I've been one of the voices trying to avoid fragmentation within the
foundation space so early. The appearance of unity is important, but
increasingly unlikely since the foundation has chosen to go down a
political path rather than a ideology-agnostic protocol-development
platform.

If you're going to make a move into the foundation space, I'd encourage you
to think hard about the goals and develop the structure/framework for it
BEFORE launching.  I know there are other attempts at this out there
approaching it from various angles, but an articulate organization focused
on the real potential for meaningful, positive change that can be applied
to hundreds of millions of lives is a cause worth championing.  The trick
is to present your case in such a way that you don't alienate the broader
audience by using key words they pick up on, and that put you or your
movement into the box of something idealogical that they don't have to pay
any attention to.    I am very happy to help craft that message, style.

My posts from the foundation forums in the topic where this became an
obvious issue:
--------------
Hey Mike, Jeff and Brad

You don't have to listen to me - I just wanted to make sure the position is
out there. By choosing to focus on "controversial" issues, the foundation
will never be able to legitimately claim it represents the "bitcoin using
community" because many within it disagree with that type of action. It
doesn't matter what the action is, it just matters that there is
disagreement about whether it is helpful or even appropriate and that
prevents people who would otherwise want to participate from doing so.

I think it would be better for Bitcoin as a whole if the Foundation tried
to be as broad and inclusive as possible because to not invites competition
in the "foundation" space.    I have no dog in this fight, the foundation
will proceed as its few members want it to.    Keep in mind the members are
self selecting based on the statements and actions coming out of the
foundation.  In an echo chamber, solitude is sometimes mistaken for
unity.  They are not the same thing.

It is always better to be inclusive and avoid the war, especially when the
community is so small.
-------------

> I don't think this type of organization would receive much support in the
> first place, since its scope would be so narrow that there's little
> opportunity to take a risk or contribute without upsetting the balance.
> We're a diverse group full of opinions!
>

*The foundation would have broad support if it focused entirely on the
stewardship, development, and evolution of the Bitcoin protocol,* not
touching application specifics, use scenarios, national issues, etc. We're
all invested in the success of the Bitcoin protocol, and with Gavin as head
scientist, he lends this foundation a ton of legitimacy *for protocol
specific topics*.

If the foundation focuses on maintaining and improving the protocol, other
organizations and groups will rally to defend it and educate about it while
BF gets to be the city on the hill, the one thing in this controversial
world that everybody agrees about - That we should protect and develop the
protocol with the best minds focusing their productive time on that one
task, for the betterment of the platform for all users and applications in
the ecosystem. Neutrality is the key to it all and means even those who
disagree with you at least respect your consistency and intentions.

In the beginning the "educate" mission might have made sense because the
community was so much smaller and the audience more technical, Now the
Foundation should spend its obviously very limited time and manpower making
Bitcoin the most functional, secure, trusted, and useful platform for
payments they can. That's something everyone can get behind.
-----------------

Nice to meet you all

Adam B. Levine
Editor-in-Chief
Let's Talk Bitcoin! <http://www.letstalkbitcoin.com>
1-855-WETALKBITCOIN Ex.700
[image: Inline image 2]
Talk to me on Gli.ph, my preferred communications platform


On Sat, Jun 22, 2013 at 6:47 AM, Johnny Teatent <occupyteatent@???>wrote:

> splits must happen. there is something big coming next week in the london
> protest community (large scale police/coporate infiltration and out of
> those ashes i will build a new movement. and hopefully computer guys athat
> are a bit from iran and appear on russian state tv might take seriously the
> fact that sercuty services *as wells as *trying to creep up
> electronically do it IRL too. www.facebook.com/anarchesqueboilerplate
>
>
> On Sat, Jun 22, 2013 at 1:03 PM, Amir Taaki <genjix@???> wrote:
>
>> >> Hey,
>>
>> Many people are telling me they want to avoid a split within the
>> Bitcoin community. But it's happening now.
>>
>> People are calling for a new organisation that:
>>
>> - - Promotes Bitcoin as a tool of big social change.
>> - - We believe in financial privacy.
>> - - We believe in freedom of financial speech (lack of censorship)
>>
>> Furthermore transparency of governance and openness to the community.
>>
>> There are several groups now organising and a lot of talk going
>> around. But for all the blaa blaa, I have stuff here and now.
>>
>> Here is an update from the foundation:
>>
>> https://bitcoinfoundation.org/blog/?p=204
>>
>> They list a bunch of non-complete implementations (excluding the
>> complete one), and talk about the foundation's conference.
>>
>> I need help with the conference. I need resources (programmers) for
>> libbitcoin.
>>
>> For the conference, if I don't get help then I will cancel it. I don't
>> have the time. Everyone is telling me to do it, but I haven't got
>> anyone helping me. I want to focus my efforts on development.
>>
>> For libbitcoin, I need developers. There are clear business strategies
>> here and several people are already offering me resources here. This
>> is going forwards. I've spent a long time on this alone, so it's great
>> to see finally.
>>
>> Focus on the projects first, we can make the organisation after. How
>> many of you are actually writing code? It's not enough to complain. We
>> need to build real things that people will use - that's how our ideas
>> will win out.
>>
>> The same thing happening now happened to the personal computer
>> revolution during the 70s. The big corporations moved in, the
>> idealistic hackers were working on fun bullshit, they were not vocal
>> enough or pragmatic, and they lost out to the suits who just took
>> their work, made it practical and got super rich off it. This is the
>> time to struggle for your ideals.
>>
>> I will be so disappointed if the same thing happens again.
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> unSYSTEM mailing list: http://unsystem.net
>> https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/unsystem
>>
>
>
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