Topic: Foundation Discussion (Read 916 times)
Why was this thread moved? It has to do with Bitcoin in general? Are the mods trying to censor us?
I sent off some notes to MindToMa'ter(Adam) last night regarding possible roundtable discussion:
TLDR; Inclusiveness without denigration of topic/idea.
Quote
Since it is Roundtable, then all inclusive views must be the watchword.
I have noticed in the past that simple tasks, such as an actual protocol, were loudly dissuaded from completion by the left-brain, pragmatist types who were seeking quick development of financial apps and not consensus of features. Mike Heath made me aware of the long list of features that are not standardized, yet known to a short list of key developers. Some developers spend months working on add-ons, only to find the new version of the client has deprecated key features. It is not Gavin's domain to develop the protocol so we should have a specific group to address protocol development and inclusion on the roundtable.
I am a researcher that was looking for Bitcoin before its inception. I found it in April 2010, while researching Ven and other solutions. I realize that coders/traders/financial marketers were all drawn to Bitcoin for various reasons. Their voices are valid and their motives apparent, but financial reward cannot be the only reason we bring to a roundtable. Many groups can separate and validate positions, then bring these views across the table. At the moment, all viewpoints are being equally shouted down by non-experts, shills, trolls and left bleeding on the forum floor. Roundtable by its nature seeks consensus first, then examination, then review and finally acceptance.
I suggest that actual rules of procedure be adopted to be completely "inclusive" of all potential views/domains/expertise/charter.
I have noticed in the past that simple tasks, such as an actual protocol, were loudly dissuaded from completion by the left-brain, pragmatist types who were seeking quick development of financial apps and not consensus of features. Mike Heath made me aware of the long list of features that are not standardized, yet known to a short list of key developers. Some developers spend months working on add-ons, only to find the new version of the client has deprecated key features. It is not Gavin's domain to develop the protocol so we should have a specific group to address protocol development and inclusion on the roundtable.
I am a researcher that was looking for Bitcoin before its inception. I found it in April 2010, while researching Ven and other solutions. I realize that coders/traders/financial marketers were all drawn to Bitcoin for various reasons. Their voices are valid and their motives apparent, but financial reward cannot be the only reason we bring to a roundtable. Many groups can separate and validate positions, then bring these views across the table. At the moment, all viewpoints are being equally shouted down by non-experts, shills, trolls and left bleeding on the forum floor. Roundtable by its nature seeks consensus first, then examination, then review and finally acceptance.
I suggest that actual rules of procedure be adopted to be completely "inclusive" of all potential views/domains/expertise/charter.
TLDR; Inclusiveness without denigration of topic/idea.
What else?
Developers* have two conflicting problems or tasks.
I do not remember times at this forum in 2011 or earlier, my experience with bitcoins is about half a year, but the ones who do, the ones who actually spoke with Satoshi (him/her/it)self, the one who have been with bitcoins from the beginning surely feel change in the community which make the second point more and more difficult. There are more and more scammers. There more and more "uneducated users" pouring in. I mean the classical pattern when new user comes in an after few days (maybe hours) discovers fundamental flaw in the bitcoin and how it can be made right. Even after informing the people, there is shifting of the idea about what bitcoin should do.
In the future if bitcoin gets general adoption by common people, we can expect opinions prevalent among general population. That means much more pressure about: Early adopters are unfairly rewarded. , There should be some inflation/demurrage. Hoarding and speculation should be discouraged/complicated/banned. There has to be some central authority(authorities), reversible transactions, mechanism for saving people from their mistakes and stupidity and mechanism for punishing the ones taking advantage and making profit of such mistakes. There will be enormous pressure to erode core principles of bitcoin (caped supply, decentralization, irreversible transactions). Also much more nonsense about mining damaging the environment/wasting energy, endangering national security and financial stability, etc. is to be expected.
I think that developers should be more biased towards observing second problem. Because this way bitcoin can prove that (or whether) it is superior to existing fiat and altcoins solutions. Well, not superior everywhere but somewhere. There are situations altcoins will address better, there are and will be situations where cash, gold and even fiat money or PayPal will do better than bitcoins. We should not try to occupy and dominate all niches with bitcoins, we should not try to adapt it to every situation and common taste. Let the bitcoin find its own audience and uses according to what it is.
Current problems to be solved in my opinion are: transaction fees and way to implement microtransactions/colored coins. Transparent way of biding for transaction space. Question about maximal block size. And of course protocol specification including some "almost impossible to change" behavior. For experiments and alternatives there are altcoins.
* - I know "we all are developers" situation. But by developers I mean core developers who actually understand the code, made changes and development in the past, and are able to push such changes (either because they are trusted and reasonable or because it has become a custom to follow them).
- Make bitcoin accessible to general public, accepted by common merchants (not just the geeky ones) and tolerated/reasonably regulated by authorities (by regulated I mean for example that written contract can be denominated in BTC, verified by and enforced by court).
- Watch very carefully that core principles of bitcoin remain unchanged.
I do not remember times at this forum in 2011 or earlier, my experience with bitcoins is about half a year, but the ones who do, the ones who actually spoke with Satoshi (him/her/it)self, the one who have been with bitcoins from the beginning surely feel change in the community which make the second point more and more difficult. There are more and more scammers. There more and more "uneducated users" pouring in. I mean the classical pattern when new user comes in an after few days (maybe hours) discovers fundamental flaw in the bitcoin and how it can be made right. Even after informing the people, there is shifting of the idea about what bitcoin should do.
In the future if bitcoin gets general adoption by common people, we can expect opinions prevalent among general population. That means much more pressure about: Early adopters are unfairly rewarded. , There should be some inflation/demurrage. Hoarding and speculation should be discouraged/complicated/banned. There has to be some central authority(authorities), reversible transactions, mechanism for saving people from their mistakes and stupidity and mechanism for punishing the ones taking advantage and making profit of such mistakes. There will be enormous pressure to erode core principles of bitcoin (caped supply, decentralization, irreversible transactions). Also much more nonsense about mining damaging the environment/wasting energy, endangering national security and financial stability, etc. is to be expected.
I think that developers should be more biased towards observing second problem. Because this way bitcoin can prove that (or whether) it is superior to existing fiat and altcoins solutions. Well, not superior everywhere but somewhere. There are situations altcoins will address better, there are and will be situations where cash, gold and even fiat money or PayPal will do better than bitcoins. We should not try to occupy and dominate all niches with bitcoins, we should not try to adapt it to every situation and common taste. Let the bitcoin find its own audience and uses according to what it is.
Current problems to be solved in my opinion are: transaction fees and way to implement microtransactions/colored coins. Transparent way of biding for transaction space. Question about maximal block size. And of course protocol specification including some "almost impossible to change" behavior. For experiments and alternatives there are altcoins.
* - I know "we all are developers" situation. But by developers I mean core developers who actually understand the code, made changes and development in the past, and are able to push such changes (either because they are trusted and reasonable or because it has become a custom to follow them).
I'm with the two above, a protocol is needed. Once that's in place it allows for people to build whatever they want to a certain spec and it's part of bitcoin.
Also, there's need to be an easier way for non-tech people to use bitcoins.
Also, there's need to be an easier way for non-tech people to use bitcoins.
After reading many posts in this forum, it's clear there is some dissent in the community regarding the nature, mission and true purpose of the bitcoin foundation. As a community, what do you feel we should focus on?
Getting the technical weaknesses fixed. Technical problems:
- Transaction fees are a mess. It needs to evolve into an auction-like system with multiple bids.
- The memory pool is a mess. Some developers seem to want to stifle development of a transaction bidding system, because they're afraid that some merchants no longer be able to use the memory pool as an "IOU messaging" (check account) system. There seems to be a misguided effort to prevent "multiple bids", but what about anti-DOS measures for the messaging scheme?
The 2nd bullet point also seems to be a political/greed problem. If someone, say, Satoshi Dice (or whatever other service) wants to use IOUs (aka: unconfirmed or zero-confirmation transactions) in lieu of real transactions, they would have to find alternatives if the memory pool started holding multiple copies of the same transaction but with different fees attached.
There's also the issue of a protocol:
- The lack of a protocol makes it hard to visualise Bitcoin's overall structure.
- Some developers keep making the excuse that the 'reference' software is the protocol, but they are mistaken. When they decide that the reference software has a bug, what are they referring to in order to make that determination? Hmm? As always seems to be the case (I've seen these things happen at workplaces, too), they've got some version of 'Bitcoin' neatly modelled inside their head, and either enjoy the power (or are stuck) as a go-to person who understands the spaghetti code. I'm sick of it! Perhaps one reason why a protocol still hasn't been written is that it would make it too easy to create a new generation of alt-coins? They seem scared that it would hit them in the pocket!
I like to think of it as a diffusion problem...
There are extremely few people holding bitcoin right now. For bitcoin to be widely adopted, this concentrated supply is going to have to be distributed among many more users.
Trading volume is like the temperature of the system-- it increases your diffusion rate as presumably more people are becoming bitcoin holders.
What we are seeing is an unstable differential equation--when the value is stable, new businesses appear and interest rises. Then the value rises and speculators rush in. Then the value tanks or plateaus and people start spending and using the currency, increasing the number of holders. The next phase of new businesses has a larger user base after price stabilization.
The #1 thing the foundation should be working on is improving the bitcoin-qt code, and fundraising. Fundraising so that more, talented developers can be working on the project. Bitcoin needs to be rock-solid and it is dangerous when the number of users is outgrowing the manpower of the developers.
There are extremely few people holding bitcoin right now. For bitcoin to be widely adopted, this concentrated supply is going to have to be distributed among many more users.
Trading volume is like the temperature of the system-- it increases your diffusion rate as presumably more people are becoming bitcoin holders.
What we are seeing is an unstable differential equation--when the value is stable, new businesses appear and interest rises. Then the value rises and speculators rush in. Then the value tanks or plateaus and people start spending and using the currency, increasing the number of holders. The next phase of new businesses has a larger user base after price stabilization.
The #1 thing the foundation should be working on is improving the bitcoin-qt code, and fundraising. Fundraising so that more, talented developers can be working on the project. Bitcoin needs to be rock-solid and it is dangerous when the number of users is outgrowing the manpower of the developers.
After reading many posts in this forum, it's clear there is some dissent in the community regarding the nature, mission and true purpose of the bitcoin foundation. As a community, what do you feel we should focus on? I'm legitimately curious. Bitcoin has moved well beyond just a plaything for computer scientists. It is here to stay and will soon enter an area that is both brutal and very old filled with massive banks and sovereign governments.
We have a serious PR problem in the media and there still exist serious barriers to entry for normal people to safely use bitcoins in daily transactions. If you were king of bitcoin land for a day, then what would be the first item on your agenda to improve or change? Does the foundation connect with your vision or is there a divide?
We have a serious PR problem in the media and there still exist serious barriers to entry for normal people to safely use bitcoins in daily transactions. If you were king of bitcoin land for a day, then what would be the first item on your agenda to improve or change? Does the foundation connect with your vision or is there a divide?
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