Josh also mentioned that they will do a day when they test the new ASIC rigs out on the real Bitcoin Network, and all the BTC mined for that one day they will give out to the developers.
Let me get this straight: They will test the machines on main-net for 24 hours, driving up difficulty into who knows where and divvy up the BTC among themselves, before sending out the machines to customers?
Is that what Josh said?
Who else was witness to this?
Can I quote this?
Actually it was just me, so I guess no- you can't quote me. I hope that wasn't secret info, although I didn't have the feeling it was. That said if anyone is like, "Crazy rabbit said it!" I'll plead the "I was drunk" defense.
But I think the idea is give all of it back to the community developers - not 'divy it up amongst themselves'.
This is completely accurate. A couple of days ago Inaba/Josh confirmed that BFL units have (FPGA) and will (ASIC) be tested on main-net for a 24 hour QC period.
BFL gave customer / community guidance early on that they would not be using main-net for testing. "We are hardware enthusiasts. We are not interested in mining Bitcoin."
Despite that, they've been doing what they want all along and seem will continue to do so further raising the issue of credibility.
** Worry time *** Inaba/Josh went on the defensive due to criticism over the revelation.
He stated that it was "requested by devs" that test-net not be used for mining "QC" activities. Further damaging credibility by stating that it was technically, or practically, too challenging to avoid using main-net for testing. Gavin and other dev's have contradicted BFL's opinion by mentioning hardware "QC" activities can be performed on the custom, isolated "test-net-in-a-box" package.
BFL, and whoever we can trust them to "donate" the earned BTC to, stands to gain est. $80,000-$100,000 USD. At a cost of customer trust due to poor guidance and plain misinformation.
You can find a lot of detail on this in the mining forums.