1. I agree DPOS is necessary for PTS, why can't you just hard fork PTS and keep using the PTS name instead of PTS2? Leaving both PTS and PTS2 in the market is like leaving one of your child in the wild wide and die. Just announce a client hard fork and do the mapping. PTS miner will disappear and everyone upgrade their client.
2. Giving the rest PTS to marketing??? LOL. Let's look what the marketing team has done with AGS fund (below are what I found with a quick glance of the spending spreadsheet).
To me, all of these spending is not clear. Look what mastercoin foundation is doing: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtCyUJvk_IyNdGpVcnpBN2tOczFmbVRnck5TWjZuRFE&usp=sharing#gid=0
After 5 months marketing, BTS still remain unknown to lots of BTCers. I3 need to think of the problem instead of taking every cent from community. PTS used to be the top 5 in marketcap at the end of last year and there were no marketing. After DPOS PTS, GIVE the remaining PTS to DEVELOPERS!!! Good product is the best marketing. And we really should change the AGS spending to bounty based instead of salary based (except developers). What I see is 5 core dev working really hard day and night, with another 20 ppl sucking AGS money for doing little thing.
This is great! We love it when someone takes the time to ask questions line this. Perhaps others were wondering the same thing, so lets dig in and clear these up.
1. JoeyD just explained that very well. We have to release a new chain, its a completely new code base. That raises the challenge of how to switch over without having people confuse the old chain and the new chain. For the purpose of this forum discussion, I used PTS and PTS2 so we can all keep them straight. Now its just a question of devising the best way to get everyone to voluntarily switch. Working with the exchanges to swap them out is a powerful aid. Announcing that we are going to honor the new chain is another. We will do everything we can think of to get the word out. Then, if the majority of the market wants to overrule us and keep the old PTS they can do so. We offer a new product. The market decides.
2. The website needs to meet many needs. We pick a developer, see what they come up with, and react to what we see. I think each iteration is getting better, but there are many different groups we need to reach. What sells to the public may not be what sells to investors or hard-core crypto-geeks. BM is very demanding and particular about how things are done. I understand that Steve Jobs was that way too. (Only Steve didn't have the raw ability to do things himself) So sometimes BM just creates what he wants overnight and shows it to us. That's how he thinks best. We get used to it.
3. Yes, no doubt there will someday be version 60 of the website.
4. Dan, Brian, and I have been invited to make two presentations to a conference of investors who have chosen to hold their meeting in St Martin. They are reimbursing many of our expenses which is certainly a good sign. They have also offered a briefing on special purpose business jurisdictions that may be helpful for certain kinds of businesses based in the Caribbean.
5. We trusted Super 3, he turned out to be an opportunist and grabbed .io for his own purposes. Stuff happens.
6. Pam, Angelina, and I meet regularly to improve our accounting documentation. We plan a cleaner set of spreadsheets as soon as we can get them polished. Thanks for the examples others are using, I'll study them.
7. It takes many skills to run a company. We post what the developers are doing because that is of general interest. Few want to hear about what accountants, and admin, and managers, and lawyers are doing, but that takes a lot of time behind the scenes. Since our whole lives are dedicated to making BitShares a success, we are highly motivated to do everything carefully and efficiently - making resources last as long as possible. At all times we are applying these resources the best we know how. Fund raising will need to continue because we hope to be at this for a very long time and that is the only way we can make it possible for people to work for us full time.
8. "Give the PTS to developers." "Don't use it for salaries." Hmmm. You can glance across the forum and see many differing opinions about what to do. You can talk to the passengers on a ship and hear many different opinions about where the ship should sail - but the captain is responsible for plotting the route. He tries to keep the passengers happy so they won't get off the boat. But he is also responsible for their comfort and safety - a thankless job.
9. We have promised to build an industry. No one else is attempting that. It is far more complicated than you can possibly imagine. To those who donated, we promised to use them to advance that industry to the very best of our ability. Those who are patient will still be here with us to reap the rewards.