Blockstream and Monetas are essentially competitors, no?
That's nothing negative on Blockstream, it's just different -- that's all. Anyone who thinks there is competition between us lacks an understanding of what we're building and how we plan to monetize it.
I welcome Blockstream's entry into this space and I think alt-coins are the ones most concerned about what they represent.
Yup what fellowtraveller said. I personally am happy to donate time or code to OpenTransactions and may get time to do it sometime, its sort of on my todo list. (They have some fun possibility to use things like Chaum ecash and Brands attribute certs and ecash and I have a library that does that).
The reason Monetas contracted Justus to help us build the voting pools is because he is a Bitcoin purist. Justus keeps us honest. And I think that is the same role he is playing here in this thread. Bitcoin is his highest value.
Yeah I've talked to Justus in person a little if he recalls, and also watched his presentation at one of the conferences as well as a video of a OpenTransactions security model presentation he did etc. I know he thinks in terms of bitcoin ethos so thats logic I grok.
And I think what Justus is saying is, that a framework needs to be developed for any changes to Bitcoin. I think he's right that it's not good enough for changes merely to be "open source, open IP." There
is a potential conflict of interest, and there
is an easy way to put any concerns to rest.
Justus said it best:
I think this concern could be minimised if the soft fork needed to support sidechains was part of a larger clarification of the Bitcoin protocol development process.
If there was a clear process that explained what kinds of changes to the protocol are acceptable, and what kinds are not, combined with a development roadmap and a transparent sequence of steps for adding things to it, I think there would be less reason for Bitcoin users to worry about Blockstream and sidechains.
I really don't think that's much to ask. Do you, Adam?
sounds good to me, and you shouldnt interpret our intent to be anything otherwise, the thread is pretty long but I said eg
I think the bigger picture though is its premature - we have not yet released code, nor BIP draft for community discussion and picking apart and redesigning etc before there is something to merge mine. Its also useful (maybe you said it yourself also I think) for a federated peg to operate for a while in parallel with that open design discussion for people to see how it works. You can view the federated peg as a protocol adaptor - there can still be mining occuring on the sidechain with the federated peg, just the return peg is translated into a multisig for bitcoin by the federation servers.
After that if the community can settle on a op-code for extensibility everyone is happy with people including us can try to stand up a few sidechains. If no one likes them then they wont get mined. So as you can see sidechains and the op_spv really depend on community and economic majority approval, and thats a good thing.
[kind words] And I know Justus can be blunt; Adam has been very graceful in this thread.
Thanks for the kind words. You're doing cool stuff also and thanks for the demo a while back I as pleased I managed to find you at the massive San Jose conference.
Dont worry about Justus we get along just fine - its all in good humor, like I said when someone flamed him on this thread:
Nah Justus is the good guy. He just flames a little, so what.
Yet it is true that Monetas is not asking for any forks in the Bitcoin protocol. Blockstream is. That's why these questions are being raised.
Yeah actually I said to Justus I wasnt really asking about Monetas funding for that exact reason, just replaying his questions to him to illustrate for him so he could think go through the analogous mental exercise of answering his own questions from with a Monetas hat on.
There is an easy way to put them to rest.
trust me the discussion hasnt even started... wait until there's a proof of concept code and draft BIP for people to suggest redesigns of. This'll be an interesting and very open public discussion and community discussion.
Adam