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Please remove mitsuhiko/*

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Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#231

Post by Ologn »

jordanpg wrote: post #168
jnbiche wrote: post #119

These kinds of episodes are making me increasingly depressed. On one hand, I'm incredibly disappointed in the ethics and morality of some of the people who have latched on to Bitcoin. And sadly, I'd have to include tip4commit in that group, particularly since they are "opt-out" and yet have been spamming people after each commit [ubernostrum points out below that they aren't even "opt-out", since they're not honoring…

From Bitcoin's own FAQ [1]: "One could argue that gold isn't backed by anything either. Bitcoins have properties resulting from the system's design that allows them to be subjectively valued by individuals. This valuation is demonstrated when individuals freely exchange for or with bitcoins. Please refer to the Subjective Theory of Value." Like it or not, Bitcoin has a PR problem. It needs be liked and trusted in add…

Bitcoins are worthless precisely because the Subjective Theory of Value is wrong. Benjamin Franklin, Adam Smith and all the early economists thought the Subjective Theory of Value was wrong. Because it is wrong.

Bitcoin is a little scam which justifies itself against the backdrop of a much bigger scam.

Gold is valuable because it takes effort to find, mine and refine. People want to exchange other valuable things for it because it is useful - dentists use it to fill teeth, it is used as an electronics coating since it conducts electricity well, and so forth. People have used gold as a currency for thousands of years, but that is only because it has traits that make it a good commodity, such as durability, portability, uniformity and divisibility.

Bitcoins have no value of this type. Which is why it has fallen from $1160 to $326, and will fall to $0.

Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#232

Post by exo762 »

hack_edu wrote: post #77
Blahah wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is being forced to accept the money, and therefore nobody is being forced to interact with bitcoin. The money is there if they want to claim it. If not, no problem, they can just ignore it in which case it doesn't affect them.

Would the project be sustainable, or more fair, if it allowed project maintainers to whitelist currencies, and manage that integration for them? That seems more appropriate and follows the the spirit of giving that the project encourages.

Tip4commit using USD? Bitcoin is hasslefree. If you want tip4commit to use USD or gold or any other silly thing - go for it. Clone tip4commit, put all integration in place, see payment systems eating 30-40% of your donations.

Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#233

Post by williamcotton »

gerbal wrote: post #213
williamcotton wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain what you think is flawed about the implementation? From a technological standpoint the incentives of mining and maintaining full network nodes have led to the first implementation of a public shared data store. Neither Bittorrent, Freenet, nor DHTs of any sort satisfy the conditions of being public, having equal access read and write privileges and data that is always available. You can't have the b…

IIRC, most of the flaws of bitcoin are in it's architecture as a Currency. A well designer currency is an efficient medium for the exchange of good and services. Ideally, a currency's utility is how easily and fluidly it can be spent. BitCoin does OK on these metrics. But where Bitcoin falls down is in the long term model of currencies. Currencies should only be a medium of exchange, not a long term investment vehicl…

I agree that Bitcoin does not have the ability to replace the day-to-day currencies that most of us use for food and shelter.

I think the general currency or commodity aspects are of less importance than the public ledger.

It's a kind of currency that's main use is in being able to write to a public data store. The most basic data that is stored is value transactions but anything could be stored.

You should really think about it in terms of the kinds of incentives that drive our information economy.

Take a look at Twitter. It operates as a sort of public broadcast medium yet the way that it stores and retrieves leads to vast information asymmetries. Information asymmetries lead to economic asymmetries. Such infrastructure is very costly to operate and leads to perverse incentives to monetize. The information economic model is flawed.

Bitcoin was developed from the ground up with a functional information economic model, regardless of the political expectations of the developers.

Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#234

Post by jafaku »

bithive123 wrote: post #227
jafaku wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if upvoting your comments was also made illegal in your country? Should we somehow guess that and stop?

Your stupid analogy aside, you can't expect to avoid consequences because you were operating without a knowledge of the law. Stand in front of a judge and ask him if you should have guessed that X was illegal and see how far that gets you.

"you can't expect to avoid consequences because you were operating without a knowledge of the law"

Are you serious? I can't expect to avoid consequences for the crazy laws that get passed in other countries?

I won't stand in front of any judges of your backwards country, I have enough with my own.

Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#236

Post by davedx »

Frankeh wrote: post #148
jnbiche wrote: post #119

These kinds of episodes are making me increasingly depressed. On one hand, I'm incredibly disappointed in the ethics and morality of some of the people who have latched on to Bitcoin. And sadly, I'd have to include tip4commit in that group, particularly since they are "opt-out" and yet have been spamming people after each commit [ubernostrum points out below that they aren't even "opt-out", since they're not honoring…

>As just one example of what drew me to Bitcoin, Bitcoin holds (or used to hold) such tremendous promise for the developing world, and to people who are shut out of traditional banking. Vastly overstated benefits. http://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/lets-talk-bitcoin-133-t... First 20 minutes goes into detail on how useful Bitcoin really is in the developing world. In short, if you've got access to a data plan and a…

Actually, you only need a feature phone to use Bitcoin now:

https://www.37coins.com/

Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#237

Post by mpatch »

jordanpg wrote: post #201
mpatch wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. It's irrelevant and wrong. The third party site raising money in these projects' names is not using code from the projects to do so, it is only using the name. They are not bound by any license offered by the projects. Maybe the projects' authors can pursue some kind of action for that alone, but it has nothing to do with the terms under which the project is licensed.

Maybe licenses could be modified to cover the case of using the name? No idea what the legalities of this situation are, but if this problem is rampant, it seems at least plausible that the right legalese could help stem the tide.

No, they can't. Licenses are based on copyright law. The copyright holder may set terms under which the content they hold a copyright on may be copied and distributed. This is what a license is all about. Copyright does not apply to names of projects, titles of books, etc. Only to the content itself.

The use of the name, by itself, is not and cannot be protected by a license. This is the domain of trademarks, which few of these projects would have, because trademarks must be registered and paid for. But that's probably not the issue here. The real issue is that the site seems to imply a business relationship with various projects and contributors that does not actually exist. Likely, this is enough to bring action if it comes to that.

Also, to address a point of confusion in this discussion: The no-promotion provisions in the BSD license and similar only applies to derivative software, which would be use under the license. The author can place restrictions on promotion of derivative works only because the licensee is actually copying and distributing the code under license and the license is the only thing that would give him the right to do so.

Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#238

Post by jafaku »

dunder wrote: post #221
jafaku wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if upvoting your comments was also made illegal in your country? Should we somehow guess that and stop?

exDM69 has opted into usage of HN voluntarily. People cannot opt out of the tip4commit service, it automatically opts you in.

Are we really discussing whether someone should be held accountable for the actions of others?

Like, I create an account for you without your knowledge and I send you to jail? Sounds like a useful app, but scary in the wrong hands.

Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#239

Post by Cakez0r »

eropple wrote: post #122
Cakez0r wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those projects are in the public domain. If there are purposes that you don't want your project to be used for then forbid it in the license. When you put your contact information in the public domain and then complain about being notified when somebody has given you money, I feel like you're complaining just for the sake of complaining. Set up filter rules or don't put your contact information on the internet. If I…

> Those projects are in the public domain. This is completely wrong. > If there are purposes that you don't want your project to be used for then forbid it in the license. This is completely inapplicable. > If I was denied the chance to receive a donation for a contribution I made to an open source project essentially because the "project owner" doesn't agree then I'd be very annoyed. Start your own project.

Thank you for taking the time to post this enlightening rebuttal.

Re: Please remove mitsuhiko/*

#240

Post by mbesto »

art2 wrote: post #194

What is staggering is that one would assume that this service was created with the aim of helping open source developers, but when the developers ask personally to make a reasonable change to how the site is functioning, the owners decline. So the reason the site exists is something different. I don't think it's fraud. It's probably the weird culture of the (younger) part of the Bitcoin community, for whom the Bitcoi…

I think it's fair to say that the vocal majority of BitCoiners have a very naive view of some basic economic concepts.
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