petition: official currency code for Bitcoin (BTC?)

[Sam Liddicott]

Aye.

I think there is little reason to suppose that a group of people (mostly)
united in matters of software freedom would share a common view on bitcoin.

I don't think it is the business of FSFE or FSF to make a comment on
bitcoin but further getting a consensus among members may not be possible
anyway.

Sam
On Nov 12, 2012 11:33 AM, "Daniel Pocock" <daniel at pocock.com.au> wrote:

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