[Passed] Motion to Make the Nu Source Code Available

Ben · January 13, 2015, 9:16pm

This is the finalize motion to make the Nu source code open to the public. For more information about this proposal, and to view discussions about what items some community members belived should be completed on the development roadmap before they will vote for this motion, see:

REMINDER: Once this motion is passed it will be non-reversible, so please only begin to vote for it if you are confident that the implications of a public release are in the best interest of the Nu network.

To vote for this motion enter the calculated hash in your Nu client. Successfully minting a block will result in a “yes” vote being cast and placed in the Nu block chain. You will be able to track the progress of this motion on NuBits.com or the Nu block explorer.

Motion Hash: 6f361693a7b248730b41d4292f89dc6f6f166bc8

BEGIN DRAFT MOTION HASH ON NEXT LINE
With the successful passage of this motion, the Nu Shareholders[1] (“Shareholders”) have instructed the Nu Development Team[2] (“Developers”) to make the Nu source code available to the general public. The updated license will allow free, permissive use of the source code in Nu-related and derivative projects.

The Nu source code (including the code that describes the underlying Nu network protocol, the daemons, the GUIs, and the associated support systems for testing, distribution, and deployment) will include a text file, COPYING, in the root directory of the project.

Copyright © {YEAR[3]} Nu Developers
Copyright © 2013-2014 Peershares Developers
Copyright © 2011-2014 Peercoin (PPCoin) Developers
Copyright © 2009-2012 Bitcoin Developers

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN
THE SOFTWARE.

Existing copyrights held by outside persons or organizations for code integrated into, or adapted for use within Nu, will be retained within the source code as required by their respective licenses. The license text follows the model established by Bitcoin[4] (and then continued by the Peercoin[5] and Peershares[6] software forks).

Additionally, the Shareholders grant the Developers the ability to determine a location for the code repository (BitBucket, Github, etc.) where the source code will be available to view and download. The Developers will act in the best interests of Shareholders when selecting the person(s) granted permissions to review, approve, and merge proposed modifications to the Nu source code.

Finally, the Shareholders grant the Developers discretion when determining which features, submitted to the project’s code repository from individual contributors by way of “pull requests,” are merged into the Nu source code. Members of the Nu Community at-large are all empowered to introduce motions to identify the “roadmap” that core development will follow.

Once this motion has been passed, the Developers will have forty-five (45) days to inform Shareholders of the steps required to open the Nu source code to the public, and to take those steps. The final action required by the passage of this motion will be to release a new version of the Nu clients (daemon and GUI, for Windows, OS X, and Linux) that includes the updated software license. This release will be tagged “v1.0.0” within the version control system. After meeting the requirements, this motion’s purpose is complete, with no further action required by the Shareholders or the Developers.

…

[1] “Nu Shareholders” are persons with legitimate access to enough NSR to cast a vote for this motion by minting a valid Nu block.

[2] “Nu Development Team” are the person(s) ultimately responsible for software development of the Nu network, and who have unrestricted access to Nu source code when this motion passes.

[3] The date of the copyright listed in COPYING will match the year that this motion is passed, and will be back-dated to 2014 if needed. For example, ‘Copyright © 2014-2015 Nu Developers’ if the motion passes this year, or ‘Copyright © 2014-2016 Nu Developers’ if the motion does not pass until 2016.

[4] https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/COPYING

[5] https://github.com/ppcoin/ppcoin/blob/master/COPYING

[6] https://github.com/Peershares/Peershares/blob/master/COPYING

END DRAFT MOTION HASH AT END OF PREVIOUS LINE

tomjoad · January 13, 2015, 9:29pm

As this motion gains support over time, a running update of the vote total will be provided on https://nubits.com/about/source-code.

desrever · January 13, 2015, 9:39pm

Thank you ben for producing the final motion.

Indeed I will personally hold my vote until at least some of the items in the checklist are marked as done.

masterOfDisaster · January 13, 2015, 9:58pm

I welcome the creation of a finalized motion to make the Nu source code available!

I was wondering about

but then I realized that the control by the NSR holders did never, ever, reach as far as to decide how to write code or which written code to include.

This is as it has ever been so far (after Nu went live):

There has been a lot of discussion about what’s good, what’s bad for Nu. I don’t want to echo that here.
Now it’s in the hands of the NSR holders to decide whether or not the time has come to make the code available - with all the implications.
There’s nothing else for it but to thank you, @Ben, for having finalized the draft!

VanillaH · January 14, 2015, 2:07am

I would also like to thank you for producing the final motion. However, and as much as I would love the source to be public, I also believe it’s too early and will hold my vote for now.

zoro · January 14, 2015, 10:55am

as long as closed source is not holding NU back, i hold my vote. i agree it is too early. if the public wants the open source then they are welcome to buy shares in order to vote for it

cryptog · January 15, 2015, 3:21am

Tks @Ben for introducing this motion.
I believe it is too early. Some entities with a lot of capital could crush us because they would want to eliminate any form of competition.
We need to have an established position in the market before doing do, imho. Maybe in a few weeks.

Sentinelrv · January 15, 2015, 3:32am

I would say several months or more. We need to have data feeds implemented, the NuBits burning proposal needs to be figured out as well as the discussion about the evolution of liquidity. Lots of important things.

cryptog · January 15, 2015, 3:38am

nothing is impossible but i agree it s rather a matter of months.

cryptog · January 15, 2015, 4:04am

besides one of the main topics right now should be to find a way to reduce the loss on custodians walls
see here.

tomjoad · January 15, 2015, 4:31am

Playing devil’s advocate, it’s important to remember that open-sourcing brings a tremendous amount of benefits for development. We should open-source at the point where we feel a competitor could not successfully duplicate what we’re doing. I think we are approaching that point very quickly.

tomjoad · January 15, 2015, 4:52pm

To easily check on the status of this motion, visit https://nubits.com/about/source-code. The motion currently sits at 1% support and rising.

cryptog · January 17, 2015, 1:09pm

When you see this and this it is obvious that the competition wants to beat us. That is why it is very important to make sure we have secured a solid position before disclosing the source code.

sportscliche · January 17, 2015, 4:31pm

There is far more to this than simply possessing the code. Nu’s first-mover advantage is important, but in my opinion the quality of execution and public profile trumps everything.

As several on this forum have noted, Bitshares is doing their project a disservice with the unprofessional and sometimes childish manner in which they have misrepresented and attacked Nu and its developers. This is entirely consistent with their past actions and I would not expect this behavior to change anytime soon. I feel confident that serious investors have taken notice of this, as reflected in the current trading activity of both tokens. Some in the Bitshares community insist the Nubits volume is being faked, yet they are contemplating plans to do just that:

If the Nu code goes open source, there might be a danger of its adoption and implementation by a high-profile, well established company like Apple or Google. I doubt, however, that a public company would want to be linked with an alternate currency pegged to the USD.

It would be difficult for a crypto startup to execute an outright copycat strategy because of Nu’s significant head start. Bitshares won’t copy the code simply as a matter of principle. They disdain Nu.

For these reasons, I favor making the code open-source.

Excoin · January 17, 2015, 5:34pm

The code should be made open source. It not only adds trust but allows service operators running the code to easily make modifications. Freedom to view and modify the code is very important and this should not be put aside for short sighted fears of potential competition.

creon · January 17, 2015, 5:51pm

So this means even if this proposal passes the actual release date of the source code will still solely defined by the developers? Is it intentional that the proposal doesn’t contain a deadline for that?

CoinGame · January 17, 2015, 6:02pm

It says “and to take those steps”, meaning the developers have 45 days to release the source code from the moment motion passes.

creon · January 17, 2015, 6:05pm

That’s not what I read. The developers have 45 days to inform shareholders of the required steps. There is no restriction on the time that is needed to take out these steps. But maybe I am just reading this wrong, and the part after the “and” in my quote above is considered to be mandatory within the 45 days.

CoinGame · January 17, 2015, 6:17pm

Developers will have forty-five (45) days to inform Shareholders of the steps required to open the Nu source code to the public, and to take those steps.

I think you’re reading it wrong. You skipped the key part again. It states that there is a 45 day window to inform of the steps and take them.

creon · January 17, 2015, 6:21pm

Thank you for this clarification. I still would be in favor of the formulation “[…], and to take those steps within the 45 days” but as long as everyone agrees that it is meant this way, it should be fine.