Quote from: bitexch on November 27, 2013, 02:03:05 PM

It should be said explicitly that Mastercoin's "first-mover advantage" - which JR mentions in his white paper - may disappear. Another project may hire full time developers, copy the Mastercoin code that has already been written, and complete its project before Mastercoin. This is not some highly improbable "worst case scenario", but a distinct possibility that everyone involved in Mastercoin should be concerned about.

This is not meant as a criticism of Mastercoin's current developers who, I know, are devoting what time they have to the project. What I write is directed at the board, which, in my view, is getting caught up in peripheral parts of the project, and is deferring judgment on questions of immediate importance. Rather than debating what currency we are going to pay developers in, we should hire developers!

EDIT: We should hire developers and, at least for now, simply ask them in what currency they would like to be paid.

+1000

Quote from: bitexch on November 28, 2013, 05:35:06 PM

Quote from: vokain on November 28, 2013, 04:17:08 PM

Quote from: bitexch on November 28, 2013, 12:55:10 PM

I would like the board to have a vote as to whether we should hire full-time developers. If the board doesn't feel this is the right course of action, I would like to know why.

Ron did have a proposal that for those who seek security, they can be paid a salary and either they'd be entirely unincluded from bounties or their salary amount would be deducted before the award (which makes more sense)

At the same time, these are my reservations:

1. It is favoritism. Every should have the same chance at the same prizes, disregard any previous history or expertise.
2. This favoritism places later contestants at a greater disadvantage than they already are. Aside from having to play catch up already, they now have to compete against those that don't have to work their day jobs through Mastercoin salaries, for a smaller portion of the pot that has already had slices allocated away for such salaries.
3. What do you think is more effective? Paying someone(s) a salary so they may forget their other financial obligations and focus full time, or placing a large enough bounty with good enough directions so that anyone can begin developing as they see fit, work together as they see fit, and quitting their jobs as they see fit? I lean towards the latter.

Let me first make a general comment, and then I will address each of your reservations individually. The question isn't whether there are some virtues to a bounty system that will be lost by hiring full-time employees, but whether on the whole having full-time employees is better than having exclusively bounties. I don't see why we can't have a mix of bounties and full-time employees. It seems to me that if the full-time employees act in concert, then they could decide, with the approval of the board, what specifically . I can't emphasize enough that we have millions of dollars at our disposal, and we ought to use it intelligently and effectively.

Regarding (1): It seems a little misleading to call hiring full-time developers "favoritism". Full-time employees don't play the same role in a project as developers who work for bounties. Again, why can't there be a mix of bounty-employees and full-time employees? The idea that previous experience should always and unequivocally be irrelevant is untenable, and in any case it shouldn't be maintained if it hurts the project.

Regarding (2): Not to sound insensitive, but the development of the Mastercoin project is the essential thing, not whether some potential developer is at a disadvantage. Of course, innovation may suffer somewhat by putting anyone at a disadvantage, but innovation may suffer much, much more if it is no one's *job* to work on Mastercoin full-time.

Regarding (3): The problem is that you're forming an dichotomy where there isn't one. Some tasks will be better as bounties, and some tasks will require the full attention of developers over a long period of time.

In short, it's not either or; I see the opportunity for a combination of different kinds of developers which, in my view, will lead to a quicker and more fruitful development of the Mastercoin protocol.

Quote from: vokain on November 28, 2013, 04:17:08 PM

3. More open discussion and exchange of ideas! Keep this going gentlemen, it is refreshing to have each other to bounce ideas off of.

I appreciate your interest in discussion. Unfortunately you seem to be the only board member who is willing to seriously engage in such important policy discussions.

On that note, I think it is important that the board members explicitly answer rbdrbd's question: "Do we have anyone on the board that has "boot on the ground" operational experience growing profitable software/tech startups with more than 5-10 employees?"

+100000000000

This has nothing to do with dev mastercoins and it doesn't provide the right incentivesI do not see why the board is not heeding the advise of the community and hiring full time developer ASAP!!

This is not an issue of competition. Its an issue of how much time these devs have to commit to the project after doing their main jobs that pays their bills and living expenses. Bounties are paid after devs complete work, what are they supposed to do in the mean time while they are not getting paid? : They are already doing it: working other jobs. All they have left to give is free time after work. My suggestion: pay them in FIAT. You already have a bank accountLike I stated previously:

Quote from: Ola on November 21, 2013, 02:04:24 PM

I think these points need to be address quickly to speed up development and foster outside development.

1) I think its high time that 2 developers, or at least Tachikoma is hired or contracted full time for at least a period of 2 years... this is a minimal relative cost of doing business considering the potential fast turn around of the initiative, due to having someone work on the project full time. At this point Tachikoma who blazes the trail, mostly leading developments and improvement shouldn't be scrounging around working to pay bills. His focus should be on developing and testing so we can have something dependable in no time: Success in anything depends on FOCUS, and right now our main devs have jobs on the side trying to pay bills. We should take a page from the bitcoin foundation and emulate the hiring of Gavin Adresen.

"Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus."

and

Quote from: Ola on November 22, 2013, 01:48:50 PM

Quote from: zathras on November 22, 2013, 08:01:22 AM

In a perfect world, I would happily devote more time to Mastercoin, I've lived and breathed it pretty much whenever I'm not working my day job & am of course 100% behind it - there is however an issue I haven't seen discussed which for me at least is significant.

There are real-world financial burdens (mortgage, bills etc) that have to be paid. My full time earnings are in fiat - and that's a critical factor. Cryptocurrencies are still a very new and volatile way of transferring monetary value (for example I had a fairly substantial bitcoin transaction earlier this week that was worth significantly less to the recipient in the time it took to confirm it in 6 blocks). Consider if you will, being paid in bitcoin & mastercoin only for the next {x months/years}. The ups and downs of these values will determine the amount of fiat you would have that month to pay the bills. It could be fantastic and you become very wealthy. It could also end in tears if a crash in value restricts your ability to pay said bills. My number one priority over anything else will always be providing for my family (and stably).

The foundation I'm sure would look at adjusting payments along with market values but just as volatility affects conversion to fiat, so does it affect the resources of the foundation. A crash in bitcoin value is also a crash in foundation resources. For the sake of debate, what happens if bitcoin for example crashes to $50? How would the foundation cover it's payments to its hires? I think that's an unlikely scenario, but unlikely enough to put 100% of your income on is the question. My apologies if this comes across as negativity that's not my intention at all - I'm simply considering (out loud) the potential risks.

Mastercoin is a project I thoroughly support and believe is going to be something that really starts to attract 'big money' (corporate) to cryptocurrencies. I currently spend as much time developing as I can, but I have a full time job which takes up the lion's share of my time. I still do endeavor to be responsive to any issues with any of my Masterchest software.

As they say 'never close a door' & I'm not ruling anything out, but as nice (I'm guilty too) as it is to get swept up in the incredible growth in just our first few short months when it comes to things like employment and where your income comes from (and how reliable that income is) a longer term perspective is needed.

Thanks

Note, I'd be happy to read any info anyone can provide on a precedent for full-time work paid in cryptocurrencies.

EDIT: for clarity

Your concern is reasonable and valid especially considering fluctuations in btc prices which equates to real life consequences...However I do feel that this risk could be offset by the foundation, by paying developers or "long term contractors" (because there might be additional implications for classifying devs as employees) in fiat. I heard over trello that the foundation now has a bank account. I see no reason why long term fiat payments payments couldn't be structured for long term contractors "Devs" without addition legal burdens of "full time employee" classification. "long term contractor" is also a convenient title or classification because you would be working from your own space and you will not be sharing any physical resources.

With all due respect Bounty's work very well, but it comes as an afterthought to full time employment. Bounties foster competition and it is good for getting to see what potential candidates for a project are made of. How how about in a situation where we already know the skill and ability of said developers? Bounties in these cases become counter-intuitive because the ability of the skilled developer to produce quality work is not based on actual skill, but on actual time he can afford to give after his first priority which is the other job that puts food on the table. We seen several instances when tachikoma had to sleep and go to work.

The long term hiring works way way better for developers who we already know have the desired skill, competence and drive from a track record. It would mean that Mastercoin is priority for developers and they already love working on mastercoin why not enable them to give their all to mastercoin? We have several of these guys from the previous bounties and I think it best to do everything to "poach" them while we can. Don't forget there are competitors and this is also a race to the top of who can achieve a network effect for success. Not only do we want to achieve a network effect, but increase the switching costs by having such rich and intuitive system that makes it hard for users of mastercoin to find any other comparable platform. And what we need right now is to get the devs to focus full time on developing essential mastercoin features than to worry about two things at once. : "Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus."

what does everybody else think?

If you continue to ignore our concerns, It would mean that now you are not doing whats in the best interest of mastercoin, its investors and mastercoins SUCESS!! and this would be indirect sabotage Angry

Voting on this issue should be a no brainer and I think the boards interest should be properly aligned to accomplish this minute task. I do not think "voting" is a proper excuse!!

JR, RON, DAVID respectfully Undecided

, we need full time devs ASAP! Please. In business you never outsource your core competency..Right now Mastercoin's core competency is to rely on bounties and if this is not fixed now it will bite us in the back later. We can take a page from bitcoin itself and follow the example of the hiring of Gavin Adresen, Only we actually have the ability to hire 12 potential "Gavin Adresens" but we are not taking advantage.

Competitive bounties are still needed but Not as a core strategy for development. Bounties play the proper role as supplemental to mastercoin projects and discovery of new talented developers, why is this so hard to UNDERSTAND? Huh

??

We have Nxt, Bitshares on our heels and most will agree that first mover advantage is PARAMOUNT!

For your information I grew my last company to 12 employees to develop a fully functional product..funding and success aside. We need our suite of Mastercoin features built and saying this current harp hazard strategy is not going to cut it is a serious understatement !!

Echo this post if you 100% agree with this!!