Wake up call: BitShares 2.0 is NOT BitShares

[BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode]

These are some of my current questions, I am not making any judgments on anybody's intents:

1. What is the primary purpose in anyone making a claim on IP at all?

2. What is the core legal argument as to whether that IP belongs to Cryptonomex or to Bitshares? My (not-a-lawyer) understanding is that generally an employer will own the intellectual property created by its employees in the course of their employment. This is irrespective of who did the creative work and whether they felt they were paid enough for it.

3. If Cryptonomex did have a valid claim on the IP, is it legally feasible that the liberal terms of that license for BitShares could be altered at any time in the future (irrespective of any current intents)?

4. With regard to future development within Bitshares, such as third party scripting, or other customised builds on top of the core protocol, how would rights around these be arranged to be equitable to all parties?

https://bitshares.org/blog/2015/06/08/lessons-learned-from-bitshares-0.x/#copyright-reserved

[starspirit]

These are some of my current questions, I am not making any judgments on anybody's intents:

1. What is the primary purpose in anyone making a claim on IP at all?

2. What is the core legal argument as to whether that IP belongs to Cryptonomex or to Bitshares? My (not-a-lawyer) understanding is that generally an employer will own the intellectual property created by its employees in the course of their employment. This is irrespective of who did the creative work and whether they felt they were paid enough for it.

3. If Cryptonomex did have a valid claim on the IP, is it legally feasible that the liberal terms of that license for BitShares could be altered at any time in the future (irrespective of any current intents)?

4. With regard to future development within Bitshares, such as third party scripting, or other customised builds on top of the core protocol, how would rights around these be arranged to be equitable to all parties?

[yiminh]

Just catching up on the announcement of BitShares 2.0.

I am baffled that people are being caught in the thick of thin things about secondary matters like the ownership of Cryptonomex, and fail to see the elephant in the room: BitShares without its free-software community funded core is not BitShares anymore! It cannot be as per the very nature of BitShares. The whole point and philosophy of BitShares is to be an open toolkit allowing anyone to leverage on the technology to create all sorts of innovative DACs, and in return sharedrop some of the new DAC's tokens to BitShares holders under what we call the "social consensus".

What you are being pitched as BitShares 2.0 is an attempt to strip from the real BitShare immensely valuable assets such as its community, its brand name, its place in the crypto space and slap them on top of a proprietary non-free-software technology to increase it's appeal. Bitshares 2.0 is not an upgrade, it's a corporate dismantelment.

Under the BitShares 2.0 "proposall "announcement", BitShares becomes a trade show exhibit for the exclusive benefit of Cryptonomex Inc. Bitshares 2.0 and the BitShares community will be used as:
- A lab rat to test Graphene before it's used for real clients, and to test future new features before they are added to the professional toolkit.
- A display to show to Cryptonomex's clients that Graphene works as intended
- A live testnet for Graphene prospects and users to test their applications
- An exhibit model for sales and fund raising pitches as well as presentations
- A social sandbox in which Cryptonomexand its clients can test new marketing and product ideas before trying them in the wild
- A free source of consulting, features proposals, feedback, bug reports, bug fixes and contributions
- An army of volunteers to help promoting Graphene
- A complementary source of funds

BitShares loses everything. Under the new model:
- It cannot anymore be forked and loses the benefit of sharedrops by third party DAC developers.
- Its allowed scope of evolution becomes restricted by the use cases allowed by the Graphene licence.
- It loses the control of the BitShares brand
- It loses its reputation on the crypto scene: even Ripple is free software with no strings attached!
- It loses its soul and fundamental raison d'etre

Meanwhile since BitShares is still around and may even do well for a while after the upgrade when it's not yet too apparent that it has lost its purpose and independance, BitShares core developers can continue to sell their BTS.

It's time to wake up: we do not have to accept the upgrade to BitShares 2.0 and the subsequent disparition of the free software BitShares we have funded. Nothing justifies such an extreme solution. From an organizational perspective, if the core developers are going to walk away, it would be very poor decision making to accept an upgrade to new code that only they understand and control. No organization in their right mind would migrate to a system developed by an employee who is leaving, BitShares is no exception. From a technical perspective nothing justifies a migration either: the Graphene based chain will be launched in parallel as a BitShares fork, why not just let it be a BitShares fork? The rules so far have been that anyone forking BitShares was going to do it under her own brand and was expected to respect the social consensus. I don't see any reason to change the rules.

Don't let yourself impressed by people telling you that BitShares is in a dead end, that developments have stalled, and that selling our soul by accepting a faustian pledge is the only solution. BitShares price may be low, but this has happened quite a few times to Bitcoin, Ripple and NXT to name only a few, and they are still doing fine. The whole crypto industry is in a bear market so things are looking gloomy, but like any bear market, this is only temporary. Better days will come when the market reverses, and these days may not be that far away given the fact Bitcoin's price has  stabilized. Developments may have stalled as a consequence of the price drop, but will resume when the price rises again, and BitShares isn't going to die because developments have slowed down: if that was the case Bitcoin wouldn't be around anymore.

There is no reason to rush and accept a bad deal. Cryptonomex may have timelines but we don't. Let's take the time to discuss and campain and see what the community really thinks about the upgrade.

edit: replaced "closed source" by "non free software" and "open source" by "free software"

BitShares 2.0 is a balckmail and rape to all BTS holders, BM sold his soul to the devil, went to the dark side:( it's a sad day for BTS community.

[bobmaloney]

I understand that developers need to be paid. And the more they are paid the better. What is odd to me is they are paid by Bitshres to produce something and after this thing is produced they end up being the owners of the product. Kind of like someone paying you to build a house and after you are done you become the owner of the house.
 In this regard I see the logic in the proposed solutions - using some of the funds received by CNX to buy and burn BTS shares. As far as such a scheme working in practice - I have serious doubts...

Regarding the rest of the issues discussed - For me the correct thing to do is not restrict the free license to only one chain BTS, but to "BTS and any other chain that is 100% snapshot of BTS"

And 'yes' discussing this issues is a good thing. Actually I do not quite understand why this needed to be kept secret for months before 06/08, just do not see what was/is the benefit from hiding it it?

The only benefits I see from it are:

• It allowed the dev team to produce a disclosure plan and documentation to support it
• It satisfies the a requirement imposed by one or more of Cryptonomex's funders (just guessing)

I am literally disillusioned by what I've read today here on the forums, and although living without illusions is a good thing it also comes with a bit of sadness and feelings of loss for the optimistic future I assumed was on the way.

I started the day highly motivated to begin a new book series, and spent a good number of hours researching bytemaster's posts on the bitcointalk forum, going back to his first one on July 27th, 2010 and the most recent one being on May 21st of this year. This was research I started to support the series that I'm tentatively calling The BitShares Saga. I have 5 books in the making, starting with part 1: The Genesis of a Revolution. The 30 page start that was to become The Coming BitShares Revolution will not go to waste but will be revised and become part 3: Experiments for a Revolution. That was the plan I started to formulate and put into action today.

But now, I am just not sure. My doubts are growing about this project. As strongly as I'm convinced of bytemaster's drive and conviction, his passion to create an ecosystem with teeth that empowers individuals and disrupts the corrupt mainstream financial systems, I can't help feeling like another stomach ache is coming upon me from too much sugar in the koolaid.

I am just being honest. I think this thread and the one newmine started have surfaced many issues that need to be discussed. Hindsight is 20/20 and I wonder if the Larimers, the dev team and their new investors saw this controversy coming. I think not, or they would have probably chosen a different way to disclose the new business approach that is Cyptonomex.

I can see the situation from at least 3 angles (dev team+Larimers, Cryptonomex's investors and the BitShares community), and all have a vested interest in how this plays out. How BitShares and the community will come out of this when the dust settles is difficult to say right now.

It's gonna take some calm voices, some rational thinking and wisdom on everybody's part to hash this out. Let's strive for respectful consideration, a check on our emotions and a measure of empathy and cooperation with all parties, aiming to work out a positive outcome where everyone benefits.

I have seen some really great people in this community voice similar perspectives, some of whom have distanced themselves from participation. I truly hope we work out a solution that will also bring them back into the fold and restore their confidence in the future of BitShares.

Your voice is much appreciated. I hope you stick around for a long while.

Tomorrow is a new day, let's hope we get some positive clarification.

[Thom]

I understand that developers need to be paid. And the more they are paid the better. What is odd to me is they are paid by Bitshres to produce something and after this thing is produced they end up being the owners of the product. Kind of like someone paying you to build a house and after you are done you become the owner of the house.
 In this regard I see the logic in the proposed solutions - using some of the funds received by CNX to buy and burn BTS shares. As far as such a scheme working in practice - I have serious doubts...

Regarding the rest of the issues discussed - For me the correct thing to do is not restrict the free license to only one chain BTS, but to "BTS and any other chain that is 100% snapshot of BTS"

And 'yes' discussing this issues is a good thing. Actually I do not quite understand why this needed to be kept secret for months before 06/08, just do not see what was/is the benefit from hiding it it?

The only benefits I see from it are:

• It allowed the dev team to produce a disclosure plan and documentation to support it
• It satisfies the a requirement imposed by one or more of Cryptonomex's funders (just guessing)

I am literally disillusioned by what I've read today here on the forums, and although living without illusions is a good thing it also comes with a bit of sadness and feelings of loss for the optimistic future I assumed was on the way.

I started the day highly motivated to begin a new book series, and spent a good number of hours researching bytemaster's posts on the bitcointalk forum, going back to his first one on July 27th, 2010 and the most recent one being on May 21st of this year. This was research I started to support the series that I'm tentatively calling The BitShares Saga. I have 5 books in the making, starting with part 1: The Genesis of a Revolution. The 30 page start that was to become The Coming BitShares Revolution will not go to waste but will be revised and become part 3: Experiments for a Revolution. That was the plan I started to formulate and put into action today.

But now, I am just not sure. My doubts are growing about this project. As strongly as I'm convinced of bytemaster's drive and conviction, his passion to create an ecosystem with teeth that empowers individuals and disrupts the corrupt mainstream financial systems, I can't help feeling like another stomach ache is coming upon me from too much sugar in the koolaid.

I am just being honest. I think this thread and the one newmine started have surfaced many issues that need to be discussed. Hindsight is 20/20 and I wonder if the Larimers, the dev team and their new investors saw this controversy coming. I think not, or they would have probably chosen a different way to disclose the new business approach that is Cyptonomex.

I can see the situation from at least 3 angles (dev team+Larimers, Cryptonomex's investors and the BitShares community), and all have a vested interest in how this plays out. How BitShares and the community will come out of this when the dust settles is difficult to say right now.

It's gonna take some calm voices, some rational thinking and wisdom on everybody's part to hash this out. Let's strive for respectful consideration, a check on our emotions and a measure of empathy and cooperation with all parties, aiming to work out a positive outcome where everyone benefits.

I have seen some really great people in this community voice similar perspectives, some of whom have distanced themselves from participation. I truly hope we work out a solution that will also bring them back into the fold and restore their confidence in the future of BitShares.

[Chuckone]

Bitshares 2.0 has been designed and coded without any funding from the Bitshares DAC. As stated by BM in another thread, the fact is the salary the devs made in the last few months was barely enough to pay for bug fixing on the 0.9.x versions.

That being said, if Cryptonomex paid its employees to develop the Graphene toolkit using its own money, it's only normal that Crypthonomex owns the rights to that toolkit.

So basically Bitshares can now benefit for all that work it didn't really pay for (or only partially) by getting unlimited use of the Graphene toolkit, as long as Bitshares stays on a single chain. Am I the only one that sees this as good thing? Anyone who tells me that Bitshares owns every core developers' ass for less than a 1000$ per month is hypocritical. The devs are free to work for any company they want as long as they deliver more value than the salary they are paid for by Bitshares.

The only thing I would like to hear from BM is that every feature that Cryptonomex will develop for Bitshares (and paid by Bitshares) is going to be used solely by the DAC. Pretty much the same as if you work as a consultant for a company, the company retains the rights of what you developed for them. So if Bitshares allow let's say a budget of 3M BTS for the development of a special feature, then Cryptonomex cannot retain the rights to that part of the work and thus cannot license and sell that part of the code to other companies. It should be either open sourced and free to use or licensed by Bitshares or closed source, the decision being made by the Bitshares shareholders.

With that kind of confirmation I feel totally comfortable with the model BM came up with. For example, if Bitshares shareholders don't want to pay for any development at some point because they feel the product they have is good enough, I think it's only fair that the core devs find other sources of revenue by working for other clients.

Valid points have been made in this thread as well as the others related to that subject, but the way some of them were formulated made me feel like they were used more to spread FUD than to start an honest and constructive discussion. I find it hard to believe that there is a benevolent motive behind some posts when they are formulated using an aggressive tone and insinuating that Bitshares is getting ripped off by Cryptonomex.

BM and the core dev team have everything to win if Bitshares is successful, and they have a lot to lose if it fails. They already have a lot of skin in the game, so I wouldn't be too much concerned about the fact that they have the success of Bitshares as their utmost priority.

[klosure]

so, i would love to read the new license

in my opinion the intention of the license is to prefend a commercial use of Graphene. I think this is just fine! So in my understanding this license needs to make this points possible

1. no commercial use without license from Cryptonomex
2. the BitShares Blockchain got a unrestricted license for any feature in the future. Cryptonomex will get all commercial rights for stuff who is coded for the BitShares community.
3. BitShares Community can make multiple chains as long as the BitShares community is a stakeholder of 100% of the new chain.

Fully agree on the above.

Some more points that need to be addressed:
4. Software that is not a blockchain based peer-to-peer network but needs to read or manipulate the BitShares or affiliated DACs blockchain(s) or listen to transactions on the network and interface with the network at peer protocol level should be allowed to reuse BitShares code and therefore Graphene without being subject to the commercial licence. This is to allow the creation of APIs to allow third party tools, exchanges, bridges and other services to interact directly with the network or the blockchain without having to rewrite the whole object serialization and signing code already handled by Graphene.
5. Third party developers (community) who contribute code to Graphene should retain all rights of distribution, reproduction and modification on the code they contributed. Cryptonomex can specify that developers accept to grant them unrestrictive commercial license on the code by submitting it to the Graphene repo. But the point is that contributing back code shouldn't affect the rights of the contributor to use the code as he sees fit.

Other points that don't belong to the software license, but are important anyway
6. Cryptonomex must disclose to the BitShares community if they own or registered any patents on the code of Graphene and grant unrestricted license of usage of the patents to BitShares.
7. Cryptonomex should clarify how changes to Graphene framework will be tested and confirm if they intend ot use BitShares as a test bed for new features and in which circumstances they would do so. They should also commit to only integrate features on BitShares that are needed by BitShares so that BitShares doesn't become a public test net for Graphene.

A last point that has nothing to do with the upgrade:
8. Are community members who are accredited investors welcome to participate in next funding round of Cryptonomex and will this be announced on the forum?

[tonyk]

 
I understand that developers need to be paid. And the more they are paid the better. What is odd to me is they are paid by Bitshres to produce something and after this thing is produced they end up being the owners of the product. Kind of like someone paying you to build a house and after you are done you become the owner of the house.
 In this regard I see the logic in the proposed solutions - using some of the funds received by CNX to buy and burn BTS shares. As far as such a scheme working in practice - I have serious doubts...

Regarding the rest of the issues discussed - For me the correct thing to do is not restrict the free license to only one chain BTS, but to "BTS and any other chain that is 100% snapshot of BTS"

And 'yes' discussing this issues is a good thing. Actually I do not quite understand why this needed to be kept secret for months before 06/08, just do not see what was/is the benefit from hiding it it?

[monsterer]

1) Shutdown the 0.9.x delegate node after the Graphene based chain is up and running.
     - This is basically accepting the upgrade to 2.0 verbatim and what will be doing with the delegates I run unless directed otherwise by their owners.

2) Reject Cryptonomex's proposal outright and continue to run the 0.9.2 client.
     - This could take the form of an attempt to renegotiate the terms of BitShare's use of the Graphene toolkit.
     - It would also mean hunting for a new dev team to basically work for free.

3) Run both blockchains at the same time.
    - This would likely be a fireable offense on both networks.

 

[klosure]

https://voat.co/v/smartcoin/comments/127598
"we" can do whatever we want with the code.

Cryptonomex is giving BitShares the freedom to use everything we have produced without any kind of restriction except that it must remain a SINGLE blockchain.

License is restricted to a single blockchain. This creates the following limitations:
- If we want to add features without adding more bloat to the current blockchain so that clients interested only in one feature don't need to get all the bloat of all the features, we need multiple blockchains.
- If we want to demultiplex the current blockchain to make it easier to process, for example have decentralized exchange transactions on one blockchain and transfers on another
- If we want to acquire and merge with other DACs that already have a blockchain
- If we want to have hierarchical blockchains

License doesn't allow code reuse. This creates the following limitations:
- Third party DACs developers won't be able to fork Bitshares so Bitshares based DACs are something of the past and we lose the benefit of sharedrops. This is a huge change of the BitShares philosophy and business model that shouldn't be pushed without first being discussed. The whole point of the merger with PTS was for BTS to become the default sharedrop target and this merger yielded threads and threads of heated discussion.

[profitofthegods]

I do hope that this:

BitShares may use the code we release for 2.0 without restrictions
BitShares may develop extra features and use them without restriction

Along with the stuff about others being able to get a free license as long as they sharedrop and a proviso about side chains or this 'multi-chain model' if that's something different, is explicitly included within the text of the license. That would require a custom written license and not just copy & paste from a standard template.

[gamey]

All FUD is not based on falsehoods or illegitimate concerns.  Understandably the experiment has come across some technical challenges (perhaps I'm wrong) and the dev team needs a bit of a startover.  They also need to be able to fund themselves. I don't know, I'm sore about a half a dozen other things and in general have moved on. I actually like Newmine at times, because even though he takes things too far on occasion he also has a lot of valid points. Karnal's points are valid too. Dan has a track record of going back on things he puts forth as his vision, so if you are sharp at all you should take not take his word as gospel anymore.

One thing about VC money is that it typically means that the person/entity funding wants to have some say so on the management of the project. In that regards I hope someone who had abilities beyond being a dev team leader would be brought on board, even if it is kept silent.

Dan & Co. have pivoted and went back on what they were selling to people so many times it is hard to keep track. At least they are going to get a Bitshares 1.0 out that is a valid basis for a DAC if someone wants to use the technology.

The question is how much of the Bitshares 1.0 codebase will be reused? Although I suppose it doesn't really matter .. It isn't like they can sharedrop back on BTS for using it and AFAIK the license doesn't restrict graphene from using parts of it.

I'm sorta sickened by the complete abandonment of the toolkit idea, this does seem to likely be in the best interest of Bitshares going forward as a viable product.  The wallet is just far too heavy and the pruning has made no progress.  The whole thing needs to be rearchitected to remain viable longterm.

[BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode]

Klosure is making good points that need to be discussed not dismissed. This is a community that discusses what's best for BitShares not a cheer leading squad for anything that comes out of Blacksburg.

While I support the new product, as do many others, the decision should not be so fragile as to not be able to stand up to some serious questions by a clearly knowledgeable member of the community.

 

We also have to remember that everything is not set in stone. They announced everything so that it COULD be discussed and gain feedback and input from the community on various matters.

I think what they are doing first is getting the test version out so people can actually test it out and understand first hand what we are dealing with instead of a lot of assumptive conclusions brought about from old ways of thinking or understanding how things work or could work.

So with all that in mind, I think a great deal of forgiveness and space should be extended to them to figure out exactly how to handle this new alien thing we call 2.0.

I understand the desire to want everything instantly and now also... but I might suggest this expectation is unrealistic for some of the reasons I have stated, and others I have not.

So I suggest that patience be the word of the day.. and proceed in a constructive manner to build on what bold brush strokes have already been put to canvas and offer how we may bring more colours lines and textures to it all to bring about what we all want to be (most of us anyways) a masterpiece.

[Riverhead]

Furthermore this is a thread or discussion that all delegates should be paying attention to very closely. There are basically three options on the table for a delegate:

1) Shutdown the 0.9.x delegate node after the Graphene based chain is up and running.
     - This is basically accepting the upgrade to 2.0 verbatim and what will be doing with the delegates I run unless directed otherwise by their owners.

2) Reject Cryptonomex's proposal outright and continue to run the 0.9.2 client.
     - This could take the form of an attempt to renegotiate the terms of BitShare's use of the Graphene toolkit.
     - It would also mean hunting for a new dev team to basically work for free.

3) Run both blockchains at the same time.
    - This would likely be a fireable offense on both networks.

[Shentist]

Klosure is making good points that need to be discussed not dismissed. This is a community that discusses what's best for BitShares not a cheer leading squad for anything that comes out of Blacksburg.

While I support the new product, as do many others, the decision should not be so fragile as to not be able to stand up to some serious questions by a clearly knowledgeable member of the community.

I agree!

so, i would love to read the new license

in my opinion the intention of the license is to prefend a commercial use of Graphene. I think this is just fine! So in my understanding this license needs to make this points possible

1. no commercial use without license from Cryptonomex
2. the BitShares Blockchain got a unrestricted license for any feature in the future. Cryptonomex will get all commercial rights for stuff who is coded for the BitShares community.
3. BitShares Community can make multiple chains as long as the BitShares community is a stakeholder of 100% of the new chain.

It would give BitShares the possibility to make more chains in the future if needed, but would give Crytponomex the possibility to sell it to companys as well! And in fact the only ones who will make a 2,3 chains for the BitShares Community is the Cryptonomex team.