serious threat to Bitcoin far greater than any of the concerns over the Bitcoin Foundation. In this day and age I would take control over the Operating System over control over money any day, because by controlling the operating system I also get control over money.

Off topic:

I wonder if this is how it must have been when people in America at the very beginning were arguing whether or not they need a central bank. I wonder if the same sort of attacks through the use of sophistry, trickery, fallacies and ad hominems were used against those opposed when they were warning of the dangers such an institution poses down the road.

Ah yes, let's compare an operating system to a money system, I'm sure controlling either must be on the same level of desirability by the power hungry. 

Same thing can be achieved without a conflict of interest with an independent contract. Lead dev and dev team can specify what the funds will be spent on developing in there. This allows that if ever devs can't get funding for what they think is best, and if the community shares their opinion, they can always find someone else who will hire them as independent contractors. Now they are locked with this organization and the only way something else will get funded is if it's developed by someone else other than lead dev and his team and funded by someone else other than the current donators to Bitcoin Foundation.


Wrong. Donations can be made by anyone and they can be of any size. This means that if you have a deep purse you carry more weight and can buy more power which no one will notice. On the other hand a for profit business sells a service, the same service at the same price for everyone. There if they don't have many clients (which translates to broad support) they go out of business and a deep purse can't change that by buying their service over and over again because it would be obvious what is happening.

.....Because the Linux Foundation that this is modeled after is such an extreme example of corruption

Well then, no one really owns their bitcoins, they just have access to them..  

Yes the git repo can be forked and that never was an issue. The issue is that the lead dev can potentially make changes having Bitcoin Foundation defend them and attack and discredit any forks down the road which could turn into a scenario where the ignorant masses start using a client that is inherently bad for them while the fork that would attempt to correct that can get marginalized, attacked and pushed into irrelevance. That's why it's a conflict of interest because the lead dev and his team can use a powerful organization to defend their fork vs other forks, not because other forks aren't possible.