Aye. I think there is little reason to suppose that a group of people (mostly) united in matters of software freedom would share a common view on bitcoin.
I don't think it is the business of FSFE or FSF to make a comment on bitcoin but further getting a consensus among members may not be possible anyway. Sam On Nov 12, 2012 11:33 AM, "Daniel Pocock" <[email protected]> wrote: > On 12/11/12 11:17, David Gerard wrote: > > > >> I don't want to belittle your point of view - it is always good to look > >> at any new inventions with a critical eye, especially when money is > >> involved. But what do you see as safer alternatives to Bitcoin? > > > > > > This is the politician's fallacy: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism "We must do > > something; This is something; Therefore, we must do this." Your > > question does not imply an answer of "FSFE must therefore lend its > > good name to Bitcoin." > > > Actually, I don't think that was my question at all. > > To put it in context, if you were making a new physical currency, you > could go to a chemist and ask him is it better to use silver or sodium. > The chemist may well tell you that sodium is too soft for coins. He > would likely go on to explain that it is highly reactive and likely to > explode in your pocket, while silver is durable and reacts with few > things. A geologist may tell you that silver is rare, also making it a > good choice. Neither the chemist or geologist is telling you to invest > your life savings in silver though, they are just giving scientific facts. > > In the same spirit, I think that organisations concerned with free > software do have some contribution to the debate, e.g. to answer > questions like whether it is better to have critical technology (e.g. > the payments system) built on transparency (open source and open > standards). A further step may be to classify the qualities of such > systems to help people distinguish the better ones, just as a geologist > can tell you about the relative scarcity of gold vs silver, without > actually endorsing a particular financial model or giving anything that > could be perceived as investment advice. > > _______________________________________________ > Discussion mailing list > [email protected] > https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion >
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