BitShares Forum
Main => Stakeholder Proposals => Topic started by: dannotestein on January 05, 2015, 10:04:59 pm
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BTSNow represents four developers from the BitShares team. Our github handles are dnotestein, efrias, gregorsz, and Gandalf-The-Grey. Eric and I (Dan Notestein) are located in Blacksburg, VA, Greg and Gandalf are located in Poland.
We're not the most talkative guys in the forums, so it's probable you will not recognize our names, but we've been with the Invictus/BitShares project since almost the first code was written and I was Dan's first programming hire. ByteMaster and I first met when I was doing consulting work with his previous employer, and after he told me about his early ideas for BitShares, I was excited to join his project. I already had my own company, SynaptiCAD, so we needed to work out details of how this could be achieved, and ultimately that lead me to bring some SynaptiCAD programmers on to the project, and have others take over most of my responsibilities at SynaptiCAD.
During our time in the BitShares ecosystem, we were closely involved in the initial architectural design of the overall bitshares client, and we were entirely responsible for the design and implementation of the peer-to-peer networking code for bitshares, the JSON-RPC API generator that enables developers to rapidly add new API calls, and the test regression system for verifying the functionality of API calls. We've also fixed numerous challenging bugs in the command-line interface and the networking/fiber library "fc" that the entire client depends on heavily, speeded up the processing of transactions during blockchain validation, and most recently rewrote the logic for handling forks in the blockchain. As Bytemaster succinctly put it in today's meeting, we're "the guys that solve hard problems".
We've been operating a private jenkins build server that builds Linux, Mac, and Windows versions of the software, and we've been responsible for creating the windows binary builds that have been published on github for distribution to end users. All recognized BitShares developers will be given accounts on our Jenkins server to aid them in their development work.
We also plan to host the TestNet seed node on an account that will be accessible to all developers, so that they can access the seed node logs for debugging purposes and fire up a new version of the TestNet when they need one.
We're currently concentrating on solidifying the mechanisms needed to support on-ramps/off-ramps for both cryptocurrency and fiat. As part of that work, we also plan to incorporate a new company that will operate an on-ramp/off-ramp for BitShares so that users can easily move money into and out of the BitShares distributed exchange network. Our goal is to have an operational on-ramp/off-ramp within the next 1-2 months, initially supporting only cryptocurrencies, with fiat to follow not too long after. We have two major design goals for our on-ramp/off-ramp: make it as easy to use as possible and even more importantly as secure as possible, since history has clearly established that exchanges are "high-value" targets in the world of cybercrime.
To date, we've been paid by SynaptiCAD, which itself was paid in BTC from AGS funds, then converted the BTC to currencies appropriate to each developer. Like the other developers, we're now switching to a model where we're paid directly by the blockchain instead of via AGS funds. However, we plan to continue using a single company to collect the delegate fees and pay developer salaries, so that the developers are shielded from having to deal with the tax complications individually.
Initially we plan to run 4 delegates to collect fees that will go towards paying the salaries of our developers. This doesn't fully cover our salaries by any means, but SynaptiCAD received a 3 million BTS bonus that will the cover the shortfall for a while. Beyond that point, we hope to begin deriving supplementary income through the operation of the exchange. It's also entirely possible we will need to run more delegates at some point, but only time will tell. Personally, I'm hoping that we'll see a nice rise in the value of BTS as we continue to improve our development and marketing processes and demonstrate the value of the BitShares network to the rest of the world.
Please support us by voting in our delegates:
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delegate-dev2.btsnow
delegate-dev3.btsnow
delegate-dev4.btsnow
Finally, on behalf of our entire team, I want to wish everyone a happy and productive new year in 2015!
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i would change the names of the delegates if not created yet.
different names are better and maybe you all hate to write and talk so much here, but everyone should say some words. You could also do a mumble or so, will improve that people knows you.
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I appreciate all that you guys have done. I would also like to meet you all in a Mumble session - but I can understand if that is not practical.
Will be voting for you.
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i would change the names of the delegates if not created yet.
different names are better and maybe you all hate to write and talk so much here, but everyone should say some words. You could also do a mumble or so, will improve that people knows you.
These delegates are being run by a company, rather than an individual. The names are already chosen and it was a purposeful decision not to tie them to individual programmers, since it wouldn't represent the actual distribution of the funds, because everyone is not compensated at the same level. Also, as a practical matter, we work closely together on projects, and it would be very difficult for an outsider to know who is doing what in our group (often Eric and I work at the same computer, and one of us does the commit, for example).
Please don't put words in my mouth: we don't hate to write and hate to talk here, I don't mind at all, but I have a finite amount of time. It's been my observation that getting into forum debates is generally counterproductive to programming work (it's happened to me and I've seen it happen to others), so I make a conscious effort to read a lot, but post little, unless it's something I'm particularly passionate on. Most of the time I think a reasonable consensus emerges among the non-developers, and I feel that's an important contribution they make to the project.
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I appreciate all that you guys have done. I would also like to meet you all in a Mumble session - but I can understand if that is not practical.
Will be voting for you.
Thanks, we appreciate it!
I'm sure at least some of us will speak on a mumble session at some time (most probably Eric or I, since we're the only two native English speakers). I do listen in on some of the sessions, but I haven't spoke up yet as we're usually working on low-level concerns that aren't of general interest to bitshares users (unless it's a bug they're experiencing, of course).
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When you post commits under github what name/s should we be looking for?
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When you post commits under github what name/s should we be looking for?
Most commonly efrias and dnotestein.
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I've seen you Dan N quite a bit on Skype and you have been very helpful to others. I did not know your story, but I was already thinking you were working on this full time and I was very curious to know more. Thanks for your intro, well written. We really need your knowledge and affinity to high quality code.
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About time! Voted.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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4 100% payrate delegates?
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4 100% payrate delegates?
4 programmers (in one entity/company) working full time on bitshares.
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As Bytemaster succinctly put it in today's meeting, we're "the guys that solve hard problems".
Yep! If anyone has disproportionally low "rep" in the bitshares community, it's dan and eric.
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Voted for your delegates. Godspeed!
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Will vote for sure! Thx for your outstanding work so far… +5%
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I will vote you , also thanks for your team working +5% and I think BTS should been consider as stock not money. because now the price of BTS is a little low ,it is a little difficult to use BTS to cover salary .
but if the BTS price is up to 1USD, LOL, a delegate can hire ten developing maybe.
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Interesting to hear what you all have been doing behind the scenes! +5%
Now that SynaptiCAD needs a "face" both for the voting majority and for the on/off ramp, I would love to see you collaborating closely with a designer-type as well.
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As Bytemaster succinctly put it in today's meeting, we're "the guys that solve hard problems".
Yep! If anyone has disproportionally low "rep" in the bitshares community, it's dan and eric.
If I remember correctly, after your first days with I3 you said that BM and Dan N were on another level.
This is a great example how forcing the employees to become block producers is ungainly. There are now 4 block producers by the same company which was completely unnecessary. With all the paid delegate bids, it also means all the reliable block producers who only stay as such will get eventually moved out.
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As Bytemaster succinctly put it in today's meeting, we're "the guys that solve hard problems".
Yep! If anyone has disproportionally low "rep" in the bitshares community, it's dan and eric.
If I remember correctly, after your first days with I3 you said that BM and Dan N were on another level.
This is a great example how forcing the employees to become block producers is ungainly. There are now 4 block producers by the same company which was completely unnecessary. With all the paid delegate bids, it also means all the reliable block producers who only stay as such will get eventually moved out.
There's no risk in having a single entity controlling 4 delegates. Even if we only had 10 people controlling 10 delegates each, we'd still be more decentralized than bitcoin. And I don't see anything wrong in pushing out some init delegates :P. Eventually many of the people who are currently block producers can become highly voted standby delegates instead. They can still be compensated for their standby service, ensuring that the moment a delegate stops producing blocks they can get voted out and quickly replaced by an operational block producer.
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adding you to my slate on the next update
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As Bytemaster succinctly put it in today's meeting, we're "the guys that solve hard problems".
Yep! If anyone has disproportionally low "rep" in the bitshares community, it's dan and eric.
If I remember correctly, after your first days with I3 you said that BM and Dan N were on another level.
This is a great example how forcing the employees to become block producers is ungainly. There are now 4 block producers by the same company which was completely unnecessary. With all the paid delegate bids, it also means all the reliable block producers who only stay as such will get eventually moved out.
There's no risk in having a single entity controlling 4 delegates. Even if we only had 10 people controlling 10 delegates each, we'd still be more decentralized than bitcoin. And I don't see anything wrong in pushing out some init delegates :P. Eventually many of the people who are currently block producers can become highly voted standby delegates instead. They can still be compensated for their standby service, ensuring that the moment a delegate stops producing blocks they can get voted out and quickly replaced by an operational block producer.
You're preaching to the wrong guy. Try getting heard over the loud trolls.
The minimum option we give them, the better.
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As Bytemaster succinctly put it in today's meeting, we're "the guys that solve hard problems".
Yep! If anyone has disproportionally low "rep" in the bitshares community, it's dan and eric.
If I remember correctly, after your first days with I3 you said that BM and Dan N were on another level.
This is a great example how forcing the employees to become block producers is ungainly. There are now 4 block producers by the same company which was completely unnecessary. With all the paid delegate bids, it also means all the reliable block producers who only stay as such will get eventually moved out.
I would recommend that we use helper delegates. Reliable block producers could "hire" Dan N and Co. and run their nodes for them. Once BTS grows then Dan N can run a single delegate. Lets not draw long term conclusions based upon short term situation.
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Voted. Thanks for your work +5%
We've been operating a private jenkins build server that builds Linux, Mac, and Windows versions of the software...
Do you have GUI Linux version? If yes, can you start posting Linux release versions to Github?
Trusted pre-compiled version will help Linux users a lot.
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Voted :)
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Voted. Thanks for your work +5%
We've been operating a private jenkins build server that builds Linux, Mac, and Windows versions of the software...
Do you have GUI Linux version? If yes, can you start posting Linux release versions to Github?
Trusted pre-compiled version will help Linux users a lot.
Yes, we'll be releasing GUI Linux versions as well.