Topic: Bitcoin Core Developers Should Be Paid - page 4. (Read 4479 times)

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.

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

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]

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.



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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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