Is it within the power of the BU officers to donate BU funds to external projects without a vote by its members?
Funds donated to Bitcoin Unlimited may be applied to any purpose (including the Bitcoin Unlimited Pool) that furthers the project's goals and is authorized by majority vote via line items in a President's "Operational BUIP".
Summary of Approved Projects
1. Passed BUIPs automatically qualify.
2. General maintenance, housekeeping, refactoring, QA and other discretionary work also qualify.
I don't understand why we would need a BUIP when the Articles are quite clear on how funds can be used.Well, if you take issue with it (I don't ) then you could open a BUIP to prevent this type of thing in the future. Maybe it would be a good idea for you to do?
Yes, both the Articles as well as the BUIP need member votes to be changed or amended.The Articles or BUIP's are not entirely static, they can be changed or reversed by any future vote. The Articles though, just like any constitution, require are much harder to amend in terms of the votes required for such a change.
Right. But I'm trying to get a feel for what that will look like. It's all free now because the blockchain is still fairly small and altruism is cheap. Storing data on the chain will bring the day of paid storage closer but it is fairly inevitable anyway. Bitcoin, as cash, doesn't really need the history, just the UTXO set (though it's certainly good to have that history available) and Satoshi himself described pruning of spent transactions.Storage is not incentivized yet.
It's not difficult to store the entire blockchain and there are plenty of entities that provide it for free, so there's no opportunities for creating a market. When it becomes costly to provide this service, then it creates opportunities for entrepeneurs to build the mechanisms from which they can profit.
I think it's probably important for BU to be very open about when and why funds are allocated. We only need to look at bitcointalk to see why.This has not happened, and it looks as if the BU officers have decided by themselves to donate BU funds to a 3rd party.
Doesn't "discretionary work" cover the funding/supporting of cashshuffle? (not a native speaker)The payment to CashShuffle has been advertised as a donation.
This is not covered by BUIP110 as it covers work done that pass one of the following two criteria.
Summary of Approved Projects
1. Passed BUIPs automatically qualify.
2. General maintenance, housekeeping, refactoring, QA and other discretionary work also qualify.
As I said, if you feel the BU officers have overstepped the Articles then there is a process for handling grievances which other implementations don't have: It's simple, you can get involved and open a BUIP, which would limit or modify the the officers powers or discretion (are you not a BU member?). Perhaps we need a BUIP which states more clearly the use of the dev funds, or perhaps we need a BUIP which could clearly set aside funds for small donations, maybe small pool of 10K or so? Either of those would get my support in a vote but I leave it up to others to open a BUIP since I'm not the one who's all that concerned one way or the other. I'm not an officer but I think the funds to date have been used both modestly and with discretion...In my view, BU has always been careful with their money and is setting in for the long haul, at least given the direction of the current set of officers.Yes, both the Articles as well as the BUIP need member votes to be changed or amended.
This has not happened, and it looks as if the BU officers have decided by themselves to donate BU funds to a 3rd party.
i'm not sure why people in control always take this position. or why you're the one here defending the donation. the BUIP suggestion is like the UASF; they say "we're going to do this whether you like it or not, and if you don't, you're free to go do a hard fork". as if that is a concession indicative of self reflection. or the responsible way to respond to disagreement. at least @Peter R should have solicited the opinion of the BU membership given that it's so divided. or at least be here explaining to members why he did what he did. what's with the radio silence? i could care less since i find it hard to be a BU fan these days and wonder why i step up so much to defend them when the officers don't even seem to want to do it themselves oftentimes.As I said, if you feel the BU officers have overstepped the Articles then there is a process for handling grievances which other implementations don't have: It's simple, you can get involved and open a BUIP, which would limit or modify the the officers powers or discretion (are you not a BU member?). Perhaps we need a BUIP which states more clearly the use of the dev funds, or perhaps we need a BUIP which could clearly set aside funds for small donations, maybe small pool of 10K or so? Either of those would get my support in a vote but I leave it up to others to open a BUIP since I'm not the one who's all that concerned one way or the other. I'm not an officer but I think the funds to date have been used both modestly and with discretion...In my view, BU has always been careful with their money and is setting in for the long haul, at least given the direction of the current set of officers.
Is MoneyButton open source?i guess. but then so does MoneyButton. i'd submit this has more to do with the position and ideology of the person making the donation as a general observation.
If you're not happy, the same applies...just open a BUIP...no need to feel disenfranchised. As the supposed "radio silence". The post was at 3 am my time and still just a few hours old...I only responded because I happened to be up at that time and couldn't sleep...usually I'm busy coding and don't have time to follow these discussions. As for the others, Andrew, AFAIK is busy trying to get out the next release (my work has already been done for this release so I have a little time on my hand for a change) and Peter_R he has his own full time job so is probably busy, Andrew Clifford lives in another time zone and is asleep...and all the other devs are busy also...so??? big mystery , big radio silence?what's with the radio silence?
I could be mistaken but I thought I saw a video where he said they got 1Million from Bitmain and another large sum from nChain...hope I got my numbers correct...If not I apologize in advance...Is MoneyButton open source?
How much funding did they receive since foundation? (I only vaguely remember investment by nChain and Bitmain being mentioned by Ryan before the fork...)
good question. I don't know for sure but I think you get the point ; funding a like bsv project. but we know that won't happen because of the donors sympathies. I'm not a BU member so I don't really care. just my observations.Is MoneyButton open source?
How much funding did they receive since foundation? (I only vaguely remember investment by nChain and Bitmain being mentioned by Ryan before the fork...)