It would help a lot to have something like Bitcoin has with Bitcoin Foundation. At least if it would be able to collect funds what we lack.
But it would also attract a lot of hate as some would feel that it contradicts to the decentralization principle.
I agree. It would be fine to have a main time developer like Gavin or more Gavin's. But who would pay for him/them ? Making a Namecoin Foundation doesn't mean that this would have automatically the money for that. But the hate of some people could have from the beginning because they would make an analogy with the Bitcoin Foundation..biolizard89 wrote:I think there are a few different use cases here. In order from least to most controversial:
Job #1 of the Bitcoin Foundation is to pay Gavin Andreson to write code. I don't see any problem with this; Gavin is doing a fantastic job as far as I can tell, and if we can fund code development for Namecoin (phelix's NMDF is one example model), I think that would be beneficial.
Correct. A representing, marketing and schooling organization would be also beneficial.biolizard89 wrote: Job #2 of the Bitcoin Foundation is generic PR. Namecoin is in serious need of some organized PR efforts, as we've seen both with clueless journalists calling us a cybercriminal tool as well as with average Bitcoin users not knowing anything about what we're working on. I think this is extremely beneficial as well.
This part is exactly which is the most controversial and I am not sure if we really need it. At least not in this form.biolizard89 wrote: Job #3 of the Bitcoin Foundation is lobbying regulators for favorable policy. This appears to be the most controversial activity. However, I personally don't see any issue with trying to educate regulators. The fact is, they will gain interest in Namecoin the moment WikiLeaks or The Pirate Bay start getting significant traffic via Namecoin. I see no problem with separating legally uncontroversial use cases from controversial ones in terms of lobbying. In other words, I'm totally fine with telling regulators "Yes, someone can in theory place illegal content in the blockchain... but we've made it uneconomical for them to do so, so the only people doing so will be occasional trolls who are willing to blow a bunch of cash; anyone who really wants to distribute illegal content will be using Freenet or something similar." This is important for them to know; otherwise we'll be dealing with the worst possible kind of regulator: a clueless regulator who's trying to look like they're doing something. In a similar sense, I have no problem with telling regulators "Yes, someone could use .bit to link to Silk Road / whatever random boogieman website is in style this week, but censoring them at the DNS level is exactly what SOPA tried to do, and it was completely rejected by the public and by Congress and the President because it was more effective to use traditional police work to bring down Silk Road and because censoring at the DNS level would have had very bad results for Internet freedom." The fact that the lobbyists are distancing themselves from Silk Road doesn't mean that they're censoring the blockchain -- by all means, Silk Road could use .bit, and if they were somehow prevented from doing so, something would probably be broken in the system. But distancing yourself from legally controversial use cases while talking to regulators is a quite reasonable thing to do IMHO. Has any of the controversial Bitcoin economy been directly harmed by Bitcoin Foundation lobbying for less regulation? Consider that 2 years ago, Chuck Schumer was going on an angry rant about how Bitcoin needed to be banned -- have you seen that kind of crap from regulators and legislators lately? No? Maybe because Bitcoin Foundation's lobbying is going well?
(Sorry for the length of the above....)
Why we don't need political lobbying ?
1. Wee don't need to exclude politicians. But we should treat them like any other people who is interested in Namecoin.
Namecoin should stay for every positive human value: for informational and physical Freedom(with Namecoin Passport), for Privacy, for Environment Protection(as recycling 99% of the hash-power) and for the Equality of the people.
2. Most of the benefit what would bring political lobbying it has been already done by the Bitcoin Foundation, as cryptocurrency and what applies for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in general from legal point of view it will apply mostly for Namecoin also - at least I guess so.
3. Lobbying has a double edge and trying to influence them they would also try to influence Namecoin and undergrab the decentralized structure.
4. This part would attract the most hate from the users.
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So we should learn something from the faults of Bitcoin Foundation but we should take what is positive from them.
a. May be we should give another name to cut a direct connection and analogy.
b. We should make it more decentralized with different layers to hamper influencing Namecoin by politicians.
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This is my new proposal:
Let us take Phelix's Namecoin Marketing and Development Found and cut it in two.
(only in the functionality)1. Namecoin Marketing and Information Fund.
or Namecoin Liberty Fund could be also named (if taking some Namecoin Passport issuing services - which could be beneficial to many people and could create a positive media echo also like the Feeding with Bitcoin)
How to raise founds ? Collection of membership fee, collecting donations, applying for NGO style funding and sponsorship programs as promoter for Informational Freedom and Physical Freedom.
Informing politicians and mass media could be in their program but not direct political lobbying.
2. Namecoin Development Found
This should be responsible for financing, testing and development of the Namecoin core software. (like client, browser support, ID)
How to raise founds ? Collecting donations and eventually adding a small development fee in the client(standard setting but can be disabled - I already proposed this)
Separating the team who are educating politicians about Namecoin and developers would hamper a direct influencing from a government how to develop Namecoin.
3. Additional Namecoin Projects should be also separated.
Why ?
- distributed responsibility
- better funding
- more development power
- higher decentralization
For ex. I can imagine to outsource emitting Namecoin Bonds and Shares to a financial institute like Kraken.
Why ? They have the financial and development power for that, they have a positive attitude to the Namecoin project and users would also trust them.
Another outsourcing and fundraising possibility could be eventually in a Mastercoin style public fundraising and shared revenue.(of course this could be also organized by a financial institute or an independent group)
My wondering is less for the technical aspect but more how they managed to raise 5.000 BTC and how the values of their shares raised 15x. This shows the popularity of the idea. Whatever if they succeed or fail by the technical realization - the core project of Bitcoin cannot be blamed for it.
This must be not necessary a technical imitation like blockchain riding - because Namecoin can do this already in the core aspect.
Here could be a Bond and Share emitting in a Namespace, contract registration service in a Namespace or a DHT based Blockchain Riding application (like Indolering's proposal) if exists any. This could also protect the Namecoin core development and Namecoin image from potential controversial applications.
