An alternative funding scheme I would like to propose is that coin devs get more involved
in funding open source development.
They are already doing it, that's how you got: lyra2re, coinshield, yescrypt (Yglobalboost), pluck, ziftr,creditcurrency and others
True, a coin that is first to use an algorithm needs to have a functioning miner but the coin devs don't
seem very interested in optimized miners. Their fear of ASICs, and to a lesser extent GPUs means
they choose algos that are particularly difficult to optimize, which in turn means only the most talented
coders can implement those optimizations. I'm not suggesting coin devs lead the charge to ASICS but
they should try to keep open source miners at optimum to discourage the development of
private kernels and ASICs which tilt the playing field.
That's funny in and of itself because a optimized miner is essentially the equivalent of what ASICs brought to market for sha256 and then scrypt. It makes all other tech irrelevant when it starts spreading. Initially it doesn't make a big impact, but with enough bulk it pushes everything else down. It's the same thing.
Not quite. Everyone has a CPU, many have a GPU, few have an ASIC miner. As you go up the ladder you shrink
the user base. Optimizing the lower end slows that arms race. Whether it can stop it can be argued but 1 1/2
years later there is still no x11 ASIC AFAIK.
When those optimizations are reserved for the select few, the miners become the ASICs. It obsoletes hardware for people who don't have them just as fast.
I don't think miners or optimizing miners will ever stop ASICs. If no one improved miners the world would actually be in a better place as we'd all be on the same playing field, with the exception of improvements in efficiency, as power is a baseline cost. But there is always someone that wants to sell a miner so there is a constant arms race in miners now (just the same as ASICs), which is why we need a support structure for miner developers so we don't run into assholes ruining things for everyone else.
If it's ever worth making a ASIC or maybe a FPGA, optimized miners will be piss in the bucket as far as that's concerned. They can't stop them if someone wants to make hardware designed specifically for the task. Just the same as GPUs being better at mining then CPUs (relatively speaking). The more specific the hardware, the less difference software can make.
I don't get some of you guys who are deeming closed source miners being unfair. By that logic cheap electricity or owning more than average amount of mining hardware could also be considered unfair.
If anything, expecting devs to work for the occasional few beers donation for their work especially when hundreds if not thousands of people are using their work is unfair.
Just to stipulate again a closed miner doesn't mean it needs to be a paid miner. Closed source can be free. The problem arises when the miners are so inherently expensive and sold in such a way that no one knows they exist or how to find them, it screws everyone else. Miner developers talking about this right now throw around words like 'capitalism' and such, but they don't even have a market place so the 'free market' cant even have one of the most fundamental parts of it, competition.
This is especially problematic when the miners are sold to people with the most hash rate and of course they're also the ones that can afford it as such. Since mining is a pie distribution, this pushes everyone else down so people with higher hash can make more money. Someone mining with a 970 with a open source kernel may not even be profitable anymore. Look at the opensource miners for AMD, none of them are profitable anymore (depending on power costs). Given AMD sucks at efficiency, this is an example of how private paid miners for the elite few completely fuck things up. If you look at YAMP, there are still a lot of sgminers on there.
Since we can't get rid of private miners, it's about making it accessible by everyone, so a few people don't completely rape everyone else. A dev fee does this quite well and can even be used to fund a company to keep this up and end this western stylized miner gun show. This is also why some miner devs are bitching so much about what I'm saying. Actually nailing this down and making infrastructure will stop some of them from reaping the most rewards from what's currently happening, which is freelance development for the elite few.
That's funny in and of itself because a optimized miner is essentially the equivalent of what ASICs brought to market for sha256 and then scrypt. It makes all other tech irrelevant when it starts spreading. Initially it doesn't make a big impact, but with enough bulk it pushes everything else down. It's the same thing.
Except in this case optimized miners are free while ASICs are certainly not. If ASICs would become free the next day they'd turn into useless junk.
I didn't know Wolf0 and DJMs miners were free. Even SP has a paid miner, although for select kernels. This is starting to turn into a IP argument and while I agree there should be a paid model here, it's important to note there is a different amount of funding that goes into developing a ASIC compared to a random guy that knows how to program in OCL. Arguably if the same amount of funding went into developing miners as ASICs you'd end up with a product almost no solo developer could touch as the amount of time sink would be ridiculous, unless they too start a company and higher talent.
We currently have a problem with solo miner devs due to no competition and no market so anything is basically better then what's available, especially since the software everyone uses (like SP miner) is open. Since talent can be split among different algos as well, a company could design a single miner for basically every algo and then improve on it. There is a LOT of hash that goes through the market. Since everyone would be using the miner, a fee would make them fuck tons of money, be fair for everyone, and also offer proofing against gunslinging solo devs looking to make a quick buck.
As far as coding out a fee... This only happens because developers don't spend enough time making the application and all they do is make a slightly modified version of spminer/ccminer/cgminer. This is a DRM issue and could be taken care of with talent as well. There is nothing stopping people from making a more robust application that requires activation or would offer more protection to the user. It's a BS excuse to perpetuate solo get rich fast development.
If people are going to donate or 'pay' for a miner, we can assume they'd also do a miner fee. There are always people that will try not to pay and if something is too expensive for what it's worth, one could argue rightfully so. Some miners have popped up with something like a 15% miner fee and at that point it's good they get lobotomized.
It's pretty easy to get pirated software. Not everyone pirates though. Not everyone is going to use a pirated miner even if it's available. Of course a updated product cycle and a more robust program would also push this down. I know, I'm talking about actual work and turning what developers are selling into a reputable product.
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== 0x1000000, subtract one and you have a perfect mask - 0xFFFFFF. Wonder why the reference implementation (the python Slush did) did it so... verbosely.
... hehehe ...