Promise to the STEEM stake holders & community as a witness
(Screen shot from : https://mashable.com/2016/12/19/veteran-soldier-demonetization-face-india/#crKbacM04aqO)
You may find this post unpleasant, blunt but at the same time personal post. I am finding time to write this taking chances missing certain personally and socially important events for me and people who are close to me and supportive in difficult times.
1. Definitions
A blockchain is defined here: Problem specification for Blockchain
In the event of the need for clarifications, https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/nistir/8202/draft and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain will be referred in conjunction with Steem blockchain white paper.
The target of this statement: The target of this statement are stake holders and users of the Steem blockchain v0.20.8 which may include incorporated companies.
Laws: Applicable laws in my country of residence, location of witness servers or applicable international laws.
Who define's Applicable Laws: My Legal advisor based in India with sufficient exposure to FOSS & member of a certain registered foundation to promote FOSS, A Law teacher in the UK with specialization in cyber crime, A friend teaching law in a national Law school & international exposure.
In the event of Applicable Laws are not defined, I will attempt to follow IT-act 2000 of India and its various ammemends to the best of my knowledge. The reasoning is, this law is directly binding me as a non-anonymous witness and also because of its strict nature possibility due to mis-interpretation of cyberspace by law makers. I am not aware of any other applicable laws applicable to me as a Steem blockchain witness.
Termination clause for my witness program: Under the circumstances I am able to identify breach of laws as directed by court orders, I will terminate the witness servers within 7 days of myself directly notified.
Understanding Economics: I have no expertise whatsoever in Economics & I always relay on an experienced investment banker and a consultant with a decade of experience in financial matters including ICOs & token distribution.
Warrant Canary: A warrant canary is a method by which a communications service provider aims to inform its users that the provider has been served with a secret government subpoena despite legal prohibitions on revealing the existence of the subpoena. I will attempt to set up such a mechanism by end of January 2019.
2. Public Statement
I Bobinson will not will not run any version of the Steem blockchain code () which doesn't adhere to the definition of a blockchain. This means, under no circumstances I will support or alter the state of the blockchain as an elected "gate keeper of the blockchain." The state of the blockchain means account balances, account names, content & all forms of data stored in the blockchain. Freedom of speech, ensuring the definition of blockchain as put forth by Satoshi Nakamoto in his original Bitcoin paper as well as the Steem white paper will be the guides in any and all scenarios.
DMCA, GDPR & Child Pornography prevention practices will be applied as soon any such cases are identified.
How to adhere to the public statement in Section(2)
2.1 Adherence to the Public Statement
Adhering to the public statement in Section(2)
- The source code in the official Steemit Inc will be reviewed & tested by me to the best of my technical ability.
- No code changes without sufficient understanding will be accepted no matter who implements them
- An exception to this is: currently Negative RCs are limited to 2 hours worth of regeneration . I have so far not managed to test or get the exact procedure to test this from anyone.
- Its natural as a community to have difference of opinions and in the absence of any governance guidelines, existing public documents on the blockchain, economics & law are the only means to arrive on logical conclusions. Because of this reason, anyone being malicious, influential or otherwise is relative and any all my actions will be subject to verifiable, proved facts from publicly available documentation.
- I will be interested in having clear & open communication with the community, which includes myself. In personal opinion, Steem blockchain as an MIT licensed Open Source project has achieved a status of being loved and able to attract large number of people. Unlike other open source or Free Software like Linux Kernel or Git or Firefox almost everyone including myself have become unusually close to the "software". My opinion is most of us are attached to the software in a similar fashion like Linus Torvalds is attached to his brain-child Linux Kernel and act as the "benevolent dictator of Steem blockchain Software". This peculiar social phenomenon I feel is unique to this software to the best of my knowledge and I am including this here as an important point as "technology is for people & never the other way around." This section needs further clarity as I may be "disillusioned" like many others using the platform.
3. What Next ?
At this point I am away attending the helping with arrangements of my friend who is more like little brother. I cannot spend more time not this at this point but I will post detailed thoughts about the following in the coming days.
- What is a hard-fork
- Thoughts on a Governance model & Development Foundation
- Discussion on premine/ICO-practises & Token Distribution
4. Demonetizing the Blockchain
As Indians, we understand more than anyone that what happens when a group of people without relevant expertise and preparedness alters a currency in circulation. When the Indian Prime minister announced the "ban" or "cancelling" (technically, stopping 80+% of currency as a legal tender) on November 8th, 2016 (Yes, the same day as the USA's leadership change.). Initially I remained neutral when everyone around me opposed the move. ie, I had not enough knowledge to assess the situation. But in the months that followed, me along with 100 million people of India, many foreigners who visited suffered.
I am strictly not political by any means. But the best statement that I can use to describe change the "state of a blockchain" is from an economist turned finance minister of India.
"Monumental Mistake"
On the Powerdowns
I personally don't have the 100% clarity on the impact of the power-downs. As As of now, I see that the funds are not withdrawn to exchanges anymore. Because of these two reasons I am not mentioning anything about the power-downs. But in general there is lot of confusion and discomfort in the community and various people have asked me about it. Thus its relevant to ask to consider how to make everyone on the same page regarding this aspect ASAP.
There is no mention any individual in this post & I strongly urge everyone to find ways to co-exist with the differences that we all have. We in India proudly call it "Unity in Diversity", I hope Steem blockchain community is able to do the same.
Lets Steem on to find Unity while maintaining diversity.
Witness Appeal
This time, I would like to make a different appeal,
- If you agree with my thoughts on adhering to defined principles & maintain a witness program, do vote for me
- If you do not agree with my thoughts on adhering to well defined practices and principles for uncharted waters and you are voting for me as a witness, please choose to unvote me. As an Individual, I am not comfortable being part of any sort of unproductive endeavors, unless its to support lets say, art which may not be mathematically quantifiable.