Advertisement
Not a member of Pastebin yet?
Sign Up,
it unlocks many cool features!
- A Statement From Members of The Bitcoin Community
- In the course of debate on bitcoin scalability that has consumed much time in the previous
- few years, we feel that the Bitcoin community as a whole has become increasingly divided
- and internally hostile.
- Rather than focus on our differences, an important first step towards mending the present
- situation and moving forward together is to find a set of common principles that all members
- of the Bitcoin community can agree upon, regardless of which bitcoin software they prefer to
- run or preference of scalability mechanisms.
- The following list of shared principles are things that we believe everyone in our community
- should be able to agree on:
- 1. No “Official” Bitcoin: We believe that no particular implementation of the Bitcoin
- protocol holds claim to being the “official” version of Bitcoin.
- 2. Multiple Implementations: We believe that having multiple implementations of the
- bitcoin protocol and multiple teams working on these various implementations is a
- net gain for the bitcoin community.
- 3. Greater Number of Developers: We believe that having more developers
- contributing expertise and growing their knowledge of the Bitcoin protocol is better
- than having few developers.
- 4. Diversity of Innovation: We believe that the presence of more developers and more
- development teams will lead to greater diversity of innovation and solutions to the
- problems we will inevitably face as a growing industry.
- 5. Free & Open Source: Bitcoin being free and open source software, we believe that
- the development efforts made by one group are not “all or nothing.” We hope that
- different groups of developers can cooperate, communicate, and share ideas and
- code with one another. In this way, we believe that the bitcoin community as a whole
- will converge on the solutions that are both the most desirable and the most elegant
- technically.
- 6. Bitcoin is Leaderless: We believe that Bitcoin is a leaderless community comprised
- of its many parts, and that no team of developers has decision making authority for
- the entire community. We prefer instead that developers put forward solutions, and
- those solutions that are best will be adopted by way of emergent consensus.
- 7. Greater Decentralization: We believe that greater decentralization in all areas of
- bitcoin is a positive thing. Decentralization makes bitcoin more robust, more resilient,
- and removes the inherent structural weaknesses that occur when there exist single
- points of failure.
- 8. Harder to Attack: We believe that as Bitcoin becomes more widely adopted, it may
- come to be viewed by powerful entities as a threat to their own status quo. We as a
- community must always remain vigilant towards attacks against Bitcoin, and we must
- prudently minimize attack vectors wherever we can.
- 9. Mutual Cooperation: We believe that a house divided cannot stand. In facing the
- challenges of external threats and of attaining mainstream adoption, we must not
- forget that we are most effective when working together towards a common goal.
- 10. Free & Open Communication: We believe that debate, disagreement, and
- discourse are all healthy and natural things for a community, but in order to realize
- the benefits of such the conversation must be free and open. Through the process of
- free and open discourse, we as a community will find consensus. We wholeheartedly
- reject censorship, and while we believe that private communities have the right to run
- themselves however they see fit, we hope that members of our community will
- choose those platforms that encourage free and open discussion over those that do
- not.
- —
- In line with the above statements we find to be mutually agreeable, today we are pleased to
- announce the creation of a one million dollar grant fund for Bitcoin protocol development
- through various development teams. This grant is intended to help bootstrap the process of
- building more capable and effective teams of developers; a process in which gathering initial
- momentum is the greatest barrier to entry.
- We emphasize that the signing of this statement is meant as a conciliatory gesture only, and
- that the presence of our various signatures on this document does not imply a preference for
- any one implementation of Bitcoin over any other; nor does it imply the intention to run any
- particular client.
- We assert that each of us is free to run the software of our choosing, and that choosing to
- run a particular software implementation should not be grounds for controversy or infighting.
- We trust in the decision making abilities of our friends and colleagues, and believe that
- community consensus is something that will naturally emerge when we are presented with
- choices and the ability to freely and openly discuss the merits and flaws of every choice
- available to us.
- We hope that by finding common ground in the above statements and by showing good faith
- towards all developers who wish to contribute to the development of Bitcoin, we may begin a
- process of mending the deep rift that has divided and distracted our still-nascent community
- and industry.
- If you are working on a Bitcoin protocol-layer related project and would like to request more
- information or apply for a grant, please send an email to
- apply@bitcoindevelopmentgrant.com .
- Signed, xxx
Advertisement
Add Comment
Please, Sign In to add comment
Advertisement