re: Justus, Adam Back
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.
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?
I think Adam is a good guy with good intentions. Certainly he deserves respect -- he has earned it. All around. He's a brilliant guy and he's been working for good for a long time. We all owe him our thanks at the very least for his invention of hashcash, his work at Zero Knowledge, etc. And I know Justus can be blunt; Adam has been very graceful in this thread.
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. There is an easy way to put them to rest.
With respect to Bitcoin's development road map versus the world's vast array of financial relationships, in order to receive universal acceptance it usually best to keep language and protocol as simple as possible with enough functionality to serve the majority. Overly complex or superfluous language makes some people suspicious. Projects that offer Turing-complete complexity are empowering, but not always welcome. Having said that, there is nothing stopping meta applications from improving Bitcoin's footprint. In defense of Justus' pit bull defensiveness, sometimes strength of conviction is enough to clear the smoke from a conversation mired in nuance. While I often disagree with him on many things, I admire his brevity and focus.