Topic: Will the free open source Armory wallet continue to be developed going forward? - page 2. (Read 8383 times)

No I'd see if I'd want to donate to a forked project or a retail version or whatever happens. I'd gladly pay .5 btc for a lifetime license if it means better support and a better future. Then someone can keep patching the current open source one for donations.

Maybe just critical patches like the working with .11.1. It's already full of features. Goatpig gets to make a few Bitcoins and ethiopa gets to build his company with a steadier stream of income. I don't think it's a big deal. People can download the best and latest armory right now for free, but they can't expect it for life.

But would you donate under the present circumstances bitpop? Possibly you would, but knowing what I know about the intended changes to Armory (which is old information now, alot may have changed since then), I can't justify it for myself. And I can see how others might feel like that without knowing any extra details; it's investing in something with too much uncertainty in the return. You may end up being confronted with the retail price of the closed-source version the following day.

You can donate when sending a payment in the client

Your willingness to fork the project to keep it open source is reassuring. Unfortunately I have no choice but to research alternative clients because of the rumors of uncertainty being posted on the forum.


Thank you for your generous financial contribution to Armory. The features found in Armory have made bitcoin a viable payment method.

On one hand, you appear to be indicating that Armory needs funding, while on the other hand, you're directly turning down a donation offer from a user and dismissing the idea of end user donations as "cute." There are Armory users who depend on Armory to process significant transactions. If Armory needs funding from the people who use it, why not ask for the money or at least accept money from people who are offering it?

When I visit the Armory home page, I see no indication that the project is in need of funds or any fund raising effort whatsoever. There is no visual aid indicating how far into the red Armory is. I don't see a donations page or button. I see the opposite of raising money, Armory is matching donations to other organizations like the EFF, giving bitcoin away. https://bitcoinarmory.com/donation-match-list/ I found a donations payment address in a discrete location on the bottom of the contacts page by searching the Armory home page with a search engine.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I do not see any indication of a donation area, button, or payment address within the Armory client itself either.

I would be happy to voluntarily donate to the project. However, discussions casting doubt on Armory's future as open source software are alarming because closed source cryptographic software is a nonstarter and Armory is a critical application for some of your end users. Armory devolving into a black box will motivate Armory users to look elsewhere.

And I also want to add, because the developers deserves kudos, that I think that Armory is a piece of great software, and that it was much appreciated that it be made available to the community like that.  I personally think it is a very good (and important) support to the Bitcoin ecosystem by providing extremely secure & reliable ways to store coins - especially in this wild & dangerous "Far-West" world that is the young age of Bitcoin.
If Armory wouldn't have been there, many more people would have lost coins by leaving them on exchanges that got hacked or scammed their users.  (MtGox & cie, anyone?)

I know that words like "thanks" and "gratefulness" do not feed a mouth or pay the rent, but I still think they are important words to say.  It might feed something else.  

Everything public is public, there is no official announcement on any of this, possibly (hopefully) because a final decision has still not been made. We all await it eagerly, myself included.

Is there any official announcement about the state / future / plans of/for Armory right now?

I get from different posts that there is an unpleasant situation looming in, with people already declaring Armory "dead" (yet, Bitcoin has been declared dead many times - haven't even the CEO of Bitcoin said it on the news? )

What do we know at the moment? (apart that there is not much development)

What are his plans exactly?

Is he going to start charging to use Armory or something?

0.93.3 update to deal with BIP 62 live:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/armory-0933-with-bip62-compliance-1229596

+1

goatpig is king

CircusPeanut merged the fix into 0.93 and etotheipi and I have reviewed the code. It should be going public soon enough.

Uh oh, I haven't tried sending lately

Armory is not compatible yet with 0.11.1. Newest Bitcoin Core enforces LowS while Armory signs HighS. Users are reporting they are unable to send bitcoin using Armory after upgrading Bitcoin Core 0.11 to 0.11.1 and had to downgrade.

Why?

So Armory is kill?

Ah, if we only had some kind of technology to pay anonymously, via the internet..
:-P
(true, the software surely won't be open source, and/or wants to regularly call home. Both huge risks for such a preselected usergroup)

Ente

Of course businesses only survive by attracting paying customers, so the need of Armory to do so is clear.

I'm not sure you appreciate the way that Armory's value to potential customers changes as a result of being closed source.

I guess Alan sent out a bunch of form letter PMs in September about this change. I got one wherein he mentioned a possible "power user licence", which to me is a complete non-starter.

Even though I have no problem paying for software, I'd never buy a license for a closed-source version of Armory. Once somebody who wants to steal Bitcoins decides they can get the best bang for their buck by going after cold storage users, they are going to make a beeline to Armory to obtain that list of licensed users and/or attempt to compromise your internal source repository and insert a backdoor.

Personally, I will never use a cold storage wallet that I don't compile myself from publicly-available source. A closed-source Bitcoin wallet is a spearphisher's wet dream.

I was made aware of Alan Reiner's plans for Armory on Septmeber the 8th this year, and I'm not happy with this situation either. I agreed then not to reveal what he told me, but I suspect most of you will not be happy (but, only if the proposal I was informed of is what actually transpires).

I hope that they accept some version of an alternative model that I proposed, and hopefully the continuing indecision on this is a reflection of uncertainty about the September 8th proposal amongst the management of ATI.