The last straw for jgarzik was when jeremias mentioned translating Bitcoin-Qt to Farsi. Nice. That is actually related to development and not off topic in any way. I can't believe this.

I understand the point: breaking the Iranian trade sanctions is illegal in a statutory sense.

But it's not illegal ethically. If anything, the law as it exists is the ethical illegality. So I'm with the OP on this one, but Bitcoin's a broad church. Remember, non-political money means you have to be tolerant of everyone's politics, even, to some extent, the intolerant

This is funny

ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOGARZIK!

We all must obbey USA laws and THE foundation

jgarzik should come in here and make it absolutely clear that he did that because his well-being and wealth was/is threatened by a gang of violent thugs called the U.S. Government forcing him to do so otherwise I'm not sure how I feel about such exclusionary moves. Unless there's something that I'm missing Bitcoin is open source therefor open to anyone to do anything with the code, including translating it into farsi.

I'm not sure anyone is trying to export SHA-256. Coins themselves sure as hell do not contain, nor represent any algorithm. Maybe it's illegal to allow Iranians to download the Bitcoin client (which I'm sure sourceforge is complying), but I'm not so sure using Bitcoin would itself be forbidden for Iranians.

ETA: If this is in fact the case though, we should fork Bitcoin and switch to a free algorithm before it's too late.

Besides, why the hell are we to accept getting bossed around by the USA all the time? USA is imposing all kinds of regulations internationally. Do you know that banks who haven't signed an agreement with the USA can't do business with the banks who did (i.e. all of them)? If a bank does business with an American national, or "a resident", who may even be living in a different country, without taxing them on behalf of USA and turning over the money itself, it is subject to be fined the same amount. Do you really think Bitcoin can survive within the US legal system?

Okay. Now I am supposed to view life from the perspective of the United States. If they deem something illegal, then it is. Talk about oppression.

Maybe Jeff had to react that way to protect the foundation legally. If, so, this shows that a foundation wasn't a good idea to begin with. Maybe they should clarify in writing that #bitcoin-dev belongs to the foundation, which belongs to the USA.

ETA: I'm failing to shut up about this... Now, if I talk about Bitcoin to my friends in Iran, I'm encouraging illegal activity in the eyes of #bitcoin-dev? My brain is about to explode. What a joke...

Is suggesting the translation of bitcoin-qt to farsi "encouraging illegal activity"?

The smuggling of bitcoin software into Iran would be different, but that's not what was suggested here.

There are hundreds of thousands of Iranian diaspora in the US and Europe.

I think jgarzik should calmly explain his position on this. I'd certainly be interested in hearing his line of reasoning.


Use by Wikileaks hasn't killed Bitcoin yet, that doesn't mean the risk wasn't/isn't there.

What if Bitcoin had been released 11 years ago, and the taliban
(or some other organization which need not be named here)
had instructed their people to use Bitcoin at all times?

That would be an Outside Context Problem for Bitcoin.
 

More like idiotic.

It's not the first time this state-sucker Garzik does something pathetic like this. Who remember his bashing of Silk Road in a TV interview? I found it so disappointing, listening to those words coming from a core dev, that I even created a topic at the time: https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/13706.0

And here we go again. The ban was silly. Garzik coward behavior is ridiculous.

If there's any good in Bitcoin, it's its potential to allow people to circumvent governments. If you don't think people should be allowed to circumvent governments at all, then you have nothing to do with Bitcoin. The built-in monetary policy is by itself a means to circumvent government centrally imposed monetary policy. And that's just one of the good things Bitcoin enables. Allowing Iranians to bypass foreign sanctions is a perfect, "text-book" use case for Bitcoin. Even WordPress understands it, but one of the core developers apparently doesn't.

Once more, Garzik is frightened. At the CBS interview, he made some ridiculous defamation. Here, he censors a reputable bitcoiner from an IRC channel. Nothing super serious so far, but up to what will his fear take him?

I obviously must acknowledge Garzik great contributions to bitcoin code. He's done for Bitcoin incomparably more than I, that's undeniable. But morally speaking, his a frightened government sucker. I hope this doesn't represent a problem one day for bitcoin development.

@Garzik; if you are afraid of your government, I sincerely accept and respect you in that. But please don't put yourself in the way of those who wish to use Bitcoin for its true purpose: circumventing governments!