No, you can buy Bitcoins without having any.
So I will buy real Bitcoins with these IOUs I guess?
Exchanges are designed to facilitate trades between strangers...
That is what ZR does. Even if you do buy from a friend, you would not know. Every deal is "remote",
Zero Reserve is somewhat hard to explain - you need to use it. Just get the code and everything will fall into place.
So when saying 'friends', what you exactly meant is 'retroshare friends'?
Zero Reserve friends is the subset of RetroShare friends who you would grant a credit OR who would grant a credit to you. (Zeroreserve does not assume that credit is mutual)