Quote from: theymos on December 07, 2010, 07:07:40 PM

The Bitcoin program should always be about transferring bitcoins only, but I don't see a problem with using the already-existing transaction scripting system to use the Bitcoin block chain for other things. No change is required to the Bitcoin code to allow these uses.

Bitcoin could be modifed to exclude this kind of data however.

There is an unmet need which is why this topic is even being discussed. My concern is more when other sorts of garbage starts to get piled in like MP3 files, Wikileaks documents, and drug trade instructions. If we were being paranoid about being associated with Wikileaks previously, having the material in Bitcoin is going to only make this a much larger target.

Quote from: genjix on December 07, 2010, 06:33:46 PM

However, having said that: if there is some way to generalise Bitcoin so that anyone can setup services with no preference, then that can only be a good thing that'll strengthen the network. I'm against though including specific things in the main codebase.

Let's cut this down to the core of what is wanted here: The desire is to create some sort of distributed public database with some kind of cryptographic controls to both timestamp, certify that the information has not been tampered or modifed unless through proscribed rules and protocol, and that effort to store the data be associated with Bitcoins so far as charging for either access to that database or more importantly to put information into that database.

The perception and growing consensus is that the only way to accomplish this task is to shove it all into transaction blocks. If you can find another solution to this problem, I'm totally open to a solution. The best alternative is a separate block chain and hence independent currency which as creighto and others have suggested is not likely to succeed. Saying that the whole notion here is stupid isn't going to get this issue to go away and it may get worse as well.

Perhap Git will work in this fashion where perhaps putting a Bitcoin interface into that to transmit "fees" for adding content. Perhaps some other system could be derived. Much of this is also trying to explore just what advantage the block chain has here and if it even might have another application and use. There is a thought perhaps that it might be useful.