Thank you everyone for your thoughts on this topic. I'm just getting caught up after spending the weekend working with a team of developers on one of the first Applications that will operate on top of the Mastercoin user currency / smart property feature. That is APIEngine.co / APIcoin. This was part of the Global Startup Battle / Startup Weekend 72 hour hackathon and I'm happy to report our model went over well enough with the judges that we won 1st place for Austin, Texas : )

More on that fun later. Lets get back into the discussion.

Lots of different thoughts on lots of different topics seem to have led the conversation here into multiple directions. There is the original proposal regarding Dev MSC, discussion of if its wise to convert some or all BTC into MSC, how to hire developers full time, and so forth.

I think the wisest suggestion put forth was to poll the Mastercoin / Bitcointalk.org community on at least the original proposal and see where the numbers land. I'd like to focus back on the original proposal only and set aside these other discussions for the future.

I'd propose to put forward the poll question this way:

Poll Question:
Do think that the Dev MSC "Distribution Rate" should be fixed by the MSC protocol, in order to mirror the Dev MSC "Generation Rate"?

A. Yes, full speed ahead! Lets distribute 100% of Dev MSC generated each month, proportionately to each developer's contributions. That's what they are for! When the Distributed bounty system is launched it should be set at this same predictable Distribution Rate.

B. Yes, however things are early and we should be conservative. Lets distribute 50% of Dev MSC generated each month, proportionately to each developer's contributions. Save up the other 50% of Dev MSC for the hand over to the distributed bounty system when its launched in the future.

C. No, the Dev MSC are just part of the Mastercoin open source project development funding budget, along with the BTC from the Exodus address. And we should not tie the funding budget to any set rate, but should instead alter it daily, weekly, monthly based on project needs.

I think these three options to answering the question roughly capture the three proposals in this thread.

We can word smith these a bit, but I'd like to post this fairly soon and leave it up for a week or two and see where we are before the Christmas holiday kicks in and folks disappear for a while until mid January. I believe this is a very important decision.