The current state of affairs with Atrides' OpenBazaar community-funded project.I am one of the donator to Atrides, who proposed to integrate Monero into OpenBazaar a while back:
https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/583449.msg9994963#msg9994963Being now pretty disapointed with how things well, I want to post about it publicly, and ask for a partial refund of the donations I gave.
Here is a (redacted for names only) transcript of the private group of donators, where he was supposed to let us know what was going on.
== Wed, Jan 14 ==
Atrides: So here short squeeze of thoughts about payments within FreeBazaar to discuss:
Payments: 1) Direct Payments 2) Payment via Escrow
Escrow: Free multiple choice of options, determined per-transaction:
- simple BTC/XMR escrow (for XMR without miltisig)
- To reduce exchange rate risk USD-stabilized escrow (with convert on exchanges/Nubits/BitUSD/use Bitreserve. That will be explained by Escrow-service. Payments in any currency(BTC/USD) for both seller and buyer.
== Thu, Jan 15 ==
Atrides: I take some time to learn the code and set steps priorities for actual to do. I will inform you next days
== Wed, Jan 21 ==
binaryFate: How is it going? Once you get more familiar with the code base, can you give us a general estimate of the time needed for each further step?
Atrides: Hi guys, I'll offer details this weekend
== Tue, Jan 27 ==
Atrides: Hi guys, I have readed docs and code.
So see one problem - core team of OpenBazaar works very slow. Last commit in dev-repo was two weeks ago. A lot of pull requests with ready code are pinding since october...bad. So I think our commits will be delayed for a long time. Without integration into OpenBazaar we can make it quicker, but within we have already prepared publicity, recognition.
== Wed, Jan 28 ==
binaryFate: I guess you can just work on a branch and keep going even if they don't merge changes back quickly
== Thu, Feb 5 ==
binaryFate: Is anything happening? Are you working on it or not at the moment?
== Sat, Feb 7 ==
Atrides: Hi, yes, I'm working. sadly I cannot work full time because I have collected less, so I must take other projects too
== Sun, Feb 15 ==
Atrides: I'm mostly working on some projects at the same time. bazaar is very important to me, but at the moment is not a priority. I promized to finished, and I will do that, sorry I cann't say on what days exactly I can work. last two weeks I was extremly busy, with no chance to do something else. Your money are not moved from my wallet I didn't sell them and won't do this till monero will rise many times because of bazaar. Next days I push some of commits to github what already done.
== Tue, Feb 17 ==
Atrides: First initial commit, added monero as alternative coin, other commits during this week after tests
== Tue, Mar 3 ==
REDACTED: How is progress? Any new commits?
Atrides: Yes, two days ago, some commits. This week I'll do the rest.
== Wed, Mar 11 ==
Atrides: I have asked developers of OpenBazaar that our patches may be implemented. In original OB Bitcoin is hardcoded overall.
== Wed, Mar 18 ==
Atrides: Hm...still no answer from Devs
Atrides: I pushed new commit. Communications with local monero Wallet and directly payment
== Sun, Mar 29 ==
Atrides: Good(?) news from dev of OpenBazaar, they can implement other coins if external dev make patches.
== Tue, Apr 7 ==
binaryFate:
1) What is the state of the Monero freebazar branch? Is it fully functional? If not, what is missing and what is the ETA for it?
2) Why not release the Monero freebazar code even if it's not merged mainstream by official openbazaar devs? If it's working let's release it, merge can come later.
== Wed, Apr 8 ==
Atrides:
1) Not fully functional because of problems in OB code and development of OB is very slooow. Also I will publish the full report of the state and problems, and ask which way we should go.
2) Hm, I have official repository with all my commits: https://github.com/freebazaar/FreeBazaar I push commits only for good code, the development version on my dev-pc is unusable. Next days I'll push new commits.
== Thu, Apr 9 ==
binaryFate: You should give a public detailed update on (i) what was done and (ii) what are the 'problems in OB code' you mention.
I advise you to do it very soon, because many people are starting to question the way this little project is going as compared with the donations received.
Atrides: Yes, I plan to release next week the big report, after my last commit. The report needs some time, I want to describe problems, done work and future ways.
Currently don't have time to read the forum.
binaryFate: Great, looking forward to the report.
== Mon, Apr 13 ==
binaryFate: Next week I'll meet Dionysis, one of the core dev of OpenBazaar, in real life. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help integration when meeting him.
In two weeks actually, got confused.
Atrides: Really great news! I'll try to finish the my part of work, if it will be possible to integrate, that's great. Currently OB is very hardcoded for BTC only.
== Sat, Apr 25 ==
Atrides: OB is now beta4, I must merge FreeBazaar and new version.
I have merged OpenBazaar Beta4 and fixed conflicts
== Wed, May 6 ==
REDACTED: Nice to see your progress. Thanks for posting updates.
As you can see from the transcript of the "conversation", Atrides claimed to be significantly in touch with openbazaar people. (That is partly what he got the donations for, coding and interacting with them towards integration).
End of April, I met
Dionysis Zindros, one of the lead developers of OpenBazaar. He didn't know about Atrides; he didn't know about Monero alltogether.
The actual work that was done does not justify the donations received at all. I know that getting familiar with a foreign code base takes time, but still. I did my best to give him a chance, and on behalf of the community to push him gently to move forward. The lack of activity since a month, the latest promise to come back to the community "next week" which was two months ago... I have no patience left.
Atrides, I publickly ask you to refund me half of the donations I gave, in which case things will be all good for me (you did a bit of work). Otherwise I will consider that you are dishonest.
You can send half of the XMR I donated to this address.
45D2ipTSwN9cNijro1kpw5SwQZmVxFinZdNNcPVpvrgfWvbm4xVmhNfbwy5VcisRkMj2cB4K8jGsjE5zRTcQ53mNJn81tbf
You can also send it to the core team donation address, if they confirm reception, that will be fine for me.
