Thanks, I apologize for overlooking that. Limited time to read.
I know you like a Kickstarter 
.
I think this is a good suggestion once the alpha is up and running. We have found that getting one story in the press always leads to others and therefore getting a lot of attention when the alpha is released will definitely lead to other opportunities. We have already completed some work in this area although we canāt say too much at this point.
Removed a reply that was off-topic and part of a conversation between 2 people. Please keep on-topic. The title of this topic is: āMaidSafe and project SAFE moving forwardā. Personal talks over PM please.
OK, but the idea of crowdfunding an app is to get the funds to build the thing, hopefully with something left over.
Of course, you might mean people resource. I canāt suggest anything for that.
yawn ,ā¦
you tease. 
I know . Hopefully it doesnāt come across as cruel, just want you to know that we have a clear path forward, unfortunately I just canāt say what it is. Journalism is vācompetitive.
Hi! Iām Ben. Some may know me as an ex-developer at MaidSafe. I dropped out of my PhD in theoretical physics in the summer of 2014, because I believe it is important to stand for the things we believe in and I believe in Project SAFE and the SAFE network and the values of default privacy for all, we stand for.
I joined MaidSafe as a developer from august 2014 (after the crowdsale) till november 2015 (after the Rust 3 release).
For the investment our community made in these values to succeed under the leadership of MaidSafe we need to start asking the hard questions and no longer accept handwaving arguments made by David Irvine as a replacement for sensible logic.
I believe I can state I spent a year and a half working on the ground - I literally moved to Troon, Scotland - to advance the formalisation of the logic behind the network proposal.
As I left I clearly stated to David that the extra MAID should be burnt, and that this for me was the line in the sand: if he decides to sell them, you are legally stealing well over 1 million Pounds (at current valuation) from the community.
As of this week, David has announced (as a single sided decision) to sell them, because MaidSafe, the company, very likely has run out of money and for it to survive this is one of the few options left.
The fight for the internet is fought by many people, and many organisations on this planet, and MaidSafe and the SAFE network are two of them. This fight is too important though for me not to stand up and for the benefit of the SAFE network community start asking the hard questions.
So letās kick this off and have honest, no-nonsense technical discussions about the stack, the formal logic behind the implementation and open discussions on what we can achieve as intermediate results to actually progress the project and evaluate whether MaidSafe and David are the people capable of delivering what has been promised.
I encourage every community member to engage in these discussions and to learn and ask the questions; I have a fulltime engagement myself so I need all your help in pushing the SAFE network forward.
Most kind regards
Ben
From discussions so far, most of the community seem happy for these āextraā MaidSafeCoins to be sold to provide funding for MaidSafe to make progress without needing further external investment at this time.
There are various opinions about how to go about this, but few (if any) have so far argued that it is plain wrong to sell these coins.
Can you please state your logic and reason for believing that it is āstealing from the communityā for MaidSafe to use these coins to progress the network? Itās a serious allegation, and David has already said why he considers it ok, and nobody has yet pointed out any obvious problems with this that Iāve seen.
What is your affiliation with ethereum? And why did you leave maid safe?
I canāt really say that he is stealing anything from the community, itās Davidās idea that gave birth to this community. He and his team get little sleep coding up a future for humanity.
The real sick joke here is that a company like Uber just raise $ 3.5 billion
I absolutely believe in the Maidsafe team they are highly capable, but maybe the moment has come to stop testing stuff and drop the atomic bomb.
Good to see you again Ben
Hi, Ben,
1 2 3
First of all it is not stealing. You should check definition of steal. Framing recent maidsafe decisions in such way is not accurate and not representing the context of action.
Second. We are all (except core dev team) incapable to discuss the stack in such detailed way that could lead to any major changes in system architecture or development. The best thing to see and affect the real progress i found is to kick various attacks on the network and see the difference. And i can tell that each time the network behaves more robust. There are still lots of to improve, but I really like the progress. I would suggest for each person to take bigger part in tests and to measure the progress by themselves.
Third. Reading recent days posts i guess community is not hungry for a new leader to question the current leader for the direction we go. If it is the problem we will see lots of followers of your proposals. If there be no more people who resonate your problem I guess everything is ok :).
Best regards, Darius
Hey Ben was glad to see your name but I really donāt feel Iām being stolen from. Sad to see you have this stance but you must have your own personal reasons.
Hi @Darius, here I want to disagree. I have many times in the past made it my point that it is essential for the project to adopt community developers. While i was at MaidSafe as a developer I did put effort into building this community as some might acknowledge.
Let me also be clear, I have no interest in forking the SAFE network code at this point, or starting a competing project; as I have said I have a full time engagement within this space will not allow me to do so. I am here to learn and help push the logic underpinning the project push forward as much as I have contributed to the code.
Glad to hear you want to push forward. Hope you can get past the very limited and less restrictive funding option that the greater community has for the most part accepted as a necessity.
I feel like a sensible solution is that we have a bounty system where we can choose someone to assign tasks which we can fund somehow, and all current core devs and future core devs can earn pay this way and finish building an encrypted secured decentralized data switching network like is so described; it seems thatād be so efficient
ok iām out of here for now ā¦ this is getting pretty childish ā¦ canāt we just stick to a plan that seems to be reasonable and the fastest possible path to me ā¦?
who will run the bounty system? who decides how much bounty for what ā¦? who decides the direction the bounty-system takes in development?
i trust @dirvine way more than some investors ā¦ that bounty-system would have the potential to completely ruin the project ā¦ and i seriously will leave this topic instantaneously because i am not willing to discuss such an idea ā¦
Absolutely not. You have a stable developer network now, so just get on with developing your app.
What is going on here people? We are this close and the team needs some funds. Canāt we just agree to do what needs to be done? Side ideas with limited proof of viability are not what is needed in this critical hour. Funding is an issue, and this is a way to fix it. If David Irvine is not a trustworthy man, if the devs are not trustworthy, then NO MATTER what alternative you come up with the project will NEVER SUCCEED because they wouldāve had ulterior motives from the beginning. Yes this is a project for the people, but letās not forget whose vision it truly is, and who it really belongs to, David Irvine and the team at Maidsafe. I havenāt read this entire thread, but what I think needs to be said is this: we have little time, little options and few resources. If we cannot trust the team then we should just go home now.
If you do not think they have ulterior motives with this move, then why the objection? Even if you think they could do other things for funding, does that mean they shouldnāt do this as well? If its a good move its a good move so letās make it and be done with it already! Once the network is released, THEN it will be OUR baby in our hands to develop and use as we see fit. But until then we have to trust in the team to develop it. They have been remarkably honest and open about their moves, and with the same transparency, we should allow them to do what they think is best. They know best their funding needs and resources. Letās trust they know what theyāre doing, because not many of us out here have the same intimate knowledge of the state of the network as they do. My 2 cents.