Dan is doing the right thing .. again!

[Krills]

You took the money to create Bitshares and promised a delivery date of March 2014, then you delivered a half ass shitware in July 2014, then promised a 1.0 version in November 2014. And here we are in June 2015, no 1.0 and promises of a 2.0.

damn right

[yellowecho]

[NewMine]

Except that you are double, no, quintuple dipping. Owning a BTS was what was to produce a profit and still is for everyone not I3 related. Now I3/Cryptonomex/Larimers/Devs get to profit off the code by selling it and "plug ins" to the highest bidder for extra dough in your pocket plus keeping your BTS. It's a win win for Cryptonomex and a win lose for everyone else.

"No change. Perfectly consistent." What utter bullshit. Go read that original white paper and tell me no change. Was Cryptonomex owning the code base in that or any incarnation of the white paper to date?

It's funny that no one here thinks that Cryptonomex's business model won't hinder adoption and outside development.  Good luck with that

@newmine we will never reach consensus so long as you continue to attack a straw man.     Lets identify some points of agreement, let me know which statements you disagree with and why:

Where was the straw man? I am saying you are greedy because you are looking to license something for profit after you received ample amounts of money to deliver the product.

1. Original BitShares Plan - use proof of work to mine 100% of everything with 0 pre-mine.   A $500,000 budget from Angel funding was available to accomplish this plan.   I3 had to purchase vast majority of its stake via electrical costs, cloud computing costs, mining hardware costs, or direct purchases.    Any stake I3 had came at the expense of the budget for development.     

a. Was that plan fair?   "Yes"
b. Was that plan sustainable?  "No",  lacking funds to develop BTS would never materialize and PTS would be worthless.
c. What options would I3 have:  a) don't mine or buy more PTS,  b) sell any PTS we did acquire and use fund for Plan B and be accused of running a Pump and Dump. 
d. Under this plan I3 makes no profit  (0 dips)

2. BitShares Plan B.. Angel Shares.  Under this plan I3 grew its budget from $500,000 to $2M (after BTC price decline) which allowed BTS to be built and released creating $10M of value for PTS holders and $10M of value for AGS holders.
a. I3 developers received an average paycheck for their time: a fair trade.
b. I3 retained 0 stake in BTS from AGS outside their paycheck.

Plan 1's conclusion is pure speculation in favor of the path you chose. Invalid Argument.

Plan 2b... Umm, you stated in the merger I believe that I3 was retaining near 60million BTS for 2015. Where did that go? Was this the bonuses above and beyond the $100K salaries you posted?

So far the community gave $2M and received $20M using post-bear market prices... unequal trade favoring community.
So far the developers gave $2M worth of labor and received $2M worth of value.... equal trade, hardly selfish, greedy, or double dipping.

You have not given $2M worth of labor, but you did receive $2M worth of value plus all the BTS you have received on the side including the December 31 midnight bonuses of 3 million BTS. Care to disclose how much BTS you have received in total? Stan was supposed to release all this information last year and then again earlier this year. I guess he forgot.  I wonder why?

Your payment was contingent on you delivering a product. Where is the product? The longer it takes you to deliver the less you make per hour. And that is on you and you alone.

3. Is everything fair at this point?   If so then the developers are free to walk away, they did their job the best they could with the budget they had.   

a. If you assume the developers had 0 savings at the start, how do you propose they continue from this point forward?  How many man-hours of labor do you feel is enough before the developers are free to move on with a clean conscience and the moral high ground?  Give us an actual number. 

How about a working Bitshares 2.0 with an MIT license. How ever long that takes.

4. Once we know how much labor the DEVS owed the community for their $2M worth of BTC, they can know when they are free to quit without being greedy.  Assume the DEVs worked every hour they owed.  What options do we have?
a. The devs can quit, but that wouldn't be good for BTS
b. The devs could work part time, and work on BTS as a hobby (but why should they?  they have no more debt nor any stake in BTS). 
c. The devs could start a new blockchain that they actually own a cut in using the public domain work of BTS.   Not good for BTS, but great for Devs.
d. The devs could write all new code and start a new blockchain
e.  The devs could allow stakeholders to vote in dilution so that the Devs could continue to work.   How many man hours do the Devs owe the network in exchange for the meager 4000 BTS per day per person before they are not considered greedy?

@newmine for all your accusations of the devs being greedy, you seem to have missed that every single developer has received less money than they could have made working elsewhere and simply buying BTS with their surplus income.  From this perspective, every single developer has been giving their time to BitShares for free in what amounts to charity work because they are poorer today for having worked on BTS than having worked other jobs.

Cry me a river. You made that choice damn well knowing you had $3.6M in Angel funds. Just because you mismanaged that money every BTS holder should suffer on multiple levels so you can get MORE money or walk away?

After you received the Angel money did you disclose that you would only work X amount of hours for Y amount of money? Can you show me the thread that stated that? I didn't think so. You took the money to create Bitshares and promised a delivery date of March 2014, then you delivered a half ass shitware in July 2014, then promised a 1.0 version in November 2014. And here we are in June 2015, no 1.0 and promises of a 2.0.

You took the money and promised to deliver a product which you have yet to deliver. You created a new modified Bitshares code on Bitshares time that you are now trying to license for personal profit. I am pretty sure you Dad said that Graphene wasn't built on Bitshares time or money. Well if that's the case, I must ask; How did you create a better Bitshares in you spare time without getting paid? You couldn't deliver a solid client and fully functioning platform in over a year and +$3M in funds, yet you were able to create something way better with no money and in your spare time? Something doesn't seem right. Did someone outside of the Development team pay you to create the new code and license it? Or, did you guys quit working on Bitshares as we know it and allow people to lose money over all those months so that you could develop the new code?

So... I have just TWO questions for you @newmine how much labor do we owe you and what dollar value did we receive in exchange for that labor?    How much per hour do you get paid at your job?

You owe me a Bitshares 2.0 with a MIT license. A level playing field for everyone and no one Company can claim complete ownership over the underlying code and software.

I get paid ~$27 per hour plus full medical, dental, and vision for my entire family. So it is probably valued at closer to ~$37 per hour including the benefits. Satisfied.

Here is an anecdote of what you guys have done so far from BTT:

It's kind of like if Ford came to you and said "we need to build a factory with a revolutionary thing called an assembly line and you will be a partial owner of it, will you fund us?"
-we say, "hell yes, here's is a couple million"
-Ford says "cool it will be ready in a couple months. Then profit time for everyone !"
Couple months go by
-we say, "hey what's going on"
-they say, "we came up with a cooler idea and had to redesign"
-we say, "ok, when will it be done"
-they say, " a couple months"
A couple months go by
-they say, "we have the assembly line built, but it only has the ability to build 1/4 of a automobile"
-we say, " awesome. How long till it's fully completed?"
-they say, "a couple months, and we are coordinating a massive ad campaign to go along."
-we say, "sweet, can't wait"
A couple months go by, the assembly line is running better but still only builds 1/3 of an automobile
-they say "hey we are out of funds and need more money to finish. We have this great idea that we can pay ourselves in bits and pieces of what the assembly line produces to fund ourselves till the end of time. If you don't agree, we will go work for GM"
-we say, "just get us a completed assembly line and it's cool."
-they say, "no problem. We got this."
Assembly line then starts to stall because certain sections were installed backwards.
-we say, "hey, we walked through the plant and you have a problem that needs fixed"
-they say "we know. We are working on it"
A couple months go by
-we say, "Why hasn't the problem been fixed? We are losing money because of this.
-they say, "we are working on it, we know there is a problem. It will be done in a few months"
-then next week they say, "guess what? We built a better assembly line that we will lease to you for free. But if you want upgrades, or fixes, you will have to pay us because we own the assembly line. Oh, and we reserve the right to help other people create assembly lines exactly like yours. AND, we will make people pay that want to partner up or streamline your assembly line in ways we cannot. And you guys dont get to profit off our other ventures even though you basically paid us to create this while we were supposed to be working on the original line. And we are going to continue cashing in on the bits and pieces from the old line and then the new line when its released."
-I say, "WTF?"

[Ander]

Additional revenue streams for developers prevent that scenario like we had in the spring where some of the devs were having to sell at really low prices to pay bills/taxes. 

[speedy]

Except that you are double, no, quintuple dipping. Owning a BTS was what was to produce a profit and still is for everyone not I3 related. Now I3/Cryptonomex/Larimers/Devs get to profit off the code by selling it and "plug ins" to the highest bidder for extra dough in your pocket plus keeping your BTS. It's a win win for Cryptonomex and a win lose for everyone else.

Its a win win for a Cryptonomex and BTS holders. Why would you not want the core developers to have multiple revenue streams? The more money they can get, the more motivated developers can be hired and the less dilution is needed.

Newmine have you ever said anything positive here? Youre a waste of oxygen.

[Ander]

How much per hour do you get paid at your job?

FUD job, or normal job? 

Goldman Sachs pays him 50 cents per post to try and FUD Bitshares enough that Bytemaster gets frustrated and quits to go build a platform for Goldman. 

[clayop]

How much per hour do you get paid at your job?

FUD job, or normal job? 

[bytemaster]

Except that you are double, no, quintuple dipping. Owning a BTS was what was to produce a profit and still is for everyone not I3 related. Now I3/Cryptonomex/Larimers/Devs get to profit off the code by selling it and "plug ins" to the highest bidder for extra dough in your pocket plus keeping your BTS. It's a win win for Cryptonomex and a win lose for everyone else.

"No change. Perfectly consistent." What utter bullshit. Go read that original white paper and tell me no change. Was Cryptonomex owning the code base in that or any incarnation of the white paper to date?

It's funny that no one here thinks that Cryptonomex's business model won't hinder adoption and outside development.  Good luck with that

@newmine we will never reach consensus so long as you continue to attack a straw man.     Lets identify some points of agreement, let me know which statements you disagree with and why:

1. Original BitShares Plan - use proof of work to mine 100% of everything with 0 pre-mine.   A $500,000 budget from Angel funding was available to accomplish this plan.   I3 had to purchase vast majority of its stake via electrical costs, cloud computing costs, mining hardware costs, or direct purchases.    Any stake I3 had came at the expense of the budget for development.     

a. Was that plan fair?   "Yes"
b. Was that plan sustainable?  "No",  lacking funds to develop BTS would never materialize and PTS would be worthless.
c. What options would I3 have:  a) don't mine or buy more PTS,  b) sell any PTS we did acquire and use fund for Plan B and be accused of running a Pump and Dump. 
d. Under this plan I3 makes no profit  (0 dips)

2. BitShares Plan B.. Angel Shares.  Under this plan I3 grew its budget from $500,000 to $2M (after BTC price decline) which allowed BTS to be built and released creating $10M of value for PTS holders and $10M of value for AGS holders.
a. I3 developers received an average paycheck for their time: a fair trade.
b. I3 retained 0 stake in BTS from AGS outside their paycheck.

So far the community gave $2M and received $20M using post-bear market prices... unequal trade favoring community.
So far the developers gave $2M worth of labor and received $2M worth of value.... equal trade, hardly selfish, greedy, or double dipping.

3. Is everything fair at this point?   If so then the developers are free to walk away, they did their job the best they could with the budget they had.   

a. If you assume the developers had 0 savings at the start, how do you propose they continue from this point forward?  How many man-hours of labor do you feel is enough before the developers are free to move on with a clean conscience and the moral high ground?  Give us an actual number. 

4. Once we know how much labor the DEVS owed the community for their $2M worth of BTC, they can know when they are free to quit without being greedy.  Assume the DEVs worked every hour they owed.  What options do we have?
a. The devs can quit, but that wouldn't be good for BTS
b. The devs could work part time, and work on BTS as a hobby (but why should they?  they have no more debt nor any stake in BTS). 
c. The devs could start a new blockchain that they actually own a cut in using the public domain work of BTS.   Not good for BTS, but great for Devs.
d. The devs could write all new code and start a new blockchain
e.  The devs could allow stakeholders to vote in dilution so that the Devs could continue to work.   How many man hours do the Devs owe the network in exchange for the meager 4000 BTS per day per person before they are not considered greedy?

@newmine for all your accusations of the devs being greedy, you seem to have missed that every single developer has received less money than they could have made working elsewhere and simply buying BTS with their surplus income.  From this perspective, every single developer has been giving their time to BitShares for free in what amounts to charity work because they are poorer today for having worked on BTS than having worked other jobs.

So... I have just TWO questions for you @newmine how much labor do we owe you and what dollar value did we receive in exchange for that labor?    How much per hour do you get paid at your job?

[Ander]

Abbreviating Cryptonomex as CMX.  (Should it be CNX?)

1) Could BTS holders get revenue from licensing the Bitshares toolkit?   
* Before CMX: No, it was open source.
* After CMX: Still no.
Verdict: Same as before.

2) Can the dev team get revenue from licensing the bitshares toolkit?
* Before CMX: No, it was open source.
* After CMX: Yes.  If the core dev team generates revenue from this, then less dilution of BTS is required to support the dev team.
Verdict: Probably improves funding situation of Bitshares.

3) Could competitors steal/copy Bitshares toolkit?
* Before CMX: Yes.
* After CMX: No, unless CMX lets them, which they *probably* wont do without getting compensation for BTS in some way.  Unless you believe CMX will just completely screw over BTS holders.  Which by the way, CMX collectively is a huge one of.
Verdict: Either the same as before if you dont trust that CMX cares about the future of Bitshares, or better if you do.

4) Can independent developers build new projects on the Bitshares toolkit?
* Before CMX: Yes.  Hopefully they would sharedrop on BTS if they did, but there was no guarantee of this.
* After CMX:  If they get permission of CMX.  Hopefully CMX would ask for compensation ot BTS holders, such as a sharedrop.
Verdict: The same or better if CMX acts to benefit Bitshares.  However, could potentially be worse if an independent developer is turned off by this, and chooses not to develop something and sharedrop on BTS?

5) Will dev team abandon Bitshares to pursue better opportunities?  (Ex. 'job at google', 'build blockchain platform for goldman sachs', and other ideas of varying realisticness). 
* Before CMX:  This was always a possibility, especially when the funding situation was very dire.  Which it still is at current prices, if their only revenue source was BTS dilution.
* After CMX:  Still possible.
Verdict: If Goldman Sachs wanted to hire the Bitshares dev team away to work on a platform for them, then it doesnt really matter if they are referred to as 'The Bitshares Dev team' or 'Cryptonomex'.  Its the same result.


Overall the change improves the funding situation significantly.  It also prevents competitors from copying Bitshares.  It might hurt the potential for third party development efforts.

Some people worry that the existence of Cryptonomex could make the dev team abandon Bitshares.  That risk was present before, its not new.  I don't think the new situation increases the risk at all.  The best way to diminish this risk is for the crypto bear market to end. 

[Ben Mason]

Newmine, BTS would be worth nothing without having incentivised the continuation of development. What's eating you really? So many of us have looked at the situation and (seemed to have) concluded that they made good, understandable decisions by adapting to the situation. They have walked an imperfect path with perfect intentions, especially BM, and produced highly satisfactory outcomes....assuming 2.0 is everything we hope it is. If they deliver the system that ushers a new age of freedom and peace, could you care less what their remuneration ends up being? In 500 years wealth will be spread far more equally across humanity.....if money is even used once unfettered innovation and education have a chance to take effect.

[NewMine]

@newmine: do you know the differences of open source licenses like GPL, LGPL. Apache, and MIT?

Yes.

[xeroc]

@newmine: do you know the differences of open source licenses like GPL, LGPL. Apache, and MIT?

[NewMine]

Our position has always been that block chains should be designed to be profitable and that all economics is about aligning profit driven incentives to produce a desired outcome.  No change.  Perfectly consistent.

Except that you are double, no, quintuple dipping. Owning a BTS was what was to produce a profit and still is for everyone not I3 related. Now I3/Cryptonomex/Larimers/Devs get to profit off the code by selling it and "plug ins" to the highest bidder for extra dough in your pocket plus keeping your BTS. It's a win win for Cryptonomex and a win lose for everyone else.

"No change. Perfectly consistent." What utter bullshit. Go read that original white paper and tell me no change. Was Cryptonomex owning the code base in that or any incarnation of the white paper to date?

It's funny that no one here thinks that Cryptonomex's business model won't hinder adoption and outside development.  Good luck with that
 

[cass]

Here is an idea for how we could get better alignment on developer pay.

What if we pay developers part in BTS salary and part in "Performance Pay", giving them each a choice about the split they want?
Performance Pay could be structured as payments of BTS that are only exercisable if the BTS price or market cap exceeds some level at some future vesting date (e.g. 3 years). At that point the vested payments would be dilutive, but only if BTS had experienced substantial market cap growth. In this way, it may be that the prospect of future dilution is not viewed as a negative impact on the BTS price (although I accept not all BTS owners would find this acceptable).

Developer staff could have the following choices:

- Work for bitshares and receive pay of X BTS (less than market rate) - in this case they are like a salaried employee
- Work for bitShares and receive Performance Pay, with an underlying of X+Y BTS (will be worth more that straight salary if BTS is ultimately successful) - in this case, they are like workers in a startup business
- Work for some combination in the middle of these two extremes, depending on individual needs
- Work for IBM or Apple if they want and just invest in BTS, but potentially forgoing all the intangible benefits of working inside bitShares, such as future recognition and reputation value

Possibly such a structure could align everyone's interests better. Although something we must be alert to, as where executive options of this type are used in traditional industries, is that beneficiaries do not start focusing more on BTS price and trying to pump it through hype, than they do on underlying BTS progress and performance.

This is not the only possible solution I'm sure. But I think we would all be better served by creatively exploring the choices we can create, rather than irresolvable issues like rights, entitlements, or the fuzziness of future intents.

Do you know this approach?
https://open.bufferapp.com/introducing-open-salaries-at-buffer-including-our-transparent-formula-and-all-individual-salaries/

 

[xeroc]

Here is an idea for how we could get better alignment on developer pay.

What if we pay developers part in BTS salary and part in "Performance Pay", giving them each a choice about the split they want?
Performance Pay could be structured as payments of BTS that are only exercisable if the BTS price or market cap exceeds some level at some future vesting date (e.g. 3 years). At that point the vested payments would be dilutive, but only if BTS had experienced substantial market cap growth. In this way, it may be that the prospect of future dilution is not viewed as a negative impact on the BTS price (although I accept not all BTS owners would find this acceptable).

Developer staff could have the following choices:

- Work for bitshares and receive pay of X BTS (less than market rate) - in this case they are like a salaried employee
- Work for bitShares and receive Performance Pay, with an underlying of X+Y BTS (will be worth more that straight salary if BTS is ultimately successful) - in this case, they are like workers in a startup business
- Work for some combination in the middle of these two extremes, depending on individual needs
- Work for IBM or Apple if they want and just invest in BTS, but potentially forgoing all the intangible benefits of working inside bitShares, such as future recognition and reputation value

Possibly such a structure could align everyone's interests better. Although something we must be alert to, as where executive options of this type are used in traditional industries, is that beneficiaries do not start focusing more on BTS price and trying to pump it through hype, than they do on underlying BTS progress and performance.

This is not the only possible solution I'm sure. But I think we would all be better served by creatively exploring the choices we can create, rather than irresolvable issues like rights, entitlements, or the fuzziness of future intents.

Do you know this approach?
https://open.bufferapp.com/introducing-open-salaries-at-buffer-including-our-transparent-formula-and-all-individual-salaries/