Topic: [ANN] Bitcoin Foundation - page 23. (Read 127621 times)

Centralized, privacy killing, often hacked website users do too.  They hand their votes, in big thick metaphorical bundles, to the website operator.

What do you think is the result of creating obstacles to improvement and distribution of the decentralized client?  People will switch to easy-to-use websites and forget all about that silly decentralized nonsense.

I would rather see focused resources put towards scaling the Satoshi client, keeping the network running under the strain of doubling data volumes and completing the Satoshi vision with SPV mode.

Seeing the scalable Satoshi client (or compatible client!) in the hands of as many people as possible is the only way to ensure bitcoin's survival and thus the only way to ensure bitcoin's monetary freedom remains with us.

That's the best we have.  All systems are ultimately human systems.  Bitcoin is just another system for humans voting on something.

Bitcoin works without central authority, but only by replacing that with mob rule... with all that entails.

Why do you do think we have code to spread network connections as widely as possible, guard against Sybil attacks and the like?  The entire blockchain (your money) is only as safe as the voting procedure (network peer selection).


Well, that is disappointing...  but we are open to suggestions!

What is a sustainable way to help fund devel, testing, network defense, security patch response, etc.?  Bounties fail.  KickStarter-like provides unpredictable bursts.  Anonymous donations are a beer-money tiny trickle.  Self-supporting through for-profit ventures steals developer focus and introduces clear, direct conflicts of interest (as opposed to indirect conflicts of interest through a trade association).

On the other hand, voluntary visible donations through neutral trade organizations are a well worn path.

What are the other realistic, sustainable alternatives are available?

Maybe you haven't been paying attention to the wonderful stats that dooglus and others have been posting, but we need some serious engineering to avoid incentivizing users away from the P2P clients and towards centralized, privacy killing websites:

• One single gambling application has doubled the size of the blockchain in the past 4-6 months
• The reference client, the "full nodes" keeping the network alive, is feeling the strain
• A punishing blockchain download may incentivize users away from P2P clients, towards easy-to-use websites
• Resultant P2P node counts decline, reducing decentralization factor

We are racing to implement ultraprune and other changes to address some of the scaling issues.

But the most important part of Satoshi's design, the part that keeps the network scaling further -- SPV mode -- was only lightly sketched by Satoshi.  SPV mode enables anyone to be a fully decentralized P2P client, even on your mobile phone.

It is a race to fully implement the decentralized design, otherwise users will simply not bother with apps at all and go straight to mtgox.com or instawallet.org or blockchain.info.  And even that is a race, to "seed" bitcoin across the world, making sure it is sufficiently entrenched before the inevitable legal and governmental and central banker push-back.

So frankly I do not think many critics in this thread even comprehend the Clear And Present challenges looming, just to keep bitcoin alive and decentralized.

The critics here are worrying about phantoms, tilting at windmills, while missing the freight train heading straight for you.  Every objective measure shows that Gavin and the rest of the devs are working as hard as we can to keep decentralization in your hands.

The Bitcoin Foundation is the only entity that has stepped up to the plate with some real solutions that can help us complete the Satoshi design and scale beyond the next 12 months.  A truly decentralized solution, the private free market at work.

If you don't like it...  fix the problem!  Start another foundation, and fund the dev team 50% matched with BF.  Or figure out another, more creative solution to solving the problems listed above.

Actually, it's 6:20 am, I'm practically a zombie right now. Today was a very exhausting day for me, this whole issue really wore me down, to the point my family noticed I was in a really bad mood. But you calmed down just a tiny bit now and I think I'll head to bed.

Damn I care about this great experiment way too much.. 

Hey,

For your first point, we thought of an idea having the core dev team and Gavin as part of the non-profit foundation and then having another for-profit foundation as well, splitting it up. Similar to the way the Mozilla Foundation is set up:


Still in discussions about this.

I'm gonna respond to the rest later, I need to head offline. Feel free to respond now.

-Charlie

I'm glad you finally understood my points and apology accepted, no hard feelings either.

As for:

My first answer would be to not have a Bitcoin Foundation. Why crack the door open and leave the foot in there if it can be shut closed, right?

But the idea of some of the things the Foundation could do isn't entirely bad, I never said it was. I just think the way you structured it is really bad because of the future dangers. So the next best thing to no foundation would be what I already wrote in a post some pages ago:
- Gavin or any dev just can't be a member, it's a conflict of interest and it gives the Foundation a higher profile than it needs and could be abused in the future
 Gavin and all the devs can simply be independent contractors for the foundation, preferably with public contracts. This also allows competition for Gavins contract by another Foundation.
- The name must change to something that is more akin to a voluntary service rather than how I described it earlier: "self anointed ect.. " Someone already posted a few great suggestions that would be much better and safer than the highly officially sounding Bitcoin Foundation
- It needs to be a for profit organization, dependent on not just donations but primarily on offering a service. If vetting businesses is a service people want and will trust this organization's opinion then they should pay for it which again creates a market and allows for competition. Not only that, if it turns out the services that this organization offers aren't desired it will simply go bankrupt and another will take it's place picking up the pieces ensuring we will have the best quality and price.

Also, my ideas would never include trying to adopt checks and balances through the bylaws because those can always be changed (just like the constitution for example).


If you'd implement these three changes, I'd be 100% on board, I'd even buy a subscription or what ever it would be.

Yes it does -- see the previous "Aunt Tillie" example.

LOL no one ever said the foundation goals, bylaws, beliefs, ect are a closed book!

Remember, this is a member driven organization!

My job as a board member is to find the bad and wrong things about the foundation and fix them by putting them up to vote.

I really try and understand your arguments (many of them good) but sometimes the personal attacks and sarcasm make it difficult.

For the future, I will try harder and read over all posts before responding but I also ask from you is to make your points more clearer using accurate and sourced data. If you make an opinion, please make sure your readers know thats its your opinion, and not a fact.

Don't forget, many people here are new and not as well versed as you and I are.

-Charlie

That's an interesting point. What if it's the foundation that wants a new coin limit, or other significant change? Don't you think TBF would have uneven leverage to influence such a change?

Think about Microsoft IE, for example. What if IE users were Bitcoiners. How easy would it be for Microsoft to say "hey everyone, this is what we all need to upgrade to, as it will be better. We are the representation of the community, so what we say the community wants is self-fulfilling. Please upgrade at your earliest convenience."

In other words, TBF users vote as a bloc.

Holy mother of god, thank you.

No no, don't be sarcastic, because I agree with you.

(It only took us 38 pages to see each others points lol, partly my fault)

Of course this is a total real fear, one I have myself. You said it perfectly "self imposed spokesperson, policy setting, business vetting, intertwined with corporate interest body will get corrupted and try and direct the for the most part ignorant user base to their advantage"

This is totally a real threat, and a very scary one indeed. If this is what you were getting at, Im sorry for not seeing it earlier.

So basically, how do we protect the foundation from something like this?
Right now, the board members are fairly well known and can keep each other in check without corruption.
Like you said though, in 2 years all board members can be replaced, and 5 corrupt people can be voted in (We see this in government all the time!)

I think if we work together, we can come up with solutions to this issue and hopefully by doing so, you can see the good things about the foundation and help us work on the bad ones.

Earlier there was a great idea, Im gonna requote it:


Something like this should be put in the bylaws, and I will bring it up in Fridays meeting and every member will vote on it.


Hmm, definitely is a slippery slope but I think we can develop protections for it.

I hope I took some of your fear away and I apologize again if I seemed condescending or arrogant.

-Charlie

You really don't see that as a slippery slope?

Exactly. You're right that gitian is a helpful tool, actually. But it still doesn't account for naive non-tech savvy users - the majority of users. These are the people that would be more reliant on (and trusting of) an "official" foundation.

Relying on hope is not such a great plan.. And yeah I would, in a heart beat. I'm, sadly, even considering it right now because of the Bitcoin Foundaton.

You're right -- it is the community associated with the software that is vigilant.  The tools just help with the vigilance.

Great, I'm glad we cleared this up. We can now both be nice to each other as I wont feel a stench of condescension in your replies to me anymore.


Great, I finally understood this part as well and I do apologize for misunderstanding the meaning of it.


Ah, the crux of the issue remains. I fear down the road this self imposed spokesperson, policy setting, business vetting, intertwined with corporate interest body will get corrupted and try and direct the for the most part ignorant user base to their advantage while you on the other hand have faith the community will be smart and vigilant enough to keep you in check.

Well then as long as the general electorate is the one of which we must now expect vigilance, I'm all calmed down and happy, especially since this works out so well in today's political systems. /this last part was a bit of sarcasm, not mean spirited of course, just for illustrating purposes


Why we needed this foot in the door for bad stuff to be possible to happen I will never understand.

I think you're being a little bit smug about this. We see behaviour everyday that indicates we cannot trust the general mass of users to make these choices - they simply go where blindly led. We saw around 50% of Bitcoin miners use Deepbit despite the known danger. We see the general public refuse to even consider using encrypted email, despite it allowing several benefits for all. We see them post all manner of public info online so why would we ever trust them to choose which Bitcoin client to use? They'll obviously choose the one with the nicest buttons and logo.

I don't think people here misunderstand that the tool chain has controls to prevent secret or malicious code change. I just don't don't think it is enough.

Google "gitian", please.

Agreed.

I would push for this change as well.

As a board member, I will bring it up in next weeks meeting, and then allow all members of the foundation to vote if it wants this change


Thats a real fear, and I fear that as well. However, the foundation will not do that.

Allow me to edit your words:


The foundation has no power to decide whats legitimate, it has the power to make recommendations and vet companies based on requests from its members.

Member: hey foundation, can you see if this guy is a scammer?
Foundation: Sure, we checked it out, and we think he is based on bla blah blah. We don't think you should use him, but the choice is yours.

The foundation is the spokesperson representing its members not Bitcoiners as a whole.

The devs would probably quit BF, I imagine.

What does the protocol design say is possible?  What the majority of users want.  If the majority of users want IP tracking and a 400M coin limit, that is what bitcoin becomes.

I wager the majority of bitcoin users will actively and fervently resist any such changes.  At least I hope so.

(of course, if the majority of users wanted IP tracking or currency supply inflation, per manifesto I would quit bitcoin in a heartbeat, and hope you would too)

Okay, I think I see where our disconnect is happening. I don't know if it's intentional or you really are that innocently trusting/limited in imagination.

We're not talking about ONLY using systems as they are SUPPOSED to be used. We're talking about malicious intent, like the illegal wiretaps I talked about earlier. How many users download Bitcoin from Git? They don't. They go to a site like Bitcoin.org. In a "Bitcoin Foundation" world they would likely go there since it's the "official representation" of Bitcoin.

Now once a user is downloading a file from your site, how hard is it to give select users select files?

We are talking about issues of TRUST. THAT is our concern. An official Bitcoin Foundation necessarily gains inherent TRUST automatically, whether that foundation remains trustworthy or not. Make sense?