Citadel Dispatch

Share on social media:

EPISODE: 0.2.6

BLOCK: 687726

PRICE: 2478 sats per dollar

TOPICS: using a bitcoin node, bitcoin node projects, tradeoffs, software licenses, monetization

@raspiblitz: https://twitter.com/raspiblitz

@ronindojoui: https://twitter.com/ronindojoui

@mynodebtc: https://twitter.com/mynodebtc

@start9labs: https://twitter.com/start9labs

@nodl_it: https://twitter.com/nodl_it

streamed live every tuesday:  

https://citadeldispatch.com

twitch: https://twitch.tv/citadeldispatch​

bitcointv: https://bitcointv.com/video-channels/citadeldispatch/videos

podcast: https://anchor.fm/citadeldispatch​  

telegram: https://t.me/citadeldispatch​ 

support the show: https://tippin.me/@odell

stream sats to the show: https://www.fountain.fm/

join the chat: http://citadel.chat/

[00:00:00] Unknown:

I wanna say last spring said, you know what? I'm getting into crypto for the first time.  

[00:00:06] Unknown:

Again, I thought things were crazy, and I think they're crazy now. Bitcoin   listen. I like Bitcoin.   Right?   Bitcoin   is math,   and math has been around for 1000 of years.   And it 2 +2 is gonna equal 4, and it will for the next 2000 years. So I like the idea of investing in something that's reliable,   consistent,   honest, and a 100% certain.   So Bitcoin has appealed to me   because it's a way for me to invest   in certainty. Where, again, I look at the difference between   the Fed of 2013,   the Fed of 2021.   I I'm going how how can this   do I wanna have faith necessarily?  

I look at the difference between Trump and Biden. Do I wanna have faith   in that same reliability and consistency of human nature?   And the linear nature of human nature, which we know is anything but that. You like Bitcoin at these prices?  

[00:01:07] Unknown:

I'm listen. You got in, what, at about 10,000?  

[00:01:11] Unknown:

I I like Bitcoin   as a portfolio diversifier. Everyone always ask me, what should I do with my portfolio? My employees say I say, okay. Listen. The only thing that I know for certain   is I wanna have 5% in gold,   5% in Bitcoin,   5% in cash,   5% in commodities at this point in time. I don't know   what I wanna do   with the other 80%.   I wanna wait and see what the Fed's gonna do because what they do will have a big impact.  

[00:02:20] Unknown:

Happy Bitcoin Tuesday, freaks.   It's your boy, Matt Odell, here for another Citadel dispatch.   This is Citadel dispatch 26 for you   freaks keeping track at home. That's over 6 months straight of Bitcoin Tuesdays that we've shared together,   and we have a   extra special one   this week   focused on running your own node and using your own node and the trade offs involved with that   decision. Citadel Dispatch is an interactive live show about Bitcoin distributed systems, privacy, and open source software.   Before we get started, I just wanted to do a big shout out to all the freaks who support the show and help keep it ad free.   That's the way I wanna keep it. I want this show to be a show by the audience for the audience   by Bitcoiners, for Bitcoiners,   and just in the spirit of open source in general, just have it   available for all. So thank you for that. I couldn't do without you. To the freaks who are joining us after the fact via the audio streams,   that was Paul Tudor Jones,   billionaire money guy, on CNBC   talking about how he likes the coin,   with Andrew Ross Sorkin, who hates the coin and has to constantly talk about it because   his showrunners demand it because that's how they get engagement.  

Today, we will be focused on using and running a node.   I've done a couple polls on Twitter in the lead up to this. One was in April.   Do you use your own Bitcoin node? There was 55 100 votes,   35   percent 36% said yes, 36% no said no, almost 10% asked what is a node, and 20% had zero conviction whatsoever and asked to see the answers.   I did another poll,   yesterday.   Similar question. 41% said yes. 35% said no. This time, I put not sure as an option.   I think this conversation is more important than ever.   What is a Bitcoin node? Before we get started, a Bitcoin node to interact with the network with the Bitcoin network, you need to use a Bitcoin node to do it.   If you're not using your own node, you're using someone else's node, that means you have to trust them with both verifying the rules of the network and your privacy,   so it's absolutely imperative if you wanna be a sovereign Bitcoin Bitcoiner   to   use your own node. It is the way it is the way to ultimately use the Bitcoin network in the most trust minimized fashion possible.  

We are fortunate enough to have,   contributors   from   most of the leading Bitcoin node projects.   That includes Ketominer from Noddle,   Zelco,   and Laikuo from Ronin Dojo.   We have rootsol and openoms from raspi blitz. We have Matt Hill from start 9, and we have Taylor from myNode.   This is   a packed panel. We've never had this many people on a dispatch before,   so please   work with us here as we we go through this discussion. It is going to be a loaded discussion   with a lot of opinions and a lot of moving pieces. So I just wanna do a big thanks for the guests for joining us.   This is pretty exciting.  

For our audio freaks,   they're gonna have a little bit trouble   following the voices. So what I wanna do is,   on the screen here, I wanna I wanna do introductions from each person so that they can kind of figure out your voice,   and we'll start with Matt Hill. Matt, say hi to the freaks.  

[00:06:07] Unknown:

Sup, freaks?   Want a little bit more voice,   example?  

[00:06:12] Unknown:

Yeah. Why don't you just why don't you guys just introduce your project as you come go through as well?  

[00:06:18] Unknown:

Sure. We are Start 9. Our primary product   is Embassy OS.   We sell it standalone.   You can also build from source.   We'd also sell it as part of an embassy, which is basically Raspberry Pi in a box,   with a little bit of branding on it,   plug and play experience,   and it is designed to be a graphical operating system   for self hosted software, generally speaking. So the fact that you are able to seamlessly run a Bitcoin node   on Embassy,   is not unintentional, obviously. It's the first service we offered, but our goals are a bit more broad than that.  

[00:06:57] Unknown:

Awesome. Thank you, Matt. We have Open Arms here. Open Arms, you wanna Open Arms is a repeat guest,   but just do a quick introduction for the freaks.  

[00:07:06] Unknown:

Hi, Ol. Nice to be here again.   In the function of a contributor to the rest of this project headed by Rudso.   And, you know, looking forward to the discussion.  

[00:07:19] Unknown:

Thank you, Open Arms. Zelco, why don't Zelco is also a repeat guest. Welcome back, Zelco.  

[00:07:26] Unknown:

Hey. What's up, brother? Appreciate you being here and,   and hosting this after, Miami. I know we talked about it, and it's cool to back be actually doing it.   I'm glad that all these node projects are here.   Me and, like, well, we, we're here from Ronin Dojo, so the samurai focused,   full node project,   to give you all your privacy needs. And, and, yeah, this this will be fun.  

[00:07:52] Unknown:

Thank you, Zelka. Rutsal, I met you in Miami. What's up, dude?  

[00:07:56] Unknown:

Yeah. Good to hear you again.   Yeah. It's Ruthsol.   I'm working with Open Arms here, on the Respiblitz.   Kinda most of we call them maintainer or kind of a lead dev there.   Kind of started a project back with   the full more hectic days. It was always a platform to have a Bitcoin and Lightning node running on a Raspberry Pi,   and to set it up yourself. You can get all the parts from Amazon and and build it yourself. So it's a whole GitHub. It's a tutorial to follow.   And more and more developed,   into a little bit bigger platform.   And, yeah, it's, it's I think it's very community driven, so we have a lot of contributors   kind of from those kind of events. The idea is coming a little bit more from an educational background and also kind of running and, optimizing to be a lightning routing node, from your home.  



[00:08:48] Unknown:

Thank you, Rutsal. Like Wo, return guest as well. What's going on, Lykwo?   And he is at a barbecue right now, so he might not be listening to us.   We'll move on to Taylor from Minode. How's it going, Taylor?  

[00:09:05] Unknown:

Hey. It's going good. So I'm Taylor from Minode. I founded it, maybe, it was   2019, early 2019, and, I mean, like most of the other guests here, the goal is to kinda be a a Bitcoin node and run, you know, self hosted software   so that you can run it   in sort of like a well, you can run it trustlessly,   and,   you can just build it yourself from scratch, but you can also   buy one of our prebuilt nodes and kinda take that route. But one of the goals when I originally started was basically enabling   or creating an easier way for people to run all the awesome, like, open source software that's out there. Right? Like, there's a whole lot of awesome stuff that starts with Bitcoin as a foundation,   builds on top of it with the Lightning Network, with,   mixing with privacy tools.  

And a lot of people sort of are interested in that, but maybe,   don't have the technical skills to do it and wanna take an easier path to do that. So I really wanted to enable people to easily sort of run all this awesome open source software out there and, do it themselves and run it at their own home.  

[00:10:08] Unknown:

Awesome. Thank you, Taylor, for that introduction.   Laikuo is back. Laikuo.  

[00:10:14] Unknown:

Say hi. Hey. How are you doing? Good morning. Thank you for having me. I'm here for onboarding Dojo project. I'm here to   talk to everybody on the no projects. I'm very glad everybody's here together, and we can discuss, you know, what we're working on and why running a full node is important to everybody's privacy.   And I'd like to talk about, you know, open source, licenses   and what that mean to everybody.  

[00:10:36] Unknown:

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. We will definitely be discussing it. And,   I I just wanted to before we get to I guess and we have Key2Miner here. Key2Miner return guest. Say hi to the freaks.  

[00:10:47] Unknown:

Hey, guys. How are you doing? Very happy to meet our,   most most younger siblings.   So I'm the founder and creator of the Nodal Full Node. And as I remember, we are the oldest one here probably right now.   And we have a few first in our history, like, 1st, BTCP in a box, 1st full tone out for 1st full disc encryption, and full 1st red setup in a note.  

[00:11:16] Unknown:

Awesome.   To the new freaks, I mean, we have episodes   already with, Zelco,   with Open Arms, with Laquo, with Kidah Miner,   with Matt Hill's partner, Keegan.   So, I mean, we have episodes already on all these node projects except for my node.   So feel free to go back to the back catalog on that. That's at citadel dispatch.com,   or if you just type in citadel dispatch into your favorite podcast feed,   all of those episodes will be there.   That includes some of the other conversations that we'll be having surrounding these node projects, including licenses. I mean, licenses is a conversation that we've had many times on dispatch, which is why I think,   it's a particularly well suited platform for this discussion we're about to have.  

Before we get started, since it's kind of early in the episode, it has been 26 Bitcoin Tuesdays in a row. That's over 6 months.   Next week, I am going to be off grid, so there will not be a Bitcoin 2 well, Bitcoin Tuesday always happens no matter what, but there will not be a dispatch. I will not be joining you guys for Bitcoin Tuesday next week, but I will be returning the week after that.   So, a little bit bittersweet, but,   if it makes you guys feel any better, I'm gonna be having a very good time off grid. So,   a little r and r is needed.  

So let's just jump right into this.   You know, I have,   some key things I want to cover. You know, we already mentioned licenses. That is definitely gonna be discussed. But I think   before we jump into that, I would like to start with   trade offs in general. I think just high level trade offs. I also have about   20 bullet points provided by 6102 Bitcoin.   So we're gonna try and nail as many of those as we can nail and just kinda see where this discussion goes.   So, I mean, the way I look at it is I think the overwhelming majority of the world is not using a Bitcoin node currently.   I think the overwhelming majority of Bitcoiners aren't using a node currently,   and I think a lot of them are intimidated.  

And I I I think,   you know, one of the things you hear a lot of is just run Bitcoin Core on a computer that you have lying around. Maybe,   use Spectre or Sparrow with it on the same computer, so then you can interact with the hardware wallet, and that's definitely something you can do.   But if you wanna level up your game and you wanna use Lightning or you wanna use CoinJoin and you wanna have a dedicated 247 node,   then then all of a sudden, these projects that you guys are maintaining and improving really come into play, and and a lot of freaks   are kinda hit with   a question, you know, which which which project do I use and what is what are the differences between those projects.  

1st and foremost, I like to say that the fact that that Bitcorders have so many options today is absolutely,   amazing.   So so cheers to all of you guys. I mean, if even if you just go back a year, 2 years ago,   there really weren't many options at all.   So it's really fantastic to see.   So so with all that said,   my first thought is,   you know, you're a Bitcoiner, you're coming in, you're coming in, you're trying to decide   which project you should use, which which nodes you should run. I mean, in some cases, you might be running multiple   different,   nodes.  

I guess we can jump into that too, but I think the main thing people are are asking themselves are what are the trade offs, and I'm I'm kinda curious how you guys approach,   those trade offs.   I I guess   who who do we start off with here? You wanna start, Zelco? Yeah. Sure.  

[00:15:04] Unknown:

Because we I mean, mean, I'm sure everyone else gets these questions as well since there's so many options. You had new users all the time.   But I'm actually gonna read from what Evan   Cloud has said because he actually summed it up pretty well, and I agree with it.   So he wrote that the best prebuilt is, nodal.   For the best coin join coin joins, use Ronin.   Best,   for more technical users in LN,   Lightning is RAS by Blitz.   Best complete nontechnical   people best for completely nontechnical people is Umbrell.   Start 9 if you wanna self host,   different,   privacy apps, and then MyNode is the best selection of   full scale Bitcoin apps.  

I mean, I think that hit it pretty on point. I mean, there's always nuances, but I think that was pretty pretty solid.  

[00:16:00] Unknown:

Does anyone wanna jump in here?   Maybe open oh, yeah. Hit us.  

[00:16:08] Unknown:

What's Umbrel? I mean, are they here?  

[00:16:11] Unknown:

No.   Okay.   Umbrel is not joining us today,   and we've never had them on dispatch. So   take that with as you will. Hopefully, we will have them on the show at some time in the future.   I'm kinda curious on, Matt's opinion on on Zelco's,   framing there.  

[00:16:33] Unknown:

Well, I don't find any glaring,   mistakes in that. And I was this, did Evan sale this at the Fostome in Miami? Is that what you're referring to?  

[00:16:44] Unknown:

No. He just post it was in a a Telegram chat. Someone just kinda asked for a brief overview. I mean, I mean, it was a it's a super brief, like Yeah. New, like, new   response. So, like, we can definitely dive into more. I mean, there's obviously   a lot of different   a lot of differences between the projects. So,  

[00:17:04] Unknown:

So, yeah, let me let yeah. I'll elaborate a little bit. So, you know, when we first came on the scene,   February   2019, this was at Unconfiscatable.   We were immediately   pegged as a plug and play Bitcoin node, which was fine with us. Right? We were at a, you know, Bitcoin Maximalist conference, and we were there for a reason. It's because we offered a plug and play Bitcoin note. Now our approach to that,   was a bit different,   than I think all of the other implementations   here, and that we were offering a full Bitcoin node   on top of,   our primary objective, which is a sort of generalized computing platform for running cell phones with software.  

Bitcoin just happens to be a piece of software that can be self hosted that should be self hosted.   And so, you know, we sort of targeted the Bitcoin   community as our initial target market.   And so didn't mind being pegged as, you know, a Bitcoin   node.   And since then, we've done a lot of, you know, kind of grassroots   marketing, just talking on podcasts and whatnot to try to explain,   that we are not   that. Right? We are very much trying to build a, like I said, DevOps in a box for grandma,   you know, with principles of 0 command line ever   and graphical configuration   always,   and have now been somewhat pegged as the   use the embassy   if you want to do other things besides Bitcoin, which, again, we're not upset about because we've actually pushed for this. But the reality is is that most of our users,   who have either purchased or built an embassy,   their feedback has been   that it was   the easiest   setup process that they've had. And let me rephrase that. It's not I would not claim that the Embassy is necessarily the easiest setup process. I think that all of these implementations   are quite easy.  

Where Embassy,   kind of shines through   is in the   maintenance   process   when it comes time to configure things and manage dependencies.   Because we've actually built a sort of computing platform,   you, as a nontechnical user, can get in there. And rather than SSH ing in and adding a dotcom file   or,   updating your OS and getting a bunch of bundled new apps, you can sort of, you know, a la carte modularly   install, uninstall, and configure various services   without,   fucking it up. Right? So it really is more of a,   I don't know, agile   experience   rather than a plug it in and everything works. It's like plug it in and there's nothing.  

You actually go in   and install the things you want to install, configure them the way you want to configure them, fire them up, and the operating system facilitates that entire process. So I think the experience is just different. I don't think it's valid to say which is easier.   I think they're all very easy.   It's just a different approach.  

[00:20:16] Unknown:

So, yeah, I would agree with that. I I don't think one is necessarily all that much easier to get started with if you're familiar with the typical   process of, you know, setting up a Raspberry Pi. Like, if you know how to flash an SD card and plug in an external drive, I think most of the, you know, node implementations are about as easy.   But I I   you're probably correct, Matt.   With my note as of several months ago, you know, we were very   it had a set of apps. It wasn't configurable,   but we've been migrating over the past, you know, 2 or 3 months to a a much more modular approach as well because I agree with that. I think it's a lot better. And   probably has it too. I mean, they have all, like, the bonus scripts to go sort of install extra apps. There is a core set, but,   you know, you can kind of add on and build on top of that. And I I think that's gonna be important because, you know, statically having one set of software isn't gonna be as flexible for the users, and there's gonna be a huge variety of,   different types of users, I think, coming on board. And, Matt, to your point early on about, like, why run a node? I I think it's gonna get better and better over time as there's more software that relies on that, like, base Bitcoin foundation   with, you know, the different chat apps and things that don't well, first, you have Bitcoin, and then on top of that, you can have Lightning That gives you sort of, like, a wallet plus, you know, a set of private keys that can, like, authenticate and do things. And then on top of that, you start having   various services. Like, you could use LND Hub and start sharing that functionality with other people, or you can have, like, Sphinx and start having, like, secure decentralized chat applications. And so I think that's gonna be a big marketing drive to get people to start running their own node as you can have more and more functionality that people want to use because, honestly, it's not, like, the best selling point in the world to the average Bitcoin user, I don't think, like, hey, just run a note and validate your transactions. We all know that's important. A lot of people know that's important,   but,   I I don't think that's as good of a selling point for the average Bitcoin user. I think you're gonna have to, like, sell them with other apps and and   show them cool use cases of things to get more and more people  

[00:22:24] Unknown:

onboarded into running their own node. Well, I mean, I might be a little bit biased, but I personally think   that the easier sell is the privacy side.   I mean, that is a side that I've been more focused on, but I think it's something that's more tangible for people.   Unfortunately, a lot of people don't really care about privacy, but I think most people understand why privacy   is at least desired or important.   So if you tell them rightfully so that, you know,   it's really hard to use Bitcoin privately if you're not using your own node,   then they realize that's an actionable   step that they that they have to take at some point in their Bitcoin upgrade journey.  

This idea of verifying your transactions, while   absolutely imperative   for Bitcoiners to understand   in the long tail is is definitely a harder thing for people to grasp.   I I just   a a key aspect here that I want it to be clear to the freaks is, like, no matter what you use, everything in life has trade offs. Right?   And one of the nice things,   you know, trade offs by trade offs, I mean pros and cons. Right? And one of the nice things about options,   is that you're able to have all these different trade off balances that these different projects take,   to find things that fit   your current situation the best or your current prep model the best.  

Open Arms, do you have some insight here in terms of, like, how freaks should should think about trade offs when when they're thinking about, you know, which projects they wanna run?  

[00:23:56] Unknown:

Yeah. Well, I think you wanted to comment on on on the aspect of of why we are doing this and why all these projects are using, like, a dedicated computer to start off with that. Because, obviously, running a node is   already if you're running Bitcoin Core on your on your Windows laptop, it is running a running a node. But it is   much more difficult to do it privately and even more difficult or equally difficult to do it securely.   So what   is the single   easiest and kind of most efficient thing   to do is to take the things you are worried about   from these two aspects and put it in a separate box with physical isolation.  

And and on there,   you would want to run a software which you can   which you are able to audit or at least people who you trust or know   or birth can,   you you need to,   rely on their work, which is the software running on it. So you need to be able to verify this,   you know, completely or as much as possible   to be   secure and also to trust that it's not leaking data you would you would want to avoid to be to be leaked.   And   so that's why these,   projects are all in a in a separate box, and that's why we we all say that, you know, you should grab a Raspberry Pi. A wired Raspberry Pi, we can even we can go into that. Well, that's the most widely available and kind of free live   single board computer available.  

But, like, Nodal doesn't use an Raspberry Pi, and most of the most   of these softwares   can run on other   single board computers as well.   So that's not a given either.   So   why so why why I'm working on respoblitz?   I I think it's just because   I've I've started to learn on it, and it is a kind of a platform which just makes you tinker.   So   it might be you might need to learn how to how to use SSH, which is which is just, opening another door to kind of another world of computer   science, which which makes you able to do anything. And then you will be able to do things which you weren't thinking that there is much more to a computer than clicking a button. So, I mean,   that is   an an aspect, and, you know, we do have   we also because of this kind of approach, we are on the cutting edge of of the of the   especially the lightning related apps. So if you want to experiment, want to try things out   quick   and also   learn more, then, you know, that's the best way to go. But, I mean, you know, I absolutely see   the the things,   which the this are strong in other projects as well. I run myself,   around Endojo because, you know, I think that is good to have   the,   kind of what a Whirlpool,   Semlerite wallet ecosystem   just dedicated always on. You know? I don't I very rarely touch it whereas I think of it my respiratory everyday. Right? So it's kind of kind of,   has its place,   and I I love that it's it is like that. And,   well, I I would also for new year new users   who might not be that technical, not interested, you know, I would   probably   tell to kind of buy buy a model or, you know,   give a go of the of the other new projects which are   which doesn't need to kind of get go into the command line at all.  

Alright.  

[00:27:52] Unknown:

Yeah. I I can probably go next about trade offs. And,   one one thing that our users probably noticed a lot of time is that we are slow,   we in providing some upgrades.   And, I would like to explain maybe why,   we do that. We we want to provide   the user experience with just works.   And, we had too many cases of   between, like,   that particular version of Bitcoin d not running with that particular version of BTCPay   or LND not playing nice in some version with some other services.   So we we are extensively   testing   everything we do.   I'm running, like, 10 different models at home just to,   test various combinations of the software.  

Some also some internal choices like running MariaDB instead of Postgres for, BTP because,   just because we run it for other services already.   And,   Mario DB and MySQL,   support in BTCPay is   regularly broken. And, actually, I'm making PRs to fix it every time.   So, yeah, we   we are probably slow, but I'm   hope that,   people notice that usually when we put out an upgrade, everything works.   It probably does 90% of the time because,   I'm only me and, I make mistakes.   But, yeah, that that's one trade off that you definitely have with the the model.  

[00:29:31] Unknown:

Does anyone here actually feel like,   power users shouldn't be using multiple nodes? Like, because I my my feeling is that, you know, what OpenOM said is this idea that you run multiple nodes for different purposes and you kinda segregate them. So by design,   you have some isolation there between the different things you're running.  

[00:29:52] Unknown:

I absolutely believe that people should run multiple nodes because,   you know, all these node projects offer different applications. You know, they, they offer a lot of lightning different applications,   Bitcoin, you know, Spector, all these different wallets that you can implement on a Raspberry PI or a RockPro PI. But the problem is   is users, you know, especially new users,   want to run everything   that's on there. And that's gonna cause a lot of issues with these devices who are limited in, you know, processing and limited in RAM.   So,   I always suggest that you don't run try to run everything that's on there. You you should have a dedicated lightning network,   node that runs, you know, maybe at my note or whatever other offering there is that offers lightning network just to run that and run that. And you wanna run, you know, dodo, run it dedicated. Don't run everything together because you're gonna you're gonna have instability issues in the end. And these are problems that you see on other products where, you know,   the the the systems, you know, runs out of RAM. It you know, people have to reboot ever so often. So, you know, it's it's it's not a problem to run all these different devices. They're small enough. They don't make sounds. You know, they're you can you can stack them up and then keep them in a closet somewhere and just, you know, keep them dedicated. Don't don't try to run everything because, you know, it's not it's gonna run into issues. That's my that's my suggestion.  



[00:31:10] Unknown:

Yeah. I I would add to that. As much as I appreciate what stop 9 is doing with the embassy,   I believe that self hosting   services like,   files or mails or chat or anything else,   shouldn't be mixed with your money. Like, would you use your bank to store anything else that your money?   Probably not. So do the same with your Bitcoin. Have one device only for your Bitcoin and another device for everything else.  

[00:31:41] Unknown:

Yeah. I I somewhat agree with that as well. Like, I mean, I know my note that we have BTC pay server, but at the same time, like, if you're really gonna go run, like, a huge store off of that,   I I wouldn't run an online store on my main my note device. Right? I I would sort of, you know, probably go get a you know, run a server somewhere or rent a VPS or something.   So I think it depends on the type of application, and   I agree that, you   know, run what you care about. Don't immediately go flip on every on switch, as cool as it might seem,   because you're just gonna end up having it go slow and run into trouble, and especially when it comes to publicly accessible services.  

Now if it's based on your lightning node, I think that's probably okay.   But, I I wouldn't wanna start running other servers on my device that, you know, is also my my Bitcoin node because,   I think you're just opening up the door for potential security vulnerabilities and keeping it limited to to just the apps that you use is probably a good idea.  

[00:32:40] Unknown:

Yeah. And at the very least, reverse proxy or or VPN or use IP to or services like that to to connect back to your node. Never expose your own IP address.  

[00:32:53] Unknown:

Yeah. I guess I should probably jump in the comment here since we're the the largest,   violators of this of this   principle of not sort of mixing your money with your data with your passwords. So   in principle,   we agree.   I think it is better to,   bifurcate   your money, especially when it comes to lightning since the money is living   on the node,   from, you know, some more maybe benign things, maybe some less secure things that you might be self hosting.   So just a little bit of an overview of where we're at currently.   I believe we have 15 services on our marketplace.  

About half of them are not in any way, shape, or form related to Bitcoin.   I'm running all 15 of them. Now this includes Bitcoin Core and includes Bitcoin Proxy,   which is a wrapper for Bitcoin Core that we wrote that sort of supercharges a pruned node, which is how we're able to run all of the various lightning services that we offer against a pruned node.   So,   Lightning, Bitcoin, somewhat hungry applications.   We just launched Matrix, which can also be quite hungry. Mastodon can be quite hungry.   I am running all of those as are most of our   customers,   in parallel at the same time on a 4 gigabyte   high with a   128 gigabyte micro SD card as the primary   storage, which was a mistake, and we are now fixing that in those 3 o where we have external drives.  

And we're operating at about 50% capacity   over Tor always. Right? There is no port forwarding. There is no static IP required. Absolutely everything on the embassy right out of the box works over Tor v 3. You can also connect to your embassy and all your services over,   LAN, over dot local with SSL enabled because your embassy spins up its own root certificate   authority.   And so all of this is you know, I I mentioned that to to speaks to, your point about not insecurely accessing your embassy.   But, basically, today, in short, with 15 services running in parallel on a 5 forward, a 128 gigabyte micro SD, it is smooth as butter.   We know that that is not going to scale, and we acknowledge   the potential,   sort of security   vulnerability that could come about from, you know, poor management of keeping your money and your passwords on the same device. But,   our solution to that,   is to run multiple. Right? We encourage our customers to get another embassy,   or to get one of the other implementations that are on the show, which we promote, by the way, all the time,   and say that they're not mutually exclusive. It's perfectly fine for you to get a a note or a minor or a Rhapsody blitz   and or a number, I hate to say on this show right now. But we do recommend these things and then say, hey. Use your Embassy for   for other stuff.  

And lastly, I'll just add one more thing, which is that   Embassy's modular   architecture   allows you to, for instance, run,   an LND note or a c lightning node on your Embassy   that's actually pointing to a full Bitcoin node running on your nodal.   So you they don't need to be on the same box. Right? You can go into the settings of your LMD   and tell it to point to a Bitcoin node that's running on the LAN of your home.   And so you could you could actually bifurcate Bitcoin and LMD if you want.  

[00:36:33] Unknown:

I mean, that that makes a lot of sense specifically because if you're if you're using multiple nodes,   the main additional burden or cost, besides, you know, the actual,   device,   which will run you you know, the hardware will run you about 200 to $300,   is is really bandwidth. Right? Because if if you're actually running multiple nodes and you're not having them point at each other,   you're basically just doubling up your bandwidth cost or tripling up your bandwidth cost. I would add that   while you get additional benefits from running, you know, multiple implementations in terms of minimizing trust   or or using different implementations   based on   the trade off balances you seek,   you know, there's an argument to be made to even running,   you know, 2 start nines. Right? If, you know, 1 is for   non Bitcoin data and one is for Bitcoin data. So I I don't I don't know necessarily,   or, like, 2 Raspberry blitzes. Right? 1 for lightning and one for join market.  

I I I don't   I I don't think it's mutually exclusive that they'd have to necessarily   be different implementations even if you're running multiple nodes.  

[00:37:45] Unknown:

And that will only improve the numbers of running Bitcoin also anyway.  

[00:37:54] Unknown:

Bitcoin q and a saying in the chat that he's killed more SD cards than Matodel's had hot dinners.   You know, I've had a lot of hot dinners, so we'll see about that.   So does anyone else have any more comments on trade offs before we move on to the next layer of this discussion?  

[00:38:14] Unknown:

No. Let's send it.  

[00:38:16] Unknown:

Well, Zeko's got a one track mind.   So,   the next topic that we wanna hit here is,   licenses specifically   in terms of open source licenses   versus source viewable licenses   versus closed source licenses.  

[00:38:34] Unknown:

Versus nonsoftware licenses?  

[00:38:38] Unknown:

Non software licenses.   Zelco is, itching for this discussion to start. So, Zelco, why don't you start us off, and then we'll take it from there?  

[00:38:48] Unknown:

Sure.   I'll give, like, a an overlay.   I think it's important to for us, for the community,   and,   just I mean, obviously, like, for nodes, but, I mean, all software, especially when we're talking about Bitcoin. Like, what was Bitcoin about? What's the ethos about?   That free open source software   is   where all this came from. Right? The cypherpunk movement.   If that   isn't what we're going for and that isn't what's happening,   right, things don't get better. I mean, we had a great great discussion today   from, from Ruth Zoll and some of the guys from his team literally contributing to Umbro   despite or, like, trying to contribute, trying to help fix a security   flaw.  

And that doesn't that that's, like, a a unique thing, right, to the false community.   Right? I mean, you don't see contributors outside from Google trying to, like, contribute to Google   and get their patches put in. Like, that's not something that happens.   But on the reverse end, when we're talking about free open source software,   you know,   I can contribute to my node, or I could contribute to,   to,   RaspiBlitz   or anybody can come and contribute. Like I said, I've had OpenNoms come and help.   Evan tried to help, and I denied him.   But,   yeah, I, I also already told Open Arms that I'm going to, deny his, joint market,   his joint market,   PR, but, you know,   the end of the day Yeah. It's still a guy who have to collect. Yeah. You're not getting it in. I'm letting you know. It's it's already denied.  

But but, yeah, like, that I mean, I I think we skate around this idea of open source. Oh, that just means that the source is open and viewable. Like, that's not that's not what open source means.   So I'm what I'm kinda curious about, right, is,   what, like, what license or how does everyone in this in this group right now? What do you view as,   open source?   And then   what do you view as   not open source? Or, you know, like, what what's your definitions? Because I think that,   I think that that definition is clearly really important. I mean,   I know Umbrel's not here. They had the opportunity to defend themselves. But one thing that irritates me with that is,   is on their site, it says   free,   free and open source software.  

And they claim it like that because the software is doesn't cost anything, and their source is viewable. But they're not using a   actual they're not even using a software license, but they're also not using   anything that is remotely   false.   So that that kind of misrepresentation   is, is critical for me. But   maybe,   maybe, Rudzo, you wanna jump into what you what your take is on that?  

[00:41:50] Unknown:

Well, may maybe we could start by going through every project and saying which license,   they have.  

[00:41:58] Unknown:

Yeah. That's, okay. Yeah. So Ron and Dojo, we use the AGPL.   And   what that basically does is   it's open source, but it's a copy left.   So the only   aspect   of of that is that it protects the open source nature of the code. So anybody can fork it and copy it, but they need to make sure that they still have that   AGPL,   license   moving forward. So they can take the code, do whatever they want with it. They can sell. They can make, you know, they can sell the code. They could do whatever they want. But then it still needs to remain AGPL. They can't take it and then flip on to a copyright license and deny,   people to view the code.  



[00:42:46] Unknown:

Oh, man. I just gotta fucking say something right now. I can't fucking take it. Alright. Any project that puts free   software on their page   and   wants to think that it's free. It's not free. Now it's it's, you know, open source when you're talking about free open source software, you're not talking about free as in price. You can have this pizza software for free. It means that you can have this pizza software, and you're able to modify it however you want. You can modify it to to to not have it control you, so you can control it. And you can modify it so you can give it to your neighbors, so you can pass it on to your friends and say, hey. Listen. I added, you know, I added Boost to this software. Here you go. Use it, buddy. Okay. It's all good. You don't have to worry about that. Projects shouldn't put free   as open source software unless they mean real freedom. That's all I'm saying right now. I'm fucking pissed. Thank you.  



[00:43:37] Unknown:

Thank you.   Because I was asked about the, root zone here from Respirillitz. Because I was asked about the, what is open source, the basic from from the definition, there are kind of 3 basic freedoms that that are important that come from the open source definition   that was kind of done   years ago.   First of all, it's it's it's the source code source code available, of course, that you can have the source code. It's it's open there for everybody to to see and verify. So that that's very, very important. It's not just some binary block or something or it's some source code is really when it's on GitHub, that's first good thing. But there's also the, the freedom of   modifying the code. So you you should have the freedom   to to take the code and and and really   whatever you think it's it's appropriate   is to to change on it. And,   and very important with this com is is the combination of free re redistribution.  

So,   for example, some projects just have the code on GitHub and they allow you to   to, download it to your computer and maybe modify it for yourself on your own computer. But it's very important. This is the freedom then of community   is that you that everybody is free to redistribute these modifications   to, to the public again and have this freedom.   And those are the kind of 3 basic things: the open source, so the open code, the modification,   and then the free redistribution   of this modification. So base there's a lot of more little details there, but basically those those are the ones. The Respiblitz project decided to go with the MIT license, which is the open source license that also the Bitcoin Core Code, is using. It's a very, very permissive license. So, for example, compare it with the GPL kind of license, and it doesn't have this copy left. So it doesn't even if you do a modification, it even gives you the freedom   not to do not to publish it again,   under an, as open source. So there's, and then you can even change some things. So the M and T, M and T project could change, for example, you can just fork it and you could change it even to a GPL, for example. So it gives you a little bit more freedom. In the end, it says do what you want with the code,   but it just puts a little paragraph in there that says, oh, use it as it is. We don't give any   warranty about it because some most of the times there isn't even a company behind that that you could somebody do,   make warranty claims or something. So it just gives you a little bit of legal protection there that you don't get, personally   kind of, people don't legal don't go with a lawyer   behind you or something. So that's, like, at least a good good legal shield there.  

And and one thing I want to add I want to add here because we're talking licenses,   if you don't the good thing is with an MIT or real open source license, the ownership of code means that the community is owning the code. There is not a single entity   that has more rights on the code. There so there is no no no single ownership. There is not a single person or a single company that has ownership on this code. This is very important when we talk about self sovereignty   because self sovereignty really means you you have the freedom. You really own your shit. It's really your stuff.   And and this is really something when you really want to why we are doing all this journey, run a node, be self sovereign,   I think it's very important to consider maybe you just start your journey with something else, but every Node project that's out there is cool to start. Running a Node is is important. But if you really want to go down the road for the self sovereignty,   the thing really,   really looking out for real open source,   code is very, very, very important.  

And just because this ownership of code is important,   those projects that not have these three freedoms, it would be interesting to know   what kind of company you are or what kind of project you are because if there's not if the code is not belonging to the community,   there is some entity that has some ownership on this code and would be interesting in the in the, and because of transparency   if people use those node projects to know who is behind that, who has still a little bit more control here on the software that are running for transparency reasons, and to understand   what kind of product you are using. They would be also be interested,   for you to hear from the to hear from the other projects.  



[00:47:56] Unknown:

Really great insight,   Rutsal, there. I I just wanna jump in real quick before handing it off to Kito.   The the 2 main   considered, you know, free open source licenses   are MIT and GPL, as, Russel mentioned.   MIT is way more permissive. With MIT,   you could even theoretically take the code and then   fork it and put it into your closed source project.   With GPL,   the distinction is   that you have to keep it GPL after the fact. You cannot take that GPL code and then and then put it into a closed source project without opening up, your code,   just for the freaks, just to make that clear.  



[00:48:38] Unknown:

Correct.  

[00:48:39] Unknown:

Kito.  

[00:48:41] Unknown:

Yeah. So,   exactly what I I wanted to mention that issue about the GPO as well because we we basically started with the unlicensed,   which I believe is the only Cypherpunk   compatible license, which is basically,   public domain.   One thing,   people are probably not aware of,   I I spent some time   reading the FSF website and, and the open source initiative website before before joining this call today.   And, basically, if you don't have a license on your project, it's not free.   You don't guarantee the 3 or 4, depending who you ask, freedoms to the users.   So the unlicense   was a very good way   to say, fuck everyone.  

You just take our stuff and do whatever you want with it.   Then we started talking with,   potential investors and other people, and we wanted something a little more serious than the unlicensed.   So, basically, the choice was between the BSD 2 close, 3 close, or MIT licenses, and we ended up going with the MIT license.   I have to admit it's heavily influenced by RaspiBlitz.   I just looked around what the other did, who didn't go with GPL, and MIT looked like the the best option for us.   So, yeah, currently, we we use the MIT license.   But that being said,   I don't totally share,   and we had a a heated argument on Twitter in DMs with Zirko   the other day,   that FOSS is the only way to go. I think for what we are doing,   if you can check what actual code is running on your device,   it's   good enough. It's not perfect, but it's good enough,   especially since we are talking about a bunch of shell scripts and interpreted languages. There is no binaries.  

It's only some scripts which everybody   with,   6 months of, programming knowledge can read and understand,   and verify what it's doing. So I I believe, of course, if you can go with FOSS,   go for it. But,   being able to read the actual code that runs on your device is   probably good enough.   And, also,   having the source code on the GitHub repository   doesn't guarantee at all that is the actual code running on your device.   And the same applies to any Android or iPhone app. Publishing the the source code doesn't   mean that the code that you actually will find on the Play Store, on the other App Store is the code that you've seen on the repository.  

[00:51:32] Unknown:

Okay. Real quick. So the only thing that I'm gonna say is that I mean, you you can have your point,   about the   whether it needs to be source viewable or whatever for nodes that are just running a bunch of   shell scripts. But,   at the end of the day, right, we shouldn't be falsely advertising,   what it is, right, that   that our license   is. So, like, I shouldn't be saying,   like, if I'm if I'm using the same, license that Umbrella is, like, I'm not gonna go and say, oh, I'm free and open source and said, no. You're not free and open source. So   and the my only issue with it isn't necessarily what you're saying. My issue with   the whole idea   is 100%   that,   it changes the mindset of the community.  

And that's, I think, that's why AGPL has become more popular. Right? Because it's copy lefting. It's forcing people to remain open source,   maybe not as permissive as MIT. But when you start to get   more and more people that   close it down and shut it down, right, and it's becoming more and more accepted in the Bitcoin community, that's when it becomes a problem. So I think that,   the false advertising,   you know, not owning not owning up to what it is that your license is.   Again, like, if that's someone's choice, like, that's someone's choice in, the market will decide whether people should be running it or not.   But at the end of the day, right, like,   trying to falsely, like, claim that you're something that you're not is   not ethical, not good to go. There's a lot of issues with   doing pull request and everything else. I know we talked about in DMs, but, you know, a lot of that is   unethical stuff that shouldn't be happening since it's already breaking the license.  

So, I mean, that's just part of of it, but,   that's my take is that, you know, don't don't don't Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I I totally agree with that. I mean, don't call yourself  

[00:53:36] Unknown:

free and open source if you're using a license, which is, obviously not.   And just fucking go to the open source initiative website, see the list of licenses, and pick 1.   It's that easy.  

[00:53:48] Unknown:

100%.   Okay.   Taylor or Matt, who wants to go? I'll go.  

[00:53:55] Unknown:

So well, on the marketing side of things, that that's kind of one other thing that   Umbrel does that has bothered me a little bit. Their whole, like, become Bitcoin thing, I feel like they're just sort of like, it's probably good marketing on their end, but I feel like it's also just sort of disingenuous. Like, they're saying there is nobody else. Like, this is what you do to to, you know, be a Bitcoin user, but there's so much more variety than that and so many more   options   that I just have always felt like that's a little bit disingenuous. But,   so go going back to the license I chose,   it   first of all, let me start off by saying the license I chose was a bad decision. I picked up one random morning because   I needed something, and I was like, okay. I kinda wanna start a company around this. So   what should I pick? And I I chose a license that,   was the it's the Creative Commons ones, and it it didn't allow redistribution.  

And at the time, my interpretation of redistribution was what some other licenses call production use,   and so I I don't know. I didn't think much about it. Somebody commented, like, way back at the beginning, like, hey. You shouldn't use this license, and I basically said, oh, yeah. Like, it's,   it's this isn't my intent, but unfortunately, at the time, I didn't,   I didn't change it. So I've since added some custom modifications,   but, honestly   so I'll probably come across maybe as the bad guy here, but I think there are reasons to use   non fully open source licenses.  

I think some of it could be protection. I've we've seen some, like, examples in the past where,   like, NDK with cold card, like, it gets forked, and, you know, the fork gets   VC funding from what I've heard, and it's basically just a clone. And then none of that revenue goes back to the founders. The VC investments aren't going to the, like, creative individuals who launched that project   initially. Right? And I think that is who should be benefiting the most. Like, I I don't want   the VC funds or, you know, Google coming in or some huge tech company coming in, like, scooping up, like, open source code that Bitcoin has created,   throwing only a marketing budget at it, and then starting to, like, trick Bitcoin users saying, like, just here's this one quick way to go run a Bitcoin note, but be malicious and, you know, run a BCash note or something instead. Right? I I think   because we are much smaller than some of those large companies. It hasn't happened yet, but I think it's a concern. As Bitcoin starts growing, you're gonna see more and more, you know, projects that are fully open source get forked and potentially,   large companies or entities throw marketing budgets at it and start tricking or confusing users to the point where   people can be malicious.  

And I don't know the perfect way to protect from that, but I think it's a it's a risk going forward. I mean, we've seen it just with Bitcoin Forks. Like,   Bitcoin Cash was   I I feel like some of that is is problematic that people go and start saying   dishonest things or they fork the code and say, well, we're really Bitcoin instead.   It causes confusion, especially among new users. I mean,   experienced Bitcoin users understand what's going on. I think they get it. But, like, when you go to bitcoin.com   and you click buy and you're not getting Bitcoin,   that's a problem.  

And and I don't know if, like, open source licenses are the only way to, like or licensing is the only   underneath,   underlying cause there, but I think, it we could potentially sort of help out that way. And, again, going back to, like, the founders,   I don't know.   They're the creative people that are making the progress. They deserve the benefits and not other, you know, VC funds or large tech companies. So I I think there's,   a huge opportunity for improvement in some, like, middle ground type licenses.   The one that I've been looking at a lot and I really wanna switch to, I haven't done it yet, is the business source license. It basically says,   like, it's it's open source after a point in time,   and you can   kind of it it's you're allowed to redistribute it. You're allowed to fork it. You're allowed to use it for personal use. The problem with the the Umbro license and the one that I had started with was,   that it it it isn't a software license. Right? So it doesn't go into, like, what happens when you fork the project.  

Like, there is it just you're kinda not allowed to, but, like, also, you put it on GitHub. So, like, of course, you're expecting people to force fork the project and, like, submit pull requests and things like that. So I I think the business source license is is a good middle ground.   I know some   popular people within, like, the open source community have, you know, maybe they don't fully endorse it, but they do like it. And I think it it sort of helps provide that middle ground of being able to run a company around a project, which a lot of new users also, I think, enjoy and benefit from. They like knowing that there is a person that they're buying a a product from. They enter into, like, sort of a contract or a purchase   with some entity knowing, look, there is,   there's another person out there that can help support this. Like, I can go to a website and, you know, send an email and say, I've got a problem. I need some help. I think a lot of people are comfortable with that approach, and   I that's why I think sort of these middle ground licenses of, you know, it is it's open towards, but at the same time,   it it gives a company sort of a a heads up short term, like, advantage to be able to build on it and get that sustainability because if it's just open source, like, you always are sort of like, the founder can just kinda go away and, you know, not help out or not support you. So I don't know if other people wanna comment. Yeah. You you you you could also go with a dual license like most commercial open source project do.  



[00:59:33] Unknown:

So, I mean, you hit you hit, an interesting point there that I do wanna discuss,   next, which is monetization. But before we continue,   we have Matt Hill here from Start 9. I mean, Start 9 and Minode have, the most restrictive licenses   of the projects that are here with us today.   I mean, Umbrel keeps getting brought up. I would say that Umbrel probably has the most disingenuous marketing around it. I don't think Start 9 or Minode   really pretend to be, free open source projects.   But I'm curious on Matt's opinion here before we move on from this discussion.  

[01:00:11] Unknown:

Yeah. Thanks.   So licensing for us, was not approached trivially.   It was a serious topic of discussion in the early days of the company.   We browsed many licenses. We had long discussions   and ultimately wrote our own,   license that borrowed from a few of the ones that were out there.   We view licensing   as a means to an end,   not as an end in itself.   Our goal   is to create a new computing paradigm   that will rival and eventually destroy   the centralized,   trusted, hosted model of the Internet today.   That is our goal.   And so we view licensing as one tool in the toolbox   to,   reach that goal.  

And at the time, we looked at what the various trade offs were for different licensing approaches   and determined that   the benefits   of a fully FOS license and so first of all, before I continue, let me say that honesty here is critical,   that we have in never way and will in never way misrepresent   our product,   our license,   or our goals to our users,   to our investors,   or anybody else.   So   our goals,   with our license   were to, I forget who it was earlier,   stated the the sort of 3 slash 4 freedoms of an open source,   fully free and open source license.  

One is that the source is available.   Obviously, we viewed this as critical. It was basically a nonstarter.   In the 1st couple months, our source code was closed source,   strictly for security reasons,   and because nobody was using our software. So we wanted to make sure that it was good, and at least good enough. We know that the community can find bugs and that in the long run, having it open is actually more secure. But we started with a closed source, lice you know, no license. We're just closed.   And then we opened it up once we had our licensing strategy,   ironed out.  

We think that it's critical. However, I do want to mention   that making the source code available   for purposes of auditability   was actually not the primary motivation   for us open   making our source code available. Yeah. I won't say open source.   We need some definitions around these things so that we have a nuanced conversation   and not argue semantics. But for we opened up our code base   not primarily for the purpose so that people could audit it, Because realistically,   you know, we probably could have gone after some of the most trusted people in the industry and said, hey. Come audit our code. People trust you. They know you'll never lie to them. Audit it, and then tell everyone that it's fine, and probably still build a big business. So we didn't necessarily   view,   the open source as a necessity to build great software and a big business,   but we felt that it was better. So it's a nice benefit. The primary reason that we open sourced our code was to protect ourselves   against coercion   from potential   antagonists. Right? So we did not want a 3 letter agency walking into our office and saying, great product you've got here. Build in a backdoor, and, oh, here's a gag order. By open sourcing the code, we were strategically   protecting ourselves against that type of,   attack.  

So that was the main reason. 2nd reason was for auditability and and because it's the right thing to do, and that's that.   Now second one, modification.   We you know, the primary purpose of having a   license that enables modification   is so that you can get community contributions.   That is   the the primary reason. Right? It's like you have limited capacity and you want help from others, so your license should allow others to help you.   And our license does. Right? Our license,   in short,   grants grants the right to access, audit, copy, modify, compile, or distribute the source code or modifications to the source code.   So we have created a license that allows people to fork our code,   make it better,   and open up a pull request and etcetera. And we have had multiple contributors from the open source community   come in and   contribute.  

So that has been valuable.   The third one, distribution.   This one gets a little bit of an asterisk, because it's what exactly are you distributing. Right? The purpose of   allowing distribution in a license   is that it acts as an   as an insurance policy   against the upstream project. So, for example, if you make modifications to this to the Embassy OS source code, and we're like, no. We're not merging that. We don't like that. But it's, like, super important and critical, and we've just gone evil.   And   your inability to distribute that code basically means that the project is dead or hijacked.   And so the ability to distribute modifications of the code is an insurance policy against the original team   that built it.  

If there's more to it, please let me know, but that's sort of how I see that.   And so what we do is we found a interesting   little middle ground there,   to accomplish our goals, is that we allow the distribution,   the redistribution   of our source code. So you can fork our code, make modifications to it, and distribute it all your friends and family.   The only thing that we prohibit   is the distribution   of   the compiled   code, of the object code, or of an another device running the modifications that you made, essentially preventing you from commercializing,   our work.  

And that is the 4th thing, is the commercialization.   And commercialization   of open source software,   I think, acts as an incentive for numbers 23. Right? It's like, if you give people the right to commercialize your code,   then you are incentivizing   them to contribute to your code and distribute your code. But   if you don't need   their contributions   and you don't   necessarily   want their distributions because you're trying to build a business,   then commercialization   becomes the way that you, in a way, disincentivize   those things.  

So that's a huge trade off. We were like, crap. Okay. If we prohibit people from commercializing   our code,   then we are going to   definitely,   prohibit or not prohibit, but disincentivize   people from distributing our code because they can only distribute it as source code, which is not super valuable to grandma.   And 2,   we are partially,   maybe, to some degree, disincentivizing   modifications,   because   now the only reason someone would want to modify our code is to contribute to the upstream repo   or to modify it for their own personal use. But they're definitely not gonna modify it so that they can make money off of it because we prohibited making money off of it. So we sort of said, okay.   We get it. We're we're not gonna get as many community contributions as we otherwise would.  

However, we have   an incredible   large team of developers in house.   And so we felt that at this point in our history, and this can change, by the way. Right? This is an evolving   thing for us. But at this point in our history, we felt that we had   the,   skills and knowledge and muscle   to build everything that we wanted to build,   and that the diminishing returns of adding more community developers   had basically already been reached. Right? Like, if 10 developers showed up today, and we're just like, how can we help?   40 you know, full time, as much as you need, everything,   I couldn't keep them busy because most of what we're building right now has to exist in just a couple of brains because it's   still in the early architectural   days. I don't we can't put that many open source developers to work.  

So we accepted the trade off, and we said, alright. In the early days, it's more important for us to protect,   what we think is a awesome platform and a great business.   And over time, if we start to go, oh my god, this thing's getting huge and it's becoming critical to to earth, right, cross your fingers, we can only hope, then, yes, we may reconsider our licensing and blow the top off and let anything go   if the trade offs are there. So I just wanna make it clear to everybody that our decision   to use a non FOST license was not taken lightly. It was taken extremely strategically,   and is always open   to reconsideration   depending on its the license's ability to contribute to our eventual goal of upending the bullshit centralized system that has come to dominate this planet. Thank you. That's all.  



[01:09:28] Unknown:

Yep.   The the only thing I wanted to add is, I think one of the biggest   differences between   some of the projects that don't, like, start 9 or Umbrella's   starting out a company with a   clear intent   of business. Right? I mean, like, obviously, it sounds like you guys are took your licensing very serious.   And that a lot of that comes from   people who,   are trying to start a major business and a major future, and it sounds like you wanna protect it.   My   my counterargument   to that and to some of what Taylor was saying about, you know, protecting your stuff and worrying about,   you know, VC funding and whatever. Right? At the end of the day,   all that is is competition.  

Right? It's   it's, hey, someone took my code. They made   it and did this other stuff. Some of it's better. Some of it's not. But it's it's competition. And no 2 people, no 2 companies or teams or whatever are going to have the same exact vision. So,   you know, like,   Evan always, like, makes a joke that or Open Arms makes a joke that he's going to fork Ronan and put join in box in there. And that right there is going to completely split the user base, or   it's going to have very little people on his fork, and I'm gonna maintain all mine. Or maybe he had something, like, super cool and beneficial.   And as long as it's open source, I can take it right back. So, like, to me, competition is   it it comes from that false nature. And then the false nature also is what helps people   come back and contribute and help each other and,   make   make things better.  

You know, and, obviously, it sounds like people are still doing that with starting on. I think that's probably because they see a good vision with your guys'   business model and your company's whether you guys are moving forward,   which I think there's something to say about the actual idea that you guys are putting forward of self hosting sovereign apps. I think that's pretty cool.   But I think that when it comes down to it, right, like, I don't care so much if someone forks my code.   Even if I was, you know, top dog and and   running dojo is,   you know, making 1,000,000 of dollars a year, if someone were to take the code, like, they're gonna that's only incentive for me to make it better. You know, it's I can cry about   it, or I can say, alright. Cool. Like, you you forked it. Now you're selling it. That's cool. Alright. Well, what are you doing different? And no one's gonna know your code better than you. So they can try to fork it. They can try to do whatever they want.  

But, hey. Like, I'm gonna come back, and then I'm gonna find out what you're doing different. And if it's better, I'm gonna take it. And if it's not better, I'm not gonna do it. I'm gonna make something even better, cooler,   faster, run better. I don't know. Whatever I'm gonna do is gonna be better because   competition's in my nature.   All I'm going to do is   destroy you. So, like, if you are gonna fork the code, like, I'm going to end you.   Yeah. That's,   I mean, like, when I say end you, if you're gonna fork my code and try to compete against me, you know, like, if I was NVK, not not that we wanna use this, but it's a popular   talking point. If I was NVK, I wouldn't have changed my license. I would have said,   screw it.  

Let's let's battle. Like, let's fight. And then I would have made my shit so much better, and it would have been the end of that. You know?   But that's just me. I'm not saying what he did. I mean, yeah, I am saying what it was a cop out. But,   I think that I think that that's gotta be our mindset because that's what it is. You know? Like, we are most of us didn't start these node projects   because   we wanted to get rich.   Most of us started with this, like,   hey. I wanna give back to the community. I know that I know a 100% that's a fact for open arms and,   and Ruzole for RAS by blitz. I know, Taylor, you started that way as well. I'm sure, Keto, you started that way over at Noble.  

And I think it's a new era of nodes that are gonna come in. I don't think start 9, you're gonna be the the last one. I don't think Umbrel's gonna be the last one. I think VCs are gonna see it as an   And so, yeah, is that more work on the,   the node the node software developers? Yeah. Absolutely. Like, that means that we're not going to get that funding because they don't want open source or at least in that open source nature.   So,   yeah, like, I I don't really care so much about VC funding because that's not why I did it. I did it to give back and give tools to the community.   Is it sustainable? I mean, that's sustainability   is completely up to   to the developers. Right? Like, what business model are you going to run? What business model are you going to do that is going to be able to sustain yourself and your team   while growing?  

And that is the trick, and that's how you guys end up doing it.   But that's just my, like, final thoughts on all of it. Extremely  

[01:14:37] Unknown:

well put, Zelco. Just gonna jump in here real quick before I let Matt respond.   I I I just first of all, you know, NVK is a friend, and he's been on the pod many times. He's been on dispatch many times,   and I've told him point blank on dispatch exactly what you just said.   So so the the this is not something that is being, like, talked behind his back or whatnot,   And I just wanna reiterate something that Zelko just said is is in this world of censorship resistance,   specifically state resistance,   You   know, free open source software is extremely viral and censorship resistant because the code outlives any of the individual contributors.   And I feel like it's a point that is is not really stated enough, and I just wanted to,   make that clear to the freaks. And it's one of the reasons why I'm so bullish on Bitcoin as a project as a whole,   because, you know,   extremely grateful for all the contributors we have to to Bitcoin,   but it's bigger than any of them individually, and the code continues on.  



[01:15:42] Unknown:

Yeah. I'm glad. That was a good point, and Diverter actually said something that really   hit that point home. I mean, he used the running dojo team for whatever reason, but he said,   yeah. If, like, the whole Roman Dojo team died, you know, tomorrow, right, someone could fork our project and it would live on. You know? And that, like, that goes right with your point. I think that's that's one of the most important things. You know? I mean, look at Bitcoin Core. Right?   But yeah. Sorry. Go ahead, Matt.  

[01:16:11] Unknown:

Yeah. Maybe maybe I can jump in. Not sure so far.  

[01:16:15] Unknown:

Go go for it. Yeah.  

[01:16:17] Unknown:

Just wanna drop some some some some ideas here because we were talking about free and having licenses, and you have ownership that you're you're keeping property here. You get a licensor.   Interesting thing. There's a sender in there.   The sensor ring is kinda part. Okay. That should be just a bad joke. But, in the end, it's I don't wanna come across that   that that,   everything has to be free and there's   no business to make or something. Maybe take a look. Open source is not young. And there was even this mentioning from from Umbral dev, like, oh, open source is 30 year old. We maybe need to do something different here to have sustainable projects.   But that's not really true.  

We look at the examples that were named, like, like Redis switched to non open source or MongoDB or or MariaDB.   Redis is still in its in its core. It is still,   open source.   But they have a module that they put a little bit different license on, and this is kind of an extra service   they need for enterprise kind of things. So this is where then they maybe see their opportunity. So they do this on the side. Same thing is for MariaDB,   which are coming to business source license IDEA from. They still MariaDB,   the database is still open source. There's just some some extra programs on the side you need for enterprise use that they change the license a bit. So   those things can be discussed if you have a core product that's open source, and you maybe have something for special enterprises to use and you make make there a different license. It's discussable.  

But but again, we're talking about full node projects here. And and we really have to to to think about when we bought especially about Bitcoin. And then, Bitcoin is so important to have this freedom to fork.   And and how you can make money again is is is, look at open source projects. For example, the MongoDB, it was was was an example that switched to,   to non open source   license to, to protect against being exploited by those big companies.   MongoDB made a $100,000,000   revenue   still being when they were open source, but they switched to non open source to make more money. So this was sustainable. It was just an idea from the CEO of this company,   to to make more money. And it's it's fair, but okay. Do it. But but again, it's not that that you have to have this idea. If I'm open source, I will starve.  

You can build business models around your your your thing. Build for example, build a strong trademark.   This is, for example, what,   what Firefox   is for is is is Firefox is a trademark. This is owned   by, by by a foundation.   And what you can do is,   is really do license deals still. So, for example, Umbrel was telling they don't wanna change to open source because they wanna do license deals. You can still make license deals if somebody wants to put on their project comes with Umbrel. This is a trademark. And to put this on your product, you can make a license deal while having the code completely open source.   Sure. Somebody can then take the code, call it something   else, and and and make money with this. This is a danger. But, again, especially a project that's so good at marketing like Umbrel, I don't personally get why they don't trust their marketing and to build up their brand while they give out their code for free,   and and we'll be open source and they spare them this complete mess that that that gets produced.  

Because also something to remember,   if you have, if you're a small company, when a big company wants to use your code or copy your idea, they will do it in 2 weeks or something. They put their development department there and they will just see, oh, this works this way. Okay. We'll reprogram this again. And they will just outcompete you on that   way anyway. So   this idea of, oh, I have to protect my little code here I have against those big people that wanna exploit me. If they come for you, they first walk, they will out lawyer you. They will out develop you. That's not a problem. The thing what you do is really build up this good community brand, a good, really, real brand people,   put their trust in at least that's a that you have good good leadership on this open source project. And this is something then you can of course monetize in some ways still.  

So I just wanna put those ideas out. It's not about open sources,   communism, and you cannot make money out of it or something.   Really,   see really where it's where it's reasonable. And if you do your own licenses,   really, here comes the point. You you   no. Don't roll your own license because in the end, when you really can't get into a conflict, the lawyers will earn more than the open source developers on this thing.   Because this is so costly if you get in those details. You have to pay big lawyers or whatever. If somebody comes for you on that, You will maybe have will not have the the the money to defend that.   So go with a standard license. It's really something to to to recommend. And especially if if you don't,   again, if you give up this this this ownership thinking,   you spare a lot of problems because normally with the mister Piguet, if you now have contributors, you would need with everybody would normally need to sign some special agreement or something that this code is now gifted to the company.  

And especially who is this company? Is this well defined? And all those problems.   Again, you will pay more on lawyers in the end than on open source developers.  

[01:21:39] Unknown:

Yeah. I I think you basically said everything I wanted to say.   But,   one thing yeah. I I fully agree that the   there is a history in the Bitcoin world, like, reinventing the wheel.   Don't invent your own license. It's like inventing your own cryptographic cipher. You probably   do a big mess and end up in a very bad situation.   And look at all the open source projects that monetize very well while having a GPO or BSD to close license.  

[01:22:13] Unknown:

Alright. I think I think that's why, though, that   it depends on the business models. And I I agree with a lot of what you just said, but I think depending on the type of company you are,   it may or may not work.   I think it's easier to have some of that work at a small scale. I think if you're a huge company, probably   not so much. I mean,   imagine if, like, in the early days,   people are gonna hate this example, but in the early days of Microsoft, like, I I don't think they would have grown if people just had access to all of their source code. I'm not saying that was necessarily the right or wrong wrong thing to do, but if you think about the economic impact of the people that were hired and the onboarding Matt did just for people running personal computers, there's a net benefit from it. And I think,   the fact that that company was able to grow and hire people and do the marketing and get people into,   like,   having the mindset of, it's okay for me to have, like, a computer in my house and it's not some, you know, crazy, nerdy thing that only a handful of people use. I think there's definitely been lots of benefits in in companies that existed that wouldn't have been able to exist as open source. I think, like but but on the flip side, if you look at Bitcoin, it has to be. Like, if you look at, you know, some of these other projects, they have to be. And that's why I   think   it's it's not a, you know, every software project must be FOS type world. I think, you know, there's definitely sort of a spectrum of types of projects that can use different licenses, and I think exploring a middle ground, it   could be a very valid thing.  

And I think a lot of people would like to see more sort of middle ground type licenses where it's the the community is encouraged to, you know, fork the code, redistribute things, but there are some limitations on, like, a much larger company just taking it and benefiting it and, you know,   running with misleading marketing.   I think it would be okay to put some protections in, like, or update licenses to put in some protections for those type of situations.   Like, I guess the example that I I think about,   would be, like, if you went to a a world where everything was like, there there literally were no intellectual property rights.  

Everything was sort of the FOSS model for all work that anyone had done. I don't think   economies would sort of survive that type of world if, like, everyone who invested in a design for a new airplane or car or   whatever. If it had to be open source and another manufacturer could just pick it up, the idea of only placing value on physical goods and not intellectual goods, I think, is sort of misleading.  

[01:24:45] Unknown:

Well, you you're mentioning Microsoft, which is basically the first company that build their business model only on being closed source until then all the operating system came with the source code.   That's why I price the fact of being source available   very much because   until the Microsoft era, everything came with the source code, and you would be you were able to audit it and modify   I mean  

[01:25:21] Unknown:

Yeah. I I a lot. I agree with you. I think it's fantastic software developer. I would love the fact, like, if every software I purchased, you know, came with source code, I could edit it and use it, you know, for personal use, update it, change it. That's that's fantastic.   But I don't think   the industry would have progressed as fast   if companies like Microsoft or Apple hadn't existed.   And maybe you can argue that you think that's not good or good or whatever or it changed the perception of people's use of software and computers because it was a lot less open. But,   I I think there I don't know. I just feel like there have been net benefits in them, but not totally all good. I'm not saying all good or all bad. I'm saying there have been net benefits from,   some different business models.  

And, yeah, like, one of the comments from ideas are like flames. The the this is what I I'm really sort of pretty much fundamentally against.   People will go say information wants to be free, And I fundamentally disagree with that. I think there are valid   arguments for intellectual property rights. And say, if you're like an architect and you design a house, the fact that you can't sell designs or you can't sell concepts   to other people to go implement or manufacture, I think, is just   a fundamentally,   like, wrong perspective.  



[01:26:37] Unknown:

You always need to stay to defend that. Right?  

[01:26:43] Unknown:

Sorry,   It's funny.   It's   funny you mentioned airplanes, actually, because I I   worked closely to Airbus in some time of my career. And,   as you might know, Airbus is selling airplanes to China, and the only way to sell to China is to give them all the plans to build things themselves.   And, actually, Chinese are totally unable to build even screws up to specs.   So the screws are shipped from Europe to China because we are not able to make them.   So I think really think there are other ways to monetize   than protect your   IP.  



[01:27:23] Unknown:

Just be better. May I may I jump back in here too?   So   to reiterate something before and in light of the conversation that's happened since,   I think everyone here can probably agree that that licensing itself, right, this idea that if you have this license, you're sort of good and moral,   you're gonna win. And if you have that license, you're bad and evil, and you're not gonna win. I don't think that anyone would make that statement, that I think what we're arguing here is strategy. We're talking about   licensing as a strategy to achieve an end.  

And   I think we all want the same ends here. There's a reason we're in Bitcoin. There's a reason we're building do it yourself self hosted software in Bitcoin notes. It's because we want to create this free world.   And so we are taking different strategies.   And I appreciate this discussion because, like I said, our internal conversation is ongoing,   and I can totally see a future   where a different licensing strategy,   becomes very important for us.   But when we decided on the license that we decided today, we took a look   at the actual landscape that we were dealing with, both internally   and externally.  

We evaluated our strengths, our weaknesses. We evaluated the state of the marketplace,   and we decided that at this moment in time,   the protection against the, you know first of all,   makes wonderful points.   The protection against the big bad,   you know, companies that are great at marketing coming in and stealing all your stuff has largely been disproven by many projects.   It has also been proven by many projects that it can happen.   First, you know, I can point to,   everyone will acknowledge that there are many   false projects   out there that are scams,   that are shit, or that go completely, you know, underdeveloped   and just sort of die of obscurity.  

There are also many closed source totally proprietary   pieces of technology that have been built over the years that have advanced humanity, that have been a net positive for everybody.   And   so that alone, the statement alone that the good or evil aspect of this conversation   is not   contained to which license you choose. It's about what you build, who you build it for, how you build it.   And that licensing   is a strategy   towards that. And I am you know,   I and the rest of the start 9 team,   are you know, we lean very far towards the, you know, software should be totally free   side.  

But at this moment in time, to achieve our ends,   we feel that it is more important   to protect ourselves,   in certain ways   than to   garner the benefits   that would come along with blowing the roof off of our licensing.   And,   that could change. Right? So one point that you made, Rizal, was that if they're coming after you, like, if they identify that what you've done is valuable,   then they'll just come in and do it.   I don't know if that applies here. I I agree that in general, that could be a a that is usually a true statement,   But something unique is happening here. Right? So first of all, what we're doing is extremely complex.  

I I don't mean to over speak this, but, like,   we are doing things that have never been done before.   Embassy OS is is not a shell script that installs things, and that statement is in no way meant to diminish anything else.   But it is extremely complex,   for and it is full stack. Right? It's all the way down to hardware and all the way up to application development.   And I would challenge,   some of those companies to catch up with us. I I very much would, and I think that they would have a very hard time of it.   And so I'm less concerned about   them stealing our tech   than I am about them using their marketing power   to steal our   code that's already built, as in we are terrible marketers. Okay? We're not humble. We do not have a good website. We do not have a super sexy, approachable,   modern UI.  

Our stuff is dark. It is simple,   and it, you know, it works, but we're not good at marketing. We acknowledge that. So we felt that it was more important to protect ourselves on the marketing front than the tech front currently.   And,   you know, that could change.   Hopefully, that that will change someday,   and that the licensing strategy will adapt accordingly.  

[01:32:07] Unknown:

Oh, can I just quickly comment on   I mean, that's that's that that is great? And you you continue to mention that, you know, it it can change, and I hope it will change. So, basically,   I I've I've been knowing a lot of people been approaching   software development like this. So when it's ready, we will open source it.   And,   yeah, I understand that you have not not having   the confidence to make it to to focus on marketing for now.   And that is I mean,   yeah, I might I might   misinterpreting   your words, but,   the the point is not that. But what I'm trying trying to   say, and that's partially replying to Taylor as well, that   there is no it's practically impossible   to enforce ownership   on   code which is published.  

And we know   that for this use case,   for Bitcoin, for people exercising their sovereignty,   it must be published.   So there is absolutely no point   putting   a license on it just for the show because it's despite   over, in in   very different from, like, an architect making   a plan   or like an artist, you know, unveiling their art.   It is a unique thing, and that is   that is the point of it, that it is unique and shouldn't be shown unless   someone is, you know, paying for it and that is,   will be hanging on the wall or, you know, will be building up up their house. But this is, you know, code is freely reproducible   and it just live lives by itself. You create it, and it does   its job. And for this reason and this is not Photoshop. This is not, you know,   a a a video editor where you can do unique effects and and there is this kind of creative   thing in it. It's a tool which needs to be working best. And for it to work, you need to be able to verify down to the letter, and, also, you need to be able to modify and distribute it   because that's the nature of   how,   you know, Bitcoin does work, and that's the reassurance of the of the whole network down to the base.  



[01:34:25] Unknown:

Okay. Yeah. I'd I'd like to respond to that too.   So, you know, Bitcoin   using Bitcoin as an example of FOSS and how it works, is is a bit   disingenuous, I think, because Bitcoin has   a totally unique, heretofore   unseen   means of   compensating   those who,   engage with it and participate in it. Right? It has a in it has a currency built in.   And so, you know,   contributing to Bitcoin is adding value to Bitcoin. And if you hold Bitcoin, then you're adding value to yourself. So it has this sort of built in incentive system   that many projects have tried to replicate.  

I shouldn't say that. They haven't actually tried to replicate that. They've they've used that same mechanism to enrich themselves at the expense of those who don't understand what they're doing.   And so we don't wanna do that. Right? Like, so we we we can't be Bitcoin. Right? We could be VOS, but we can't be Bitcoin. We will never get the kind of engagement,   and growth that Bitcoin got because we don't have this built in, economic incentive.   You know, one way that   most,   I would argue open source,   software,   has monetized   has been through hosting.  

Right? So, take something like Bitwarden, which we offer on the embassy, which is a password manager.   Bitwarden   built open source software, very good open source software,   knowing, in part, that nobody would self host it,   because nobody uses the command line to install self hosted software and host it, you know, and sets up port forwarding and static IPs and all of that. People don't do that. Right? By people, I mean 99.9%   of the population.   So they knew that they had a viable business even with the source code being open because they would charge people for hosting. And they've had a lot of success with that.   That's almost laughably,   oxymoronic profiles. Right? Like, we cannot   sell a product that is intended to   augment self hosting while offering hosting services. Like, it it's not only   hypocritical, it's impossible. Like, we couldn't do it. It it would just be a laughable thing.  

So, like, our ability to monetize   is very limited. Right? And so currently, our business model is to   sell the hardware device at a very reasonable markup.   We have other ideas,   that we think are very viable of how to make money in the future,   but   none of them   are   imply a trust in us. Right? Like, we we as a principle, we are building everything such that,   it is decentralized and trustless. And so the only way that we will ever be able to monetize within that type of paradigm   is to, sell 2 things.   One is support, which has been a tried and true means of monetization,   though not super lucrative, I would argue, except with maybe the exception of Red Hat and a few others that are probably not aware of.  

But, you know, we certainly don't intend to make a boatload of money off support or even fund a large team off of something like that.   But more and more, we have recognized that the only real way to make money in the decentralized   future   without building in your own,   gas shit coin, and therefore, destroying the project from the outset   is to sell convenience. Right? Ultimately, you are selling   convenience   and community. Right? You're making   the entire   experience   of using your software and using your product   as convenient as possible.  

So for us, for example, selling a physical embassy   is not necessary. People can go buy the hardware at the hardware store and do it all themselves,   but we think most people are too lazy to do that, and so we'll buy the device from us. And we intend to sort of reapply that basic insight over and over and over again.   Maybe I'm getting a little bit off topic here, so just to bring it back to licensing, it's that,   you know, we viewed our unique situation   as   that we don't have a ton of ways to monetize,   and that we need   to protect   the essential value proposition that we are making to the world, which is our advanced   code and technology. So we are protecting that while also not breaking the principle   of decentralization   and trustlessness.  

Okay? Like,   you know, if we all if we all get hit by a bus if we all get hit by a bus tomorrow,   then the project is dead,   because of our licensing in part. So that is a gamble that we are making currently   and that I don't feel comfortable  

[01:39:27] Unknown:

So that's That's that's the way to to monetize is to continue to provide what you are providing.   The support is one thing, but also the continuous development and the, you know, additional services you can,   find out on top, like, you know, Bitwarden. That's a very good example.   You can do a lot of things like, you know, you can you can openly   make people,   pay for backup a backup solution, for example, or, you know, to provide them a domain, an IP address,   or, you know, anything else which comes to your mind, and it's it's infinite possibilities in that.  

[01:40:08] Unknown:

Pay pay for service.   Look. Your we we agree. We agree. Your your arguments are, not lost on us. We know. And like I said, this is a conversation. And, you know, there may come a day when there's enough convincing on one side that, hey, you know, we will have more success. And by success, I mean, like I said earlier,   reaching   our goal of building a better future.   Now   we recognize 2 things that are inherent in that statement. One, is that to get there, we're gonna need a lot of resources. Okay? You don't get to do what we're trying to do without   resources.  

And 2, we are   just people, and we would like to live   good, happy lives. Like, I want to be rich. Right? That is not something I am in any way ashamed to say. I would never trade   that for my integrity or for, you know, adding value real value to the world. Like, I would never sell somebody a pile of shit and say it's gold.   But if I'm selling gold, I want to put that money in my   pocket and then reinvest it into the future I want to build. So we are here to make money   for the right reasons. At least, I can only say that for myself, I suppose. But   there's been a couple comments in the side that I should address.  

I used the word lazy, and I think that has triggered a few people.   Let's back off of the word lazy and and just   observe the fact   that 99%   of people in this world   will not go assemble hardware from the hardware store,   flash software from the Internet,   and run it.   Our   hypothesis   is that people will,   buy a plug and play device that affords self hosting,   so long as the experience   is reminiscent   of their current computing experience. Right? Like, plugging in an embassy,   browsing the marketplace for services,   installing them, running them, visiting the websites that they are hosted on is extremely familiar even to highly untechnical people. So we don't think   that we are creating a barrier to entry in the   UX of our product.  

But we recognize that it is a barrier to entry   if you are expecting people to, 1,   touch the command line at all,   you have lost a massive portion of the market.   And if you're expecting them to ever use Nano or BIM and not a graphical config system with validations,   you've also lost a massive portion of the market.  

[01:42:52] Unknown:

I mean Yeah. Sure. But, like,   first off,   Matt, don't get don't let the troll box,   trigger you. They're gonna get triggered with something. Don't don't let them, don't let them trigger you just because you said lazy. I mean, the fact is, like, it's true. I think every group here   offers some sort of, like, prebuilt option.   Right? So, like, it's a reality. People a lot there are a lot of people who either don't have the time. Like, their time is more valuable   than buying the hardware separately and putting it on there and flashing and doing all their stuff. Even if they know command line,   they they might just like their time might be more valuable, and they want to just plug in a device and it be everything that they want,   and then they can go.  

So that's really not even,   like that it's not like a a controversial statement.   Them   getting all butthurt about saying the word lazy   is absurd.   So as a person that gets trolled every time I do any of these things,   don't don't let it bother you. And, also, don't, like, feel like we're attacking you in particular. You guys took your time to, like, make the thing. I think the biggest issue that I have and why I,   you know, I reached out because I wanted this debate   I wanted this to not debate.   This conversation. Right? Because   I don't wanna see Bitcoin lose its core fundamentals.  

The core fundamentals was get the tool like, the way that I see it, right, it's about get Bitcoin was about getting heart, like, good,   peer to peer digital cash to the world. Right? And you don't do that through,   through closed sourced anything.   And so ever there was never leading up until I mean, like, in the last couple years,   you were either false. Like, if you were developing in the Bitcoin space, it was false or nothing.   So,   and I'm starting to see a trend off of that. I'm not saying it's your fault. I'm not saying it's, you know, my node or   Umbrel.  

It's it's a trend that I see. Right? And it and I don't wanna see that. I I personally don't wanna see that because, you know, this is I see it as a final stand. Right? Because what why do why does anybody   why like like, one of the things that I took away that was kinda skated around is   you close source yourself to protect your intellectual your intellectual property.   Right? Or you close it off or you make it more restrictive, whatever, however you wanna frame it. You make it work more restrictive because VCs and in in order for you to get a good team, to have a business model, and to go forth, and to do the great things that we wanna do, you need to have VCs   to get the funding, and VCs are not don't wanna invest in something   that isn't proprietary of some sort. Right? That that you don't have the intellectual property that someone can just fork it. You know what? Like, that's the battle that we've chosen as people who are trying to develop in the Bitcoin world. We made a choice.  

And the choice that we made was to get in and to deliver tools   to make people more sovereign. Like, as node as node like,   you know,   installer group. I don't even know what we call ourselves.   But,   you know, like, that's that's, like, the realm that we went. You know? I even give less I I my mindset's changed on, like, your guys' license and what you guys have done a lot because of what you've said and that you guys your original thought wasn't like, we're Bitcoin node first and all these other things. It was like, we wanna host sovereign apps. And so that's a different perspective.   But, like, for me, it's,   you know, I I made the   I made the initial intent of I wanna help bring, you know, for Ronan in particular. Like, I wanted to bring Dojo to as many people as possible because I believe in the project. I believe in Bitcoin, and I wanted to see   these tools get to as many people as humanly possible. So my business model goes around that. I'll never have you know there will never be a time where people cannot find the free option. You know, if they wanna go and they wanna buy all the stuff themselves and they wanna do it themselves, great. If you wanna buy a plug and play node, a premium one, that's awesome. If you wanna buy   a, you know, a 3 d printed case or whatever, you wanna buy some other things, like, you wanna pay for,   premium support, awesome. Like, we'll like, we will survive. Like, our our goal is not rich is not to get rich, not to do anything, enough to sustain,   and let's keep moving. Let's keep delivering the tools moving forward.  

And so I think it's what everyone's mindset is to to start. I'm not saying it's you, Matt, so don't take, like, what I'm saying is an attack on you personally,   because it's not. It's really like it's that that mindset of, like, why are why are we developing in the space? And if it's to to provide a better future,   like, find a business model that works because the minute that we start closing things off and start making things proprietary,   not to say that you can't protect yourself with particular license, but, like,   you the moment that we start to close everything off, right, is the moment that we start to get captured by VCs and we start to get captured by big corporations and everything else. And that is not   not in my perspective.  

That's not the way that I I vision Bitcoin going. I don't I don't wanna see a future where Bitcoin   is captured by VCs and mega corporations and everything else because that's what we accepted just to to because the initial goal was to get something,   you know, better for the world. And then next thing you know, you're captured. You know? So   that's just my personal personal take, but I know that we wanted to talk about something next. Well, just just  

[01:48:30] Unknown:

one   one point. I  

[01:48:33] Unknown:

triggered everyone. Alright. Alright.  

[01:48:36] Unknown:

Now just Zeko, I I I would just like to add one one little thing. I I don't agree with you about the VCs. The VCs have been financing open source and free open source projects for 30 years, and they know what it is. They know how it works, and they know very well how to do that. So I don't think having a false license is a is a limitation for any project to be financed by VCs.  

[01:49:01] Unknown:

Right. You just need to have you need to have a business model to be financed by VCs or anyone who knows how to make an investment for that matter. Right? It doesn't need to be VCs. But people wanna return. Otherwise, why don't they make an investment? Otherwise, it's a it's, a donation,   which are fine. Oh, and by the way, I just wanted to say this because it's kinda a neat little thing that we're doing.   In the next version of Embassy OS,   there will be a donation section of each service that we offer, such that whoever developed it can add a link, using BDC Pay or Lightning.   And so users of Embassy will be able to donate directly to the the projects that they like. Nothing to do with what we're doing here. We're just really excited about   helping to finance the projects that are, you know, populating our platform.  



[01:49:45] Unknown:

So just to to clear up, Kito,   we're we're in agreement then  

[01:49:50] Unknown:

that if you don't have a business model, you're you're kinda screwed either way. Correct? I mean, that was, like,  

[01:49:56] Unknown:

the whole point was that you need to The Silicon Valley definition of a start up is a company who doesn't have business model. So most VCs finance companies without a business model.  

[01:50:06] Unknown:

Right. And VCs I mean, yeah, you need to, obviously, you need to have a business model. But,   I see this   may maybe it's just what I see. Right? Like, I see more   big VC like, big seed money,   and then following it   is   a different license. That's just maybe a trend that I'm seeing. Maybe it's just totally   not a trend, and I'm just saying what I wanna see. But,  

[01:50:34] Unknown:

you know, I don't know. It could just be in a hole. I don't know. Well, I I I could cite a very close example to me. The guys from HAProxy are mostly  

[01:50:41] Unknown:

Paris based, and I know them very well. The GPOV   2, and they are heavily VC VC,   founded. So   yeah.  

[01:50:52] Unknown:

Yeah. I mean, I'm not saying that's not possible. But,  

[01:50:56] Unknown:

if you have a good product, I mean,   VCs will will come to you.  

[01:51:02] Unknown:

Yes. I mean, for sure.  

[01:51:05] Unknown:

I'm I'm loving this conversation. I know I know Taylor has has something he wants to say here. Let Taylor jump in. Oh, yes. So I just wanted to make 2 quick points. Sorry, Matt. I I didn't even hear you say the word lazy. I don't know. I was responding to something in the chat if you saw what I had said there. But, like, I I mean, I think it's a   really good perspective. I've seen so many people email me and   say, like, I really want to be running   a my new device in my case. I'm sure other people have seen this too, but it's people that come and say, like, thank you so much for creating something that has given me the ability to feel like I'm participating   in all of this amazing   development that's going on in the Bitcoin world, and they   they it's not about time, it's that, like, they they don't have the skills, they have expertise in other areas,   but they still want to be involved and feel like they're, you know, opening channels and participating in the Lightning Network or using   the Bitcoin privacy tools and things like that, and it's just really awesome to see and,   that's exactly why I started my note. It wasn't necessarily to make money, I   wanted it to be sustainable so that it could make enough to, you know, fund my time and mostly, you know, keep me accountable   to the people that have purchased the project. Right? Like,   when someone purchases something, it's, like, it's not about the money, it's about, like, I feel like I owe them something now, and I have to deliver the best experience possible to that person because they've now trusted me with their hard earned money to go buy this product, and I want to continue,   like, supporting it and making them, like, as happy as possible and giving them as much, flexibility and power as possible to sort of,   self host apps, although my focus has been only on the Bitcoin related apps in the past.  

But then, Zelco, to a point that you said, I thought it was interesting.   You said you wanted   to get Ronin Dojo out there to as many people as possible,   And I agree with that. I think we all want that. That's our goal. But I also don't necessarily know if,   like, that is the most optimal way. And I this is based on my experience over the past couple years. Like, being open source only,   and not that I'm fully FOSS according to, like, the the definition of it, but by being a project, especially a small one, I think there are challenges, like Matt was saying, with with marketing. Right? Like, I'm terrible at marketing. I'll admit that now. Like, I wish I was better at it. I wish I was way better at it. But,   I I and that's why I think, like, sometimes getting VC funding is actually gonna get you   much more exposure because you're now gonna have a marketing budget and be able to hire people that are good at that kind of thing and get vastly more exposure   than just relying on sort of word-of-mouth community type engagement. So while I agree with you that I want my note in front of as many people as possible,   I also don't think I've looking back, I don't think I've taken an optimal approach to that. I think I mean, probably what Umbrell did was the optimal approach to getting it in front of as many people as possible. Don't focus on, like, flexibility exactly. Focus on UI and marketing budgets and, you know, it  

[01:54:08] Unknown:

it seems like I'll just I'll just disagree. I mean, like, I I see what your point is, but I'm gonna I would just disagree with that whole,   take away all the user choice and make everything   as simple stupid as possible.   I mean, there's, like, to an extent that should be a thing. But, I mean, if you're running your own node, doing quotations,   but you can't control anything,   what like, what's the point? You know, like, if I can't configure things because they took away all those options because they wanted to streamline and make it easier. If I can't add Tor Bridges,   right, without, you know, some sort of security   security measure,   right,   then what like, what's the point? Like, if I can't actually utilize my node the way that it want the way that I wanna run it, I'm not running a node. Like Oh, 3%. Sorry. I'm fine. I'm fine. I know that you agree with me. I know. I'm I'm just, like, more speaking out on it. Like,   I I 100% disagree with the fact that, like, how that their approach is, like,   they're trying to appeal to these no coiners.  

And, like, okay. Cool.   But you're not your approach isn't going to to last. Like, I'm sure that my notice have plenty of people,   you know, refugee over. I know we're getting a lot of refugees over, and it's because that that simple approach doesn't work. It's not it's it's not effective.   Right? And   people people want to be able to do what they want to do with their node. So I I like their whole approach,   like, yeah, you can have all the good marketing, but if your tech sucks, then, you know, you're just gonna be right back in the beginning.   And from the reverse side, right, like, if we have good tech, whether that's, like, anyone here, I think everyone has really good software.  

At the end of the   day, right, if you don't run good tech,   it you could have the best marketing in the world. And what's the point? Right? Like, you're not going to get the people that you need. You just have something that looks good. But at the end of the day, you have a really   nice smelling piece of shit. You know? So  

[01:56:11] Unknown:

I just not to cut you off, Selka. I mean, first of all, guys, I appreciate it, all of you, for being here. I think this is the best dispatch discussion we've had so far. I mean, the freaks might have noticed that I'm just sitting back and enjoying my beverage.   This is what dispatch is about, so I appreciate you guys and appreciate this discussion.   I think this is a great push off point, on Zelko's last comment.   You know, dispatch is   was kind of reactionary.   The creation of dispatch was reactionary against, like, these, like,   Bitcoin philosopher podcasts,   where there was, like, no actionable discussion at all whatsoever.  

And an actionable aspect of what Zelco just discussed there   is a scenario where there's a Bitcoin fork, specifically a contentious fork.   And I would like some discussion here in terms of I mean, we can use Taproot an example. I think it's less contentious.   But how these node projects, how your implementations   are going to handle a situation,   where the user, you know   like, how how do you handle a situation where the user needs to decide what they're gonna run? Do you decide for them? Is your license permissive enough that they get to decide for themselves?   Is that a security issue for Bitcoin going forward, if if the user does not have a choice?  



[01:57:34] Unknown:

I just would like to to say that, as we had, you know, custom scripts   done by people and also distributed,   and, and, obviously, everyone should re read those. But,   similar to as an alternative,   parallel,   Bitcoin core implementation has appeared when there was a question about if how to activate,   Taproot.   The same way with a free open source,   obviously, similarly licensed   to Bitcoin project.   Anytime   a 4 can appear, which can just does whatever those group of users wants to have.   And that's that's a solution because it will,   you know, leap forward, which is more wanted, and then, obviously, everyone can just move towards this.  



[01:58:34] Unknown:

Yes. So I'm curious to hear, like,   like, keto. Like, what's your thoughts on,   how you would   how you'd handle that,  

[01:58:45] Unknown:

that scenario. Say it well, I I don't think Taproot's a good example like Matt was saying.   Maybe there there's a potential hard fork.   Maybe b cash   v 3 or something or v 8. I don't know what number we're on, but say something, and,  

[01:59:01] Unknown:

there's a contentious split.   You know,   moving forward.   What's your what's your thoughts? What's your actions look like?  

[01:59:11] Unknown:

Yeah. Well well, I guess if if there is   a fork of Bitcoin Core tomorrow,   we will definitely   let our users choose which one they want to go with.   That being said, it didn't happen yet, so it's hard to know what what what we're actually doing in such a situation.   For the   in in case if the   if the tap root activation,   lock in didn't happen   last week. We'll probably   offer the   the option to run the fork of Bitcoin call that,   allows for the user soft fork.   But, yeah,   it's it's really hard to to know, like,   what we would do if,   since this situation didn't happen before.  



[02:00:08] Unknown:

Yeah. From from my side, I can say, of course, the Respiblitz being the MIT license,   everybody if if we don't offer her a solution or the alternative,   anybody can just fork it, put it out there, and people can just up their speed update their USB blitzes to those fork kind of, release there. So that's that's the fall fallback, and that's the freedom for everybody to do. And I think at the moment, we are at a point where every project out there will say we will provide every option to the user.   And that's why we are I think we we are still early, and and and nobody wants to to scare off the community.   But we have to play through the scenario when,   what what what can happen so that the node project doesn't offer you something,   and and then you're in a locked locked in situation.  

Is How feasible is this situation?   And we were talking about   startups,   node projects being startups. What is fair in the beginning?   But but I have to say, I'm ahead of US start up, and and I made the I made the experience, like, having programs on a on a on a software   that really owned and I cofounded the company and and stuff. And in the end, I was not that clever to be kicked out of the company.   Now every founder say, oh, we have 51%, whatever. But there are tricks or whatever.   Investors play this game longer than you, and they know exactly how to get control in a company.   So,   yeah. And in the end, you sit there, and you lost your code. And now this code is owned by somebody else. It's not longer your thing. It's no longer your baby. That's a hard feeling. So that's some for some people to consider if they, as an attack vector on on a full node project,   just because when you have a prop proprietary license that is not free and open source and and you have an investor, this is a scenario you have to think of. And there's a lot of banks out there that have a lot of money to invest into start ups, and in the end, they will love you and say, yeah. Sure. You have all the freedoms. But, yeah, there is a control creeping in vector there, so you have to keep that in mind. And then you have have a have a situation   where you have a node that is targeted to newbies that are not very technically keen. You give them an easy system to use. That's why they're all there and using and a lot of people are using your system.  

And then this come then a critical 4 comes that it's important to the direction where Bitcoin goes. Privacy or or something else. And and then this   your start up with this bank control creep in creep in maybe says, no. We will not do this.   And what choice do we have? So what choice do users have?   And, so so you have to keep those kind of, scenarios in mind. I know they are theoretical a little bit because we're in a very early phase where this thing is not not a not imminent threat.   But we want to set the roads here into the right direction. So, this is definitely something I just wanna let everybody know that having a start up with some restrictive license   just maybe not your maybe not be your start up in the future.  

You never know. So so keep that in mind, and and the freedom to fork is really something that's very, very important,   for for a project. So if there's a free and open source license, somebody else can always come in and say, I I I give you an alternative.   And I just wanna quickly address because Taylor was was talking about this business source license,   which is this idea of, oh, it will become open source after a certain time. I think this is a good idea for some projects out there,   that not that time critical,   but especially for Bitcoin. So imagine you have a business source license that says, oh, here's our full node project. And after 2 years,   this it will be it will be, open source. So no problem. So, but here comes the point. There comes a fork now, and you have   We we lost little bit in a lock   you lost me? I'm back. Yeah. You're broken up. Okay. Sorry for that. I tried my Internet connection here.  

And now you have this this, this fork situation, and now users have just a choice to use a 2 years old fork, and this might not become   you cannot update to this fork anymore because so so many things change. And I think even Umbrel did not exist, I think, maybe 2 years ago. So So this is really,   in 2 years or something, a lot of stuff   can change.   And   if you make it very short, like, oh, it's just 2 months or something, then why do it at all? So this is a little bit of questions I would like to inspire discussion now. How do you find the right balance there, and what are maybe really the dangers of running a full node that is not complete? I'd like to I'd like to jump in and comment on the Bitcoin, you know, soft and hard fork scenarios and cause we've we've put a lot of thought into that. And then, sure, we could, I think, turn up the conversation a little if you'd like, Matt. But,  

[02:05:00] Unknown:

so we designed,   Embassy OS   with the principle of, you know, your computer, your software. Right? Like, that's the whole problem with the computing paradigm today is that you're not using your own software. Right? Your phone and your laptop are just remote controls for somebody else's server and software. So, we, you know, have basic principles in the Embassy operating system of no forced updates. Right? So first of all, you install Embassy OS and it comes with nothing. It's a blank operating system, and you choose from the get go what you want to install.   And because of that   architecture,   and because of the openness of our marketplace, which is about to become more apparent in the next release, but it is essentially open,   Anyone   in the world can package,   a service for Embassy OS and make it available   on a marketplace.  

Now we have our marketplace. Right? And we want it to be super clean, and we're not gonna allow malware on there. We're only gonna put things on our marketplace that we think people in the world want to use and that are safe to use. And, obviously, we can't read every line of every code,   written by every project that become that enters our marketplace,   but we can rely on the openness of those projects on the on the fact that they've been around for a while, you know, on the trustedness, and then provide the proper warnings to our users   when they go to install a given project. Like, hey. Make sure that you, yourself, trust this project. Like, you know, you can validate the signature that it is what you think it is, but you're still sort of installing the software at your own risk.  

And because of the openness of the marketplace, there is absolutely nothing that prohibits multiple Bitcoin implementations from existing side by side on the marketplace.   Now this almost came about in reality a few weeks ago,   with the alternative Taproot,   implementation.   And, you know, we had some people coming into our channel being like, hey. I wanna run this thing. Can I?   And we were like, look. If there is demand for this, we ourselves will package it up, put it onto our marketplace,   apply the appropriate   warnings and caveats, and, like, hey. If you download this, here's what you're doing. Here's the potential pitfalls,   etcetera, etcetera.  

But say, like, we didn't do that. Say, like, there was   a client that somebody really wanted to use, and we as a team decided that it was BS and we don't wanna do it. Anyone on earth could go package that client up as, s nine p k, which is the format that the embassy requires it to be in, and submit it and say, hey. Start 9, will you put this on your marketplace? And we could then say, no. We don't want that crap in our marketplace. We already said that.   They could then spin up their own marketplace since that is an open, protocol,   and we have published the protocol spec for that, and users could actually   switch to their marketplace. So in Embassy, you can choose the marketplace that you want to shop at. So for whatever reason, we're not offering the service that you want,   one of our competitors   can. And so we in no way control the future of   the software that can be run, on Embassy. So, alternative Bitcoin clients are totally up to the users   and the, packagers,   and the producers of those services.  

We just hope to provide the most   clear   and safe experience that we can   to our users, which eventually, you know, if they're gonna go to an alternative marketplace,   we're basically gonna say, you know, good luck. You know, you're you're on your own, but it's your computer. Do whatever the hell you want with it.   Likewise. Back.  

[02:08:42] Unknown:

So, yeah, I think that's a a great goal. How so one problem I've had with that on the technical side, like, philosophically, that's fantastic.   But, like, on the technical side, it it just has seemed from my perspective trying to, you know, maintain things that if I wanted to easily   support a different Lightning or Bitcoin implementation or whatever, like, they often have different well, more on the Lightning side, I guess, but they have different, like, RPCs, and so it's not like a user could continue running all of the apps that they've been running if they just said, okay. I wanna swap out my light lightning implementation.  

[02:09:15] Unknown:

Right. It won't work and just, like,  

[02:09:17] Unknown:

totally plug and play kinda thing. But but it will. Right? Embassy OS is designed to accommodate that. So we have a completely generalized,   highly sophisticated dependency management system built into the operating system. So, for example,   I could come in today, a and a user of an Embassy today could download Embassy or, you know, plug in their Embassy   and install Sphinx chat   by itself. They have nothing else on the machine except Sphinx. Embassy would immediately go into a dependency, you know, error situation   and provide   one you know, put a blindfold on button clicks   to solve the dependency issue, which would be obviously to install LND   and then obviously to install Bitcoin. But then it's like, oh, Bitcoin's not synced. So there will be a different issue that displays that says, well, Sphinx isn't happy because LND isn't happy because Bitcoin isn't synced yet. So you need to wait until Bitcoin is synced. And all of this is presented to the user in graphical format, and it extends even to configurations.  

For example, let's say you wanted to install   a service   that required that a specific RPC   call be enabled in Bitcoin Core, as in it requires a certain version of Bitcoin Core or even a particular configuration of Bitcoin Core. So bitcoins.com   file is massive. Right?   And lnd is only gonna be happy if certain,   you know, configurations   are, you know, an expected way.   In the world today, that is a dotcom file, that is a, you know, looking online, that is reading readme's, and then getting it to work. With the OS that we've built,   lnd will actually tell you. It's like, hey. Bitcoin is not configured in the way that I need it to be configured. Would you like me to configure it for you? And then you click yes and then it configures it and then it restarts everything and it all just works. So what I'm saying is that even if somebody were to put some crazy piece of software on the marketplace,   it would still have to abide by this system. Now could they could they   be malicious?  

Could they put something on the marketplace that says, hey. I need c lightning when it actually needs lnd?   Sure. But it won't be on our marketplace because we will be vetting the things that get onto our marketplace in order to provide this seamless experience.   So back to the fork issue,   if there's a fork of Bitcoin Core   that everyone wants to run   and we, as a team, for whatever reason, have decided that we're not gonna put it on our marketplace because we think it's fucking malware or something like that. But But somebody else in the world goes, you know what? I'll do it. Hey, Embassy users worldwide,   visit my marketplace and you can get the thing.  

They are trusting that person,   right, not only to deliver the client   that they're claiming to deliver with signature validation,   but also that it has been packaged   properly   such that Embassy OS can do its job. Right? It's like packaging an app for the App Store, Play Store. It's like So you basically reinvented  

[02:12:17] Unknown:

the packages   which exist for 30 years.  

[02:12:21] Unknown:

Reinvented the packages?   Yeah. Like any Linux distribution handles dependencies and packages and all of what you just said. Yes. Such that they can be presented to a totally nontechnical user through a graphical operating system. That's literally what we do as a company. So we Okay. That's called Ubuntu.   No. No. No.   No. It's it's all command line all over the place.  

[02:12:46] Unknown:

Maybe maybe last last ask me a question that comes back a little bit to this forecast situation.   You you say that, the it's a marketplace and somebody you can just switch to another marketplace, but, again, you always told on your marketplace, you maybe,   shoe stuff. How do we make sure that the software   never there's a hostile takeover of your company, and you don't have a say anymore in in what's what's really getting into production. And somebody says, no. We will block certain marketplaces,   because we don't think that we want to protect the user or something. Yeah. Something like that. Normally, it comes some under some marketing pretense or so.   So how will I make sure, as a Embassy user, that you, as a company,   never censor,   a marketplace?  



[02:13:31] Unknown:

Well, we're openly admitting that we're gonna censor our marketplace. Right? I Your marketplace. But, again, how to how to make sensor that I can change to certain marketplaces that you maybe block certain Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you're saying that okay. So somebody spins up an alternative marketplace,   and we, in our source code, say, you're not gonna be able to visit this marketplace. We prevent it from happening. And because our source code is not FOSS, there's nothing you can do about it. Yeah. I agree with your assessment. And if that day ever comes and we find ourselves in that position, then we will reassess our licensing approach. Right? I  

[02:14:06] Unknown:

I I do not see in a position to to make this call then. So sorry. I just give you a hard time to to to to pound on this because I heard little bit similar ideas from the Umbrel team,   or at least some people surrounding Umbrel since every it's a little bit hard to say.  

[02:14:22] Unknown:

Yep. Wait. Did you just cut out?  

[02:14:25] Unknown:

He definitely cut out. There. Yeah. So, there's always the the question is,   yeah. Sure. You make   make a everybody can install free pages or we have a marketplace where people could can put stuff on there, and you can change maybe even a marketplace. But again, if if the users are not in control of the software, the company could change this in the future.   And and it's very hard then and this is the still the the licensing or the censoring issue. A little bit like Apple. Apple has control over their marketplace because they're closed source. Google instead the Google Play Store is also not very it's not putting everything on there,   and they allow you to install,   APKs.  

That would what's nice, at least.   And they they do this because Google, the Android system is you can find an open source versions of that. So if they would completely close it down, they know they will lose their their people. Apple, again, because they are completely   proprietary, they have to disclose   App Store in the end, and you see a little bit what's what's what's how how we speak with this gets when these big companies at at play there.  

[02:15:27] Unknown:

We couldn't agree more. Right? Like, the we the the team at Start 9 has the exact same thoughts that you do. It's just not a problem right now. Right? So we   have so many problems to solve from a technological perspective, from a marketing perspective, from a business perspective, from an hiring perspective.   Like, we are building  

[02:15:46] Unknown:

we're trying to build a business here, and I don't mean to diminish what we're trying to do by calling it a business. And I'm sorry I'm sorry to cut you off, buddy, but you're trying to build a business. Right? But you don't need to build a business that you're going to be restricting your users   and re distributing your software   to make it their own. I mean, what's the problem with finished. Let me let me finish. That's okay. What's the problem with having an open source, you know, license that allows people to fork your software without any liability?  

[02:16:16] Unknown:

Okay. So listen. You missed the licensing discussion. Okay? So please relisten to it because I answered that question an hour ago. So,   however, I will sort of somewhat readdress here. But what you're saying,   we agree with, recognize,   and are,   addressing in real time. Okay? This is a war. What's happening right now on planet Earth is a war, and the battles are happening on so many different fronts. And we have chosen a particular place to position ourselves in this war. And our license is one piece of many   as our overall strategy towards producing,   towards winning. Okay? And I think everyone here would define winning the same. That's why we're on this call. I don't think there's any disagreement here in the world that we are trying to produce.  

We   are trying to produce that world through the mechanism   of a business. Right? And, again, like I was about to say,  

[02:17:16] Unknown:

I don't mean to Okay. Okay. You're saying we're you're fighting we're fighting a war. Right? But you're holding the you're holding the weapons, and you're not sharing those weapons with your user. I mean, how are you gonna win the war if you're the only ones holding the power? If you're not letting your users   innovate on your software if they wanted to Again, hold on. And and distribute it. I mean, that's my only problem is we need to allow everyone in the community because the community is what makes us strong.   Community is strong together. All of us are together strong, and we allow everyone   to freely distribute, modify, and share any software that we make. We can make money, guys. We can make money. We can make money by support service. If you can make money selling products, you know, Raspberry PIs,   you know, branded products. But we you know, I don't believe that we should be holding any software   that people cannot contribute to, then they cannot redistribute on their own. Imagine if the Linux kernel was like that where you couldn't   redistribute it on your own. That's why you can't get any closed source software inside the Linux mainstream kernel because they will not allow it. The license does not allow that.  

Sorry. I'm full of states right now, and I'm a little drunk. So keep going. And, you know, if I hurt your feelings, I am sorry. Not sorry.  

[02:18:31] Unknown:

Dude, I got thick, thick skin. But listen, I have now twice tried to make a point and got inter interrupt   interrupted at exactly the same moment. Okay? So   both times when I've said we are building a business had is when you have jumped in. Because, clearly, building a business is something that you are have associated with   antithetical   to accomplishing the ends that we are all trying to achieve.   We do not believe   that business as such, building a business, is antithetical to freedom. Okay? We are essentially   I'm not gonna say we. I'm a capitalist. Okay? But I believe I I I use that word in the full meaning of free enterprise.  

Okay? So we are doing something totally free. We are not free as in fosse, but we are building   what we want to build, what we, as a group, have decided we're passionate about building, and we are building it for all the right reasons. Right? What we are building, what we have built, and what we will build are going to help in this fight in a massive way. Right? We've already demonstrated this. Many people who are using the embassy today have already come in and said, this is unbelievable.   Right? Just like,   I'm sorry, Taylor was talking about earlier. The feedback from the from the community, from our customers has been the this the fire that has kept us going. We're not making a lot of money. Are you kidding? We sell a Raspberry Pi in a box around the world. Like, this is we're not talking about, you know, Apple here. We're talking about paying the bills. We're talking about being able to keep the wheels turning while we fight for the future we're trying to build. And there are multiple ways to do that. You can do that by building a business, or you can do that by accepting donations. And if you're building a business, there's a 100 different ways that you can monetize.  

And so we have approached this holistically,   rationally, and with great intent,   to accomplish   our goals of upending, destroying the centralized, trusted, custodial, surveillance, bullshit computing model that dominates Earth today. The fact that we have chosen to fight that fight as a business, and you or others may have chosen to fight that fight as a a foundation that accepts donations, We're all fighting for the same future here. And I understand that your opinion is that some of our strategic choices,   especially around licensing,   are going to come back and bite us. But what I'm saying is that we are very aware of the choices that we have made and that we are open minded, not as in if you convince us, we will do it, but we are extremely agile. If the day ever comes   when it is to our and the world's as we see it benefit   for us to change our license, we will change our license. But as it exists today,   today,   we believe that our license   affords us the best opportunity   to contribute to the fight.  

We really believe that. And if if any of you want to sidebar this afterwards and say, hey, Matt. Here's   if you change your license to GPL,   here's why it's gonna make you better   today,   then we'll do it. But we haven't heard that argument. Every argument that we've heard is always about the future. It's always about the distant future. It's like, look. If you don't change your license right now, here's what's gonna eventually   happen to you. And I'm saying there's a lot of time between now and eventually.  

[02:21:58] Unknown:

Yeah. I mean,   first of all, I I like again, I feel kinda bad.   Not not because, like, we're we're shitting on you, but,   just because, like, I think you're you're standing up there kind of alone afraid,   on this   on this, you know,   not false license, and that's a I'll say this. I at least applaud your your ability to, like,   back your you've, like, obviously thought about this a lot to the point where you can back it up. So that's what I'll say to that.   I think that,   I think as a whole like, as long as you I just don't wanna be able to get, like, super butthurt while we're in the conversation,   because I I think as people get heated, I don't think it's a good,   a good way to articulate your feelings. But,   I I do   I do want thoughts on a couple things.  

He said,   I don't know. He said code is code equals free speech. Kito, you wanna take it from there?  

[02:23:05] Unknown:

Yeah. Just a quick reminder. If if code was not considered as free speech, we wouldn't have PGP in Europe 30 years ago.   Basically, what what they did, Paul Zimmerman did is print out the code of PGP and send it with a physical person on an airplane   to Europe because it was illegal to export cryptography from United States as code, so he spotted it as free speech.   And I think this is basically where   cryptography   and and open source cryptography comes from.   In   98, 99, I was wearing a DCSS   T shirt with DVD encryption keys in the street just because   it meant fuck you,   proprietary code, and,   open source is the way to go, and I I still believe in that.  

And, yeah, I I mean,   if   closing your source code is the only business model you have, you should really reconsider the way you do your business.  

[02:24:18] Unknown:

I mean,   yeah, I I would say, I've I've seen some good comments in here,   that, you know,   I think it's really easy. I think I think this is where people's, like, fear, right, and paranoia come in, Matt.   When,   I mean, Bitcoin and   cryptography   and privacy and all those things, right, I mean, most of those things, like, are not about the here and now. I mean, even running the sovereign apps. Right? Like, if I run Bitwarden   on their server,   like, nothing has happened. They've had haven't had any leaks yet today. Right? But what do we wanna preach to people? Right? Run that software yourself. Right? Because what if it does get leaked? Right? Like, all of our models I mean, like, particularly anything with where you're running something sovereign. Right?   I wouldn't say every model that's here because I think just running a core node is different. But,   when you're talking about, like, hey. Like, do this because one day, if this happens, you're screwed. Right? So,   when that paranoia sets in,   right, that's, like, where that I mean, it's a good mindset to have. It's a good thing to be in that mindset. Right? But   you gotta understand where all these people are sitting here going,   well, you said that your license works now, but in the future, we're gonna change it. And, like, I'm sure that if we had Umbrella appear, they would probably be saying the same thing. Right? Because it's a lot easier to,   to appeal to, like, everybody. I mean, like, yeah. No. We'll totally change it one day. And, like, it's like, unless there's, like, some sort of, like, part new license, like, I think,   was talking about with,   where hey. And for, like, the and the ops like, the business model. Right? Like, 4 years,   and the business license. In 4 years, like, we're gonna be open source. Right?  

That's that's basically what you're trying to say that you would do if it worked in your favor.   But a lot of people have been saying, and, I mean, it's a good point, is that,   yeah, it's it's totally easy. Like, once if you got if if Embassy and Star 9 blows up and becomes the next Apple, like, are you really going to, like, be like, oh, yeah. No. We'll totally now that we're really big, we'll totally change our our license. And be like, no. We're like proprietary. We need to protect our stuff now because   we don't want some other, like, competitor to just come in and just take what we have. That would be the mindset. Right? That would be capitalist mindset. And I and I'm a capitalist. I think,   like, just to touch on that really fast, I don't think that anyone here should just be like, hey. I'm just gonna, like, donate my time. And, like, you need something to be able to pay for the time that you put into a project.  

Having some sort of, like, revenue and business model.   Maybe whether it's, like, to take on VCs or whether it's to just support yourself, you need to have some sort of business model because that's otherwise, like, relying on donations is is not sustainable   whatsoever.   But, yeah, I think that's, like, the big question that I've seen probably 7 or 8 times in the chat just kinda sitting here about, like, oh, yeah. Well, in the future, you're gonna change it. But when you have all that power in the future,  

[02:27:24] Unknown:

are you really gonna change it? You know? And I think that's kind of the fear of anything that's closed source. Right. So since that was in large part directing me, I'd like to respond. Yep. I appreciate I appreciate all the comments, and they're valid concerns. Right? So, you know, we   very much   believe in trustlessness.   And so long as we have any control over our code whatsoever,   there is a degree of trust in us. If not today,   then,   you know, tomorrow as in you're not insured against us necessarily.   Right? Like, we could we could choose to become evil, for instance,   as as Google did.  

But, like,   we are one participant in the marketplace too. Right? Like, this is not me. I'm not about to make an argument for why it's okay that we become evil. But what I'm saying is that the arguments being made towards me right now are that if we end up building something amazing and if everyone is using it and if we become evil, then we'll cause damage to the world. So one, there's a few ifs in that in that chain there. But 2,   it it ignores,   the rest of the world. Right? Like,   you   know, we talked earlier about competition   being an essential ingredient to building better software and more open systems and and everything, and I and I agree.  

While we are doing something   complex,   we are not doing something impossible, clearly. Right? Like, I I would bet that many people who are on this call, if so determined to,   could, you know, build a more of a kinda embassy style operating system than a Bitcoin full node. Like, if you wanted to broaden your computing platforms, anyone can do it. And we would look forward to that competition.   We support all the products now, and we will continue to do so even if you come directly at us,   which, you know, maybe maybe will happen, maybe it won't.   But that's what keeps us honest. And, you know, I don't want to trust ourselves either. Right? That's where the licensing comes in. It's like once you release something with an MIT license,   you can't sort of go back and undo it. Right? At the code at that point in time is then free to use by anyone,   on earth.  

And I want that insurance policy for myself. Like, there will come a day when I say, look, there's too much temptation. There's too much   too much attack vectors, whatever.   We need to protect the code. We need to protect the future. We need to think beyond   the business.  

[02:29:57] Unknown:

Excuse me. But this is not true. The whole point of the MIT and BSD licenses is that you can change the license at any time you want.  

[02:30:06] Unknown:

No. What I mean is once once   oh, well no. No. No. What I mean is that   if we release code with an MIT license,   right, then we could fork it and put a proprietary license on it. What I'm saying is that the code that has the MIT license on it can never   be, closed up again. Right?   Like  

[02:30:29] Unknown:

No. It can. It can. It can. It can. That's the whole point. It's a GPL license which is,  

[02:30:35] Unknown:

not allowing the to click on the Not not the MIT license. Like, what has already been released under the MIT? That's what I mean. That's what we're talking about.  

[02:30:42] Unknown:

What was with these? Yes. But you can kind of take the code and develop it further, and your your developments that you from that end on do can be closed. I agree. I agree. That's what I'm saying though is that the code at that snap that snapshot in time  

[02:30:55] Unknown:

can never be closed up again. So, like, if we ever release,   a snapshot of Embassy OS, and this has come up multiple times internally,   where we were like, alright. Well, why don't we just release like,   we go back, like, you know, 4 versions of Embassy OS and just let this sort of trailing,   opens,   faucing of our previous releases. That way,   at no point in time is there not a sort of,   a a a fauc instance of the technology. It's just not the cutting edge. It's just not the tip of the of the spear. That has come up multiple times, and is something that we have considered.  

[02:31:34] Unknown:

So I I it Zelko, it made well, you had a comment earlier that made it sound like everybody was against Matt, but I I don't know. I'll kinda defend him. I I agree with a lot of what he said. I think, you know,   the ability to take the things that you've created and and choose to put your own license on them is definitely a good thing. I don't think,   non false licenses   are inherently bad. I think a lot of net good can come from them. I don't,   necessarily believe that, you know, by   choosing something else, it's necessarily a net negative. And and like Matt said, you know, in a sense,  

[02:32:10] Unknown:

this   is  

[02:32:12] Unknown:

kind of a warring interest out there and and that from a number of different perspectives   is almost decentralized in and of itself, like, by creating companies and by creating, you know, FOSS, fully open source projects,   there's a whole lot of different, like,   vectors we can take to sort of   expand the Bitcoin group of people in the community.   I think a lot of people are comfortable with companies and that could be an avenue for,   you know, getting Bitcoin and obviously it's been happening getting Bitcoin into sort of the VC funded world and a whole lot of other worlds that are within like legacy financial institutions and just sort of continue creeping forward and taking over from that angle, as well as the free open source angle, as well as just the community people   running and installing wallets on their phone that might not even, you know, be running their own note. There are so many angles that you can take to expand,   you   know, individual and, like, taking control of your own finances that I don't necessarily think it's limited to just sort of the FOSS software projects.  



[02:33:16] Unknown:

Yeah. No. I mean, there's definitely   reasons why people would have it. I mean, and I keep saying it, like, sounds like Start9, like, had this, like, super long,   you know, conversation about it. And, I mean, I'm gonna I'm going to appeal to authority and just say that was true, but, like,   because I'm sure it was. But,   like, my my whole thing is why. Like, what like, what's the intent? Why did you decide to, you know, go closed source? And it's or not closed source, but restrictive.   Right? And the majority of time from what I've heard and what I would assume and I've seen from   Umbrell as well is that, oh, well, like, we don't want our competition to get a leg up to, like, come and just be able to take what we got and then just get this jump start. Or, like, we don't want people who took a derivative from my source code and then made it better. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter. It's just competition. Right? Like, at the end of the day, it's competition. Because if someone just forked it and then had the exact same release and then they just kept to you, say that I forked my node and I called it your node. Right? And then every release that you had, I just,   like, I just, took from upstream, and then I pushed the the same release, and I didn't change anything unique. No one is going to go to me. No one is going to go to the exact same product, and then they can go as soon as it gets exposed. Right? Like, maybe I'll get a few suckers that would buy it. Right? But I'm really just scamming people because I've provided nothing new. Right? Nothing whatsoever new. Now the moment that I started developing and providing new things or doing things different and I've had a now I have   a a more unique product, right,   at that point, like, we're different. Right? Like, so the derivatives and the work that, like, I've put in would get paid. And if, like, if that's not something that we can handle, right, something that,   as a as a software developer, if we're like, oh, well, like, I I don't want anybody to ever touch what I'm doing. Right?  

Then, like, you like, you're just not you're too scared about I'm a like, I'm not using you, Taylor, as an example. Just like you're not too you're you're too scared to, like, get,   you know, to have competition. And who cares? Like, who cares? No one's gonna do your code better than you.   No one's going to steal your user base out of nowhere. Like, if you're that worried about a user base, like, that means that you don't you don't you know that you don't give a good enough product, whether it's support, whether it's software, whether it's whatever. If you're worried that someone is just gonna up and leave tomorrow   because, and, like, go to a forked version of you, then you are, like,   sorely mistaken.  

Like, it has nothing to do with that. You, like, your   your customers and your users,   right, are directly  

[02:35:57] Unknown:

reflective of how good your your code is. So they're gonna And I think if you're talking about, like, a fairness level of things, the most fair thing to do in that case would be to respect   intellectual property rights and go into some sort of revenue sharing agreement where the foundation that it was based on   would be would have benefited. And I think my my my   situation in small software situations,  

[02:36:18] Unknown:

it's in, like, global, like, economies. Right? Right. Right. You're talking about, like, Apple, like, for  

[02:36:25] Unknown:

The total, like, removal of intellectual property rights for software development for, you know, designs of buildings, cars, airplanes, you know, architects would be totally on the job. Chemistry Those are, like, totally different things, though. Like, those are, like, not software versus software. So, like, right now, like still, like, it it it is it is ideas   and designs.  

[02:36:44] Unknown:

I get what you're saying. I know. Like, I get the personal like,   your, intellectual property. Like, I I get it. But here here's, like, the difference. Right? Let's say,   like, say that,   Apple or Google decides to take Ronin Dojo and fork it.   Like, I have AGPL, so you know what they need to do. It needs to be AGPL.   So now, yes, is it gonna get bigger? Are people gonna take it? Are they gonna work on it? Are they gonna do all this stuff? Yeah. And that's cool. But guess what? It's still open source, which is something that it would not have been. Yes. Google Dojo. Thank you, moms.   It would have not have been, right, had,   you know, pretend even, like, MIT, they could've closed it up or whether whether or not someone could just take it. Like, think just think about it from that perspective too. And who like, honestly, like, I don't care if someone makes some money off of, like, the base code that I wrote. Right? Like, that's   that's not about it. Like, if you're not able to, like, sustain because like, sustain your work, it's not about fairness. Right? It's about   the the openness and fairness of the and the freedom that your code provides.  



[02:37:52] Unknown:

Yeah. And and so  

[02:37:54] Unknown:

Sorry. No. You're good.  

[02:37:57] Unknown:

So I was gonna say, yeah. And then I think that's fantastic. I think it's great. Everything about that is is awesome, and I but I think it comes back to a person's   choice to how they wanted to implement it and do that in the first place. And that's why me, personally,   I I like I I don't like the license I chose. It was I misunderstood distribution versus, like, production use, but,   I think that   what I was looking for is more of a middle ground where, you know, maybe I have access to do what I want for a year or 2 or something, and then, you know, it goes fully open because I want it be. Like, at some point, if the project ended for whatever reason, not saying it is, I'm absolutely planning on continuing it for as long as possible. But, yeah, or or, I mean, Matt's, like, bus example. Right? Like, if something happens, I don't want the project to totally die. But at the same time, I think, there there's   reasons companies don't want to   cut off certain revenue models. And I think by keeping those revenue models open, you can still do very good things because that allows you to start it it allows you to generate revenue. It allows you to employ people and grow the, like, overall economy and then start getting things like marketing budgets that let you more broadly share   the the products that your company is creating in a way that, you know, some FOSS projects are a little bit more limited in. And all I'm saying is that I think there's different perspectives and it's not necessarily 100% good or 100% bad. And in my case, what I'm looking for most, I think, is sort of some middle ground, which isn't very well defined.  

There's only a handful of licenses out there that even allow it, and that's why I kinda wanna start looking into that more and and see what options are out there to sort of find that middle ground where you don't have to be fully closed source,   but you can   don't have to, like, close off some of the revenue models that,   you might have   some attack vectors sort of against base if you want the fully open source model.   But I'm but, again, again and maybe circling all the way back to,   what what Matt was saying about Taproot and stuff. You know? Things like Bitcoin must be false. Absolutely. 100%. They have to be because,   it it is   part of that project. Like, it to become the decentralized foundation, like, layer for money, it's got to be open. It has to be open. It wouldn't work if it wasn't because then then you would have people that were sort of in control of it, and I I think it's a great reason Satoshi left and a lot of other things have happened,   over the history of Bitcoin that have allowed it to be sort of as decentralized as possible, which gives it a very unique advantage   over, like, every other shitcoin out there that, you know, people it's centralized. They're pre mined. They, like, you know, are dishonest in their marketing. Like, we don't want that, and we don't wanna be part of that.  



[02:40:41] Unknown:

Yeah. No. I mean, I I agree. And I think everybody has, like I said, I think everyone has,   their their reasons.   And that's why, like, I pointed it out. And I said, like, it depends on what your reason is,   and whether you can stand on 2 legs. And, like, that that was the other reason why I wanted to have all of this, knowing that not everybody has an open source license. Because,   you know, I think there there's something to say about having that, like, 1 on 1 or, like, me or, like, you know, Matt Hill sitting there dying on the hill of closed source not closed source, but, you know, restrictive,   license and, you know, being able to stand up and defend it.  

But it's, like, one thing to be on Twitter or, like, what Telegram or wherever you're at, and you're just like, oh, yeah. Well, that's the choice that I made. And then it kinda ends there. Like, having a long form discussion is, like, the only way that people can really understand.   And, you know, for me, like, as far as, like,   you know, I I want the code to live on, and I think, everyone's   everyone's thought process and it says something too about   that if everyone if, like, both both of you, right, who are who've been defending it, defending, the restrictive license have said, well, one day I wanna make it open source.   Right? One day I would love to have it be, like, truly open source and whatever. One day that's gonna come. Right? But, like, that really just it it says that you should do it, but you have these hesitations for whatever reason. And and you've laid out different reasons, and that's fine.  

And I know Matt laid out reasons, and that's fine. But, like, you gotta ask yourself, like,   okay.   Like, can I do this the way that I one day I want to? Right? Because you're gonna be in that same spot in 5 years. You're gonna be right back to where you were with probably   more problems because your business is bigger. And then you're gonna go, well,   I don't know. I don't know if I should go open source. I know I said I would one day, but not today. It's gonna be tomorrow. Like, you know that you want to because you've said it multiple times right now. Whether that's true or not, if you're lying to yourself, that's okay. But, like, hey. You you've you know that, like, the code needs to live on. You know that it it appeals to   the,   the core ethos of Bitcoin   and, like, the decentralized nature of everything.  

Right?   But you have to,   you have to really, like, accept that. Accept that, like, you're,   like, continuing to push it to the future   isn't isn't necessarily going to change anything.   And,   you know, that it's just something to think on. I'm not sitting here saying, like, you know, you're wrong or whatever.   I think everyone has their reasons.   I personally just disagree.   I disagree with the idea of of closing my stuff down because I I don't really care. Like, if my code got forked and more people use it, then that's that's fucking cool, then I can retire happy.   But  

[02:43:36] Unknown:

Just to address some person's questions,   do   any of the speakers believe   any IP should exist at all? I don't believe any IP should exist at all. I I think it's a construct like like said in the chart. Good. Good. Good. And and it should should not exist.   It's just totally stupid.  

[02:44:00] Unknown:

Communist. Yep. May maybe to to add that. I think something like trademarks is okay.   At least it's a compromise that I can see value in. For example,   Linux, as far as I tried to read up on the history. In the beginning, Linux was saying, yeah. It's just okay. But then were people trying to   give false attention under that name to to so so there was even then the Linux Foundation taking this trademark,   and this is Linux is a trademark.   They make even money to some certain degree,   at least to have some trademarking. But the code itself to have   property,   IP,   intellectual property on code and stuff, yeah, that's also a very sketchy thing.  



[02:44:43] Unknown:

So, guys, I mean, this has been a great conversation so far. Before we wrap up, I mean, do we wanna talk about hardware trade offs at all? I think that's a pretty important aspect of,   how users decide, you know, which nodes they wanna run as well.  

[02:45:00] Unknown:

Yeah. But I have one topic maybe because we have everybody in the room that's Hit us. To, the the question about migration between nodes. So I think it's perfectly fine if somebody starts off with, with those easy to use node and what's maybe best tailored to get into the space.   But, of course, people, the freedom to choose, and it's also then let the market decide a little bit. So make it easy for people to to switch projects, maybe take their blockchain with take their channels with them, all those those kind of things, and additional apps maybe that have data. There's also the other app on the other   project that can can support or something. So,   just as an example, Raspi bullets introduced with the latest version 1.7,   the migration features so that you can turn,   a my node or an Umbrel   into a So not everything, the additional app apps not,   but the,   block you can reuse the blockchain, and you can take your channels, your LND channel   to your, Respiblitz LND then. This was for me after having this discussion with Umbrel on Twitter and stuff, and and, it was was for me at least the the the very important to   offer the option to people if they wanna change to make it easier to change and to reduce even this lock in situation. And I even think it's a service to to other projects   to so so so they can say, look. We're not completely locked in. You can't migrate here. We we have this option for you available at at at at this recent version and stuff. So I just wanted to ask. We have MyNode in in the room. How do you feel about the rest of it's offering a migration?  

Would you would you build it even the other way around so that people can migrate from Respirates to my note? How do you feel about it?  

[02:46:38] Unknown:

Yeah. I mean, I'm totally fine with that. Like, offering projects that help, you know, migrate and let users switch between the various platforms, I think that's fantastic. We've got we don't have a a tool, but we have, like, the the instructions on how to migrate blockchain data. Not necessarily the L and D channels yet, but the blockchain data from any node or, you know, whether it's a different node or it's just running Bitcoin Core on your computer, it's it's very easy to enable that migration. And like you said, yeah, the the app data would be a lot more difficult to get across the board. But I think what I've seen in users talking with me, the the biggest thing they care about is actually the blockchain data because, you know, most people wanna avoid redownloading the blockchain and not taking 3, 4, 5 days or whatever and, potentially using up data caps.  

[02:47:21] Unknown:

So they kinda want that problem so that they can switch and try things out easier. That might be the case right now that the blockchain data is people's biggest concern, but if if we have a high fee environment, a sustained high fee environment,   which I still   expect us to have even though the mempools keep clearing,   It could get very expensive for people to have to close lightning channels in migration. So it to be able to to to be able to pull your channels through a different project,   to a different implementation is extremely important because that could be a major lock in cost. Right? That could end up costing people,   you know, 100 of dollars, if not 1,000 of dollars to, transition.  



[02:48:01] Unknown:

Yeah. We definitely need to be able to migrate the same,   between the same kind of lightning notes.   The   people even do want to migrate between different   lightning implementations, which is not currently possible, but even that should be something which is available for people.   Definitely, blockchain is,   you know, you can download it anytime, but you cannot open channels for free.  

[02:48:29] Unknown:

Yeah. So, I I mean, I think that's a really good point about migrating the channels, but even more what I've seen more often regarding that is, you know, like, data corruption on a drive. Like, somebody's power goes out and then, well, you know, there's some corruption and they've gotta restore. Like, I think Lightning has that that's sort of the biggest negative that I've seen lately. It's it's when something goes wrong and, you know, that database gets created, you can get your funds back, but it means closing all your channels and reopening funds. So I think,   I don't know.  

This is a totally different top topic, but it would be awesome if there were, like, better ways in the future to recover lightning channels.   Because, yeah, my it's a migration problem, but, the exact same problem is also just a, you know,   data corruption problem and having to restore   your Lightning node somewhere else incurs the exact same set of costs, which, like, in the future, I think will be far higher than it is today. I mean, even, you know, a couple months ago, it would have been pretty extreme to reopen, you know, at 10 channels, 15 channels, whatever people have that can definitely be, an expensive   thing to have happen to them.  



[02:49:35] Unknown:

Oh, yeah. No. No. We what Brute was   building, like, for Umbrel, it's working already and with, like, minor experimental as well. I mean, it's just a script, you know, that   you can take the data, the lnd channel database,   and the actual wallet file and just, you know, copy it over   because we're running the same architecture even you know, it's it's quite the same software l and d, so it it's portable like that. So this is not about, like, backup and restore kind of thing. This is about, changing the software all around l and d.  

[02:50:10] Unknown:

Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm just saying the alternative to the the automated script backup is the same as the recovery, which incurs high costs. But, yeah, I'm I'm totally on board with scripts that can help migrate,  

[02:50:21] Unknown:

because it it between nodes. Yeah. It obviously could be 2 ways. Like, you know, you could you could offer to migrate from other,  

[02:50:28] Unknown:

node implementations as well if people want to want to change. I mean, I think that'd be fantastic. I'd love to I I've heard about it, but I haven't taken a look. I'd like to go take a look and help out and see if there's anything I can do to help make it more robust between the various node implementations.  

[02:50:43] Unknown:

Excellent. Taylor, we would help you, but   we can't.   I'm just kidding. What? Absence joke. Never mind. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.   You're alive. You can. I swear to god.   My bad. I'm just I'm just   messing you today.   I I think as the only non lightning,  

[02:51:05] Unknown:

non lightning node in the channel,  

[02:51:07] Unknown:

yeah. I just   I I also,   we've been working on migration as well,   from Umbro and,   and myNode for our users.   Particularly, I mean, we have a obviously, we support Dojo. We have a ton of people that want to,   they want a dedicated   device for their Dojo. So we get that is something that, like, has been working on, and, he's actually finished. He just we just need testers.   So,   I did spin up a a last pilot, so   so shout out to you guys.   I'll be testing that when I come back, but   I think we should be having that. I think that it should be something easy. I mean, like, the users have already already,   you know, downloaded and verified the blockchain.  

So,   having it easy to transport that IBD is, is   definitely a nice thing to have for all the users.   But something tells me that Umbro probably won't do that,   but that's okay. It's cool.   I do wanna talk about the hardware differences though since, many   what everybody is r pi 4 except for me and I mean, we support r pi 4, but me and, Keter Miner, we're the only ones that our main   flagship is not a Raspberry Pi.   So   hardware trade offs.  

[02:52:31] Unknown:

Should I start?  

[02:52:33] Unknown:

Yeah. Sure. Hardware guy. Go for it.  

[02:52:37] Unknown:

So two things.   The the   Raspberry Pi doesn't have an open source firmware, and it runs everything on top of a Microsoft owned hypervisor.   That's one reason we don't use Raspberry Pi.   The other one is, historically, when we started,   the Raspberry Pi was underpowered, and the   the rock 64 board   we have chosen to build our devices was much more powerful than the Raspberry Pi had more memory and more CPU.  

[02:53:10] Unknown:

Yeah. I mean, the CPU is massive. Like, I don't think people realize how, like   like, everyone talks about the RAM. You know, like, oh, there's a 8 gig RAM on Raspberry Pi now.   It's like, that's not the, like I don't know. That's that's my I've noticed better speed, better,   performance   with the,   6 CPU.   Right?   Then then what,   I think it's 6. Well, then what,   what's called then what the Raspberry Pi 4 has. I mean, it works. It's just definitely not Yeah. I I I mean, if you want any fully open source  

[02:53:46] Unknown:

ARM   based processor today, you go with the r k 4399,   which we both use.   The  

[02:53:57] Unknown:

oh, the the rock chip?   Yeah.   Yeah. I'm, I'm pretty happy with it. What about  

[02:54:05] Unknown:

what about physical security? I think, the model currently is the only one offering   out of the box,   kill switch,   full disk encryption.  

[02:54:16] Unknown:

Yeah. Well, well, to be honest, it's more of a gimmick than anything else because,   the the memory   attack that we are   trying to protect against is based on   memory that can be physically removed from a machine. So,   what what what happened is if you take a memory module from a PC, if you freeze it, you can put it in another PC and reread the keys from that memory.   But in our devices,   and I am speaking for all of us here,   the memory is soldered to the to the board. So, anyway, if you want to freeze the memory and unsolder it to transfer it to an another board, you will unfreeze it anyway.   So, yeah, it's   a nice to have, but it's not something really mandatory. It's free. It's it's really,   hardware gaming. But, yeah, we we have that.  

It it   it applies more if you plug in a cold car in,   HSM mode, for example,   because it will also kill the power to the HSM. So the the keys from your cold card will be disabled when someone opens the physical case.  

[02:55:34] Unknown:

Hey, Kito. I just wanna let you know that you're a nerd.   Just that's all.  

[02:55:39] Unknown:

And, I mean,   it would be who of me to mention, I believe, RaspiBlitz has a separate strategy where all the individual   portions are encrypted rather than full disk encryption, and I believe the case that they offer   one of the cases they offer requires you to unplug the power to open the case,   which is a,   kind of like a brute force, a mechanism way to to do a kill switch without a kill switch. What about the idea of redundant drives   for running a lightning routing node? How important is that? I I feel like it it is really under discussed. I know the Nautle dojo comes with that out of the box.  

[02:56:26] Unknown:

Sorry, guys. This is, this is your guys' conversation. There,   Minot or s 9.  

[02:56:34] Unknown:

We're you're talking about what did you say? Redundant drives for LD?  

[02:56:39] Unknown:

Yeah. It's not about the  

[02:56:50] Unknown:

we are targeting that for later this year, but, no, we don't we don't offer it right now. So, you know, our initial hardware approach   was fast, furious, and a little bit reckless.   Admittedly, it was a mistake the way that we launched the embassy.   We put a lot more effort into the software than thought into the hardware.   We launched with a micro SD, which is basically running everything,   and you create manual backups by inserting a thumb drive. So almost all of our hardware WOs,   are being rectified in 0 three o, which is coming, next month. So   RAID is coming in October is the latest,   feedback that we've gotten from the McClellan brothers who are really the force behind everything   at the c OS and Bitcoin.  



[02:57:36] Unknown:

So what what I would really like to point out is that the another one which has only one drive   actually allows you to build the RAID,   mirroring.   If you plug in an external,   SSD,   it's,   configured to be so like, the the internal SSD is actually a one drive mirror   composed of only one drive. And if you plug an external hard drive, you can   set up the mirroring   to any of our device.  

[02:58:09] Unknown:

Yeah. Quickly from the recipe blitz, there is   body refs support experimental in there for some versions now,   that allows you to set up a rate. The only thing is really it's, it's it's hard to advise,   that you put directly to SSDs, to a Raspberry   Pi because of the power situation.   So you end up maybe having more problems because maybe power cuts out or something. So you can do it experimentally   at the moment if you adjust a second drive with a with a add additional power supply. This is why because it's a little bit more complicated setup that's not easy to use. It's not what we recommend at the moment by default. It's more for the people that know what they're doing.   And, and Open Arms is experimenting a little bit with, set of us on Juno setup. So so there are some at least we are on the topic, but we haven't found the sweet spot yet to really commend it to everybody.  



[02:58:59] Unknown:

Awesome.  

[02:59:00] Unknown:

Yeah. Yeah. I'm ready for my service. Yeah. Hold on. I Who does that work?   Oh, damn. No. Yes. So we're also,   for Ronin Dojo, we'll be working we'll be implementing the, RAID   and and Luke's encryption as well. I mean, I know we don't have the,   what's called the lightning to have to worry about the channels and whatnot. But, as far as ensuring that your data doesn't get corrupted and then having to redo everything else that you're doing resyncing all of your dojo and everything else, and and to include, obviously, your Whirlpool instance running in the event that a drive goes down.   We have that,   that should be in   by October as well. So, we're pretty excited to have that full stack support. But  

[02:59:45] Unknown:

okay. Awesome.   So so, yeah, I mean, you definitely,   cut out a lot of   the concerns if you just don't have lightning, because lightning backups   are a major issue.   I just wanna thank you guys. I mean, we're hitting the 3 hour point. This is a very important conversation,   and   I appreciate you all coming on here. I mean, we know   one of the major node projects did not come on here, so I appreciate you guys coming on here for this   no holds barred discussion.   Very important discussion.   I wanna thank you guys   a ton for coming on.   Before we wrap up, I guess, just final thoughts. We'll just go,   from left to right starting with Rudolf.  



[03:00:28] Unknown:

Yeah. So,   well, maybe to wrap up, at the moment, the recipe blitz, because we're talking about what, you know, to choose, the recipe blitz at the moment still likes you to use the terminal terminal a bit. So if you're not completely feel comfortable with that,   maybe some other node projects are still maybe a choice for you. But in the end,   it gives you a lot of, options on the terminal, a lot of early stuff to try out. So it's for the tinkerers a bit, for the people that like to concentrate on on run running a routing node at home.   And but but there will be and this is what we're working on, with the 1.8 release. There will be a web UI also on top. So this should be then more easily for people to use that are not that familiar with terminal. The terminal will always be available, and we'd also like to people encourage on their journey later on to jump in there and, and kind of gain their skills, level up a bit on their skills.  

But we may we will make it more,   more easy to use. So if you're thinking about having an Umbrel or a minor, for example, there's already the migration features.   And, if you really like to have a web UI, maybe wait for the 1.8,   or 1.81   when you really want to have all the kinks worked out.   Then maybe this could be an option for you to continue your journey and maybe migrate to a Respiblitz.  

[03:01:47] Unknown:

Thank you, Rudolf. Taylor, final comments?  

[03:01:50] Unknown:

Yeah. I just wanna say thanks for having me on. This was a fantastic discussion. I was really glad to be a part of it.   I'm looking forward to, you know, expanding my node users and continuing to provide, you know, great services for them and expanding the number of apps. So if anybody has ideas for features they want implemented, you know, just hop on our GitHub or send me an email or follow us on Twitter,   and I look forward to continuing, you know, onboarding as many Bitcoiners as possible.  

[03:02:17] Unknown:

Thank you, Taylor. Zelco?  

[03:02:19] Unknown:

Yeah. I, I had a great time. I honestly was, I'm really happy that we got everybody in here. I I do   really wish that Umbrella was here,   not not just because,   you know, of everything that happened on Twitter. I I personally would have wanted it because I think that, like, just   like, everyone here owes it to their users.   We owe it to our users to explain our our positions and why we do what we do.   So,   I am glad. Thank you all for for actually, like, participating in this. It was a lot of fun. I learned a lot of different stuff, and,   and I definitely I respect everybody's project. I'm glad that we're all building tools towards the future,   We're all trying to make something good, which is awesome.  

The only shout out that I got for my team is, we do have a brand new web design that's coming out, WebUI 2 point o.   Hopefully, by,   by October as well. We're gonna have it's   I wanna say it's like a cypherpunk version of,   of Umbrell's   nice pretty UI, so they better watch themselves.   So excited about that. And, and, yeah, if you're looking to run Whirlpool, you're looking to run your dojo and, you know, the most stable one you got, go ahead and,   head us up in Telegram or, just download our code.  

[03:03:37] Unknown:

Awesome. Thanks, Zelco. Kito, final thoughts.  

[03:03:41] Unknown:

So first of all, I'm very happy to have talked with all of you guys.   Some of them,   it was the first one. So I I hope we have some more talks after that.   Second thing, we just onboarded our first another employee, which is our support person.   And I hope our support level will improve from now on a lot.   And,   last thing is,   after Jack's announcement about El Salvador,   we started working about a very new product, which will be our first free,   as in free beer,   product. And I'm really hoping it will help emerging countries to move to Bitcoin.   And it's a really personal thing, and I hope it will it will work.  



[03:04:33] Unknown:

Well, that's awesome. Thank you, Kito. Open Arms, final thoughts.  

[03:04:38] Unknown:

Yes. So, I I just would like to mention the project join inbox, which is I I didn't speak about because it's not really a full node project because it runs with a pruned chain if, just running standalone. It's more like part of the raspiblitz,   but it's made made to it's made it's basically a wrap around drone market to to   be able to start it quick. And if it's running alone, then it helps you to   download the blockchain and insta join market and just, you know, get going   terminal terminal   usage, SSH   at least necessary.   So,   yeah, that's something   I I I will, you know, continue to develop   alongside and inside   of just the as well.  

Otherwise   yeah. Thank you. It was a fantastic occasion. Respect to all the work you do, and, you know, it's a pleasure to speak to you also. Thanks thanks very much. Thank you, Open Arms. Matt, final thoughts?  

[03:05:38] Unknown:

Yep. Thanks, everyone. I had a great time.   You know, I didn't know what to expect coming in here. I definitely did not feel attacked in any way. I think that everybody's,   we'll call them arguments that were made against,   one or more of the decisions that we have made as a company are valid,   will be taken seriously.   And, there's an open line of communication for everyone here, to me and to the rest of the team.   There are 8 of us here now,   and we are all,   very, very passionate about what we are doing, and we are serious when we say,   that we're out to   to create the same future that you all are. So,   hopefully, we make good decisions along the way, and we will always try to make better ones as we go. And,   yeah, thank you all. I look forward to continuing the conversation.  



[03:06:29] Unknown:

Awesome. I wanna thank, all the Node projects,   the contributors who have joined us today for their time.   Open discussion in this space is extremely important. This is why we dispatch.   This is why this project was started in the first place.   I wanna encourage the freaks to run their own nodes and use their own nodes and play with these projects.   It's it's it's absolutely important,   to to just get your get your get your hands dirty. It's not as difficult as you think it is.   I wanna thank all the ride or dive freaks in the chat,   for joining us for another dispatch and joining us for all the other dispatches.  

I wanna thank everyone for supporting the show and keeping it ad free.   Just a reminder,   all the archives are available at citadel dispatch.com.   You can support the show there. We have a sphinx tribe, a very active discussion,   surrounding Bitcoin over on Sphinx,   where you can also support the show.   If you if you just wanna go on your favorite podcast app,   you can search Ciddle dispatch in any of the popular podcast apps as well to subscribe. I wanna remind everyone that we have gone 26 Bitcoin Tuesdays in a row. I appreciate you all for joining me   on this.  

But next week, I will be off grid, so we will be skipping a week, and we will be joining back   for another Bitcoin Tuesday the week after that.   I need a little bit of r and r,   and I appreciate you all. Thanks, guys. Thank you, Mark. You have been incredible.  

[03:07:57] Unknown:

Yeah. Thank you. Thanks, brother.  

[03:07:59] Unknown:

Thank you.  

[03:08:02] Unknown:

The parallel paradox.   Call it the Doxolil.   Waking up, I checked the price of Bitcoin.   Mister Swan and   Max. Every fellow   OG, RCT,   loomedart,   R and R, Dopes and Kobe.   If you don't know   there's no lie. See, I lost all my money in the exchange hack and the boating accident that happened after that. Plus, I'm down a couple racks  

[03:11:47] Unknown:

For those of you keeping track at home, that was our first time we've done a repeat track to end out dispatch.   That guy is a real freak. Captain Youth   Track is called Bitcoin. You can follow him on Twitter, l captain youth.   We have to support our Bitcoin artists. The dream of dispatch is to tend every dispatch with a a proper Bitcoin track.   I love you all. I'll see you on RHR on Thursday.   Even though I'll be off grid, we will still make RHR happen next week. Just no dispatch because it's harder for me to do a livestream than it is for me to just make RHR work.   Love you all. Stay humble. Stack stats.