Is Charles a sociopath? I don't know. I don't really care. Even if he is, that doesn't make him evil or a bad actor in itself. What counts is his actions. And I have talked to various people who vouch that his own "crime" during his time at Ethereum was being himself.
-
-
All with no risk to control of the public protocol, which was completely outside of any possibilities which relicensing of a specific codebase would have opened up. We were a hairsbreadth from glory. We just needed
@gavofyork and@mkotew to sign and it was in the bag. -
And I had spoken to Gav at the start of the process and he has said he would be supportive if there was consensus amongst the developers. We we had that consensus:https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1i0U0hsLZui7sk-hv60tzWy2jY6ZUslciq37N_Q5KDao/edit?usp=sharing …
-
@nessence was the single individual who expressed any public objection. @ConsenSysAndrew acted as peacebroker. And I spoke to Alex myself on several occasions. And he signed. And maybe he felt coerced. -
Did we coerce Alex? Perhaps we did, but it was really in the belief that he was literally the only objector, and would be put in a horrible position in the community were he the sole barrier to this thing with huge potential benefit to the everyone.
-
Much later, Matthew Wampler Doty objected too, which would have meant we would need to have removed ethash (or moved it into a plugin or whatever), but that would have been fine for the enterprise scenarios. So then it was literally down to yes/no from Parity.
-
@gavofyork stopped communicating with me. Nobody from Parity would talk to me or give me a straight answer. Or even just have an open and frank discussion. I think that literally having a one-hour Skype call would have straightened things out. But that never happened. -
Instead, it was
@brianbehlendorf who ended up being the recipient of the bad news, that Parity had considered the situation, and they were aware of the collateral damage on the community but that they felt the existing licensing was best. -
They had considered the impact on all the other individuals who had worked on the cpp-ethereum codebase since (like me), and which they were no longer involved with, but which they had built, so needed to sign off on their own contributions for relicensing.
-
That was a hammer blow to me. I had been working 60+ hour weeks for months and months to help build this amazing dream. I was being paid the equivalent of $60K with no vacation, no benefits. No nothing. I had actually got myself and my family into financial trouble doing so.
-
I had spent 5 months working on the most dreary, thankless paperwork during that process. Why? Because the upside would have been world-changing, and (at the time) looked like a one-time opportunity.
-
My perception was that the answer had been "no" for selfish reasons. That bad old Gav saw that a revitalized cpp-ethereum with the resourcing of the Linux Foundation and hundreds of companies behind it would have been a huge commercial challenge to his Parity business.
-
And so that he selfishly "killed his first child to protect the second child". The utter selfishness of that perceived situation in my mind, together with my perilous financial situation, together with my perception of permanent missed opportunity to Ethereum was crushing.
-
Combine that with my financial pain, and the perception that I had failed my family and especially my wife in chasing this Ethereum dream which had turned into a nightmare. Was it all a delusion that this Ethereum dream could happen? It felt that way.
-
I felt a complete failure, and that my boys would be better off with me dead than continuing to screw up again and again in a way which damaged my family and spiralled me into depression. Well, I didn't do it. And I am so glad that I didn't.
-
And in Cancun at DEVCON3 I got to spend some time with some of the Parity developers and even a few minutes with Gav himself for the first time ever IRL. And it was lovely.
-
Over time I have come to realize that their actions in 2016 came out of fear that the beautiful Ethereum dream would be derailed and corrupted, and that they had to defend it, even with the collateral damage that caused. I understand that now. I really do, and I hold no ill will
-
Last week I went to Miami and I gave
@derose a big hug, kissed him on both cheeks and gave him a gift of a big bottle of maple syrup. And we did a podcast and it was lovely. Because EVERYONE in this blockchain ecosystem has way more in common that they have differences. -
All we have to do is to open our hearts and to truly listen to others. If I can do that with Chris de Rose then I can most certainly do that with Gav and with Charles and with anybody at all in Ethereum and within blockchain as a whole.
-
So on February 5/6 I am going to Berlin. And I am going to give Gav, that beautiful, wonderful man who has been so instrumental to building this Ethereum dream a big hug, and I am going to kiss him on both cheeks. And I am going to give him a big bottle of maple syrup.
-
Because there is no more room in this space for hate, for distrust, for shit-talking and for judging people badly who we have not spent quality face-to-face time with. I will smoke the peace-pipe and I will revel in doing so. Because I love
@ParityTech and I love@gavofyork. -
They have done amazing work for humanity. All free of change. Often under heavy criticism which is so unjustified. And THEY have changed the world for the better. Love not hate.
-
Peace out, world. I will stop typing now :-)pic.twitter.com/qdiFklEBUp
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.