I am a full time bitcoin fanboy. (over 2 years in) and am wanting to know more about Decred, how safe it is to install on my Mac, who the people are behind it. Happy to answer any questions, and am not shy. David
Company0 and the btcsuite devs are most;y behind it. However, if you have little trust (like me) just spin up an Ubuntu VM in virtualbox to run the address generator until more people can audit the code. VMs are handy for all kinds of stuff anyway.
You are kind to suggest, however I am not a programmer and have had limited success with alt OS on my Mac. Will be interested to know the WHO before i dive in further. And not being a fan of Alt-Coins (Bitcoin only Baby!) I am even more cautious than my crypto-counterparts.
You are always encouraged to compile from source if you are capable of reviewing what you are running and/or do not trust the binaries given to you. Binaries are only provided for user-friendliness, given Decred's broad userbase. The people working on Decred are listed on GitHub. Remember that Decred is based on btcsuite, so there are many developers who have also contributed code to that codebase and its many packages whose code now sits in Decred. They are also to credit. What is important to understand is that Decred aims to be a hacker collective of sorts (for the lack of a better term) where many developers can form part of the ecosystem and receive compensation for their contribution and work on the software - it hopes to be a sustainable system in that way. The current developers are just one stakeholder in that ecosystem to get things off the ground. There will no "clan" where we see yet another tribal oligarchy develop over time. If you are a developer, show your competence, and contribute, you will share as much "status" as any developer that contributed before you.
This is a good skill to acquire. Not just for decred, but any dangerous testing, secure work, financial work... It is also easy to back up and run elsewhere in the event of a crash. Here are some good links. The first one should be enough, however. http://www.simplehelp.net/2015/06/09/how-to-install-ubuntu-on-your-mac/ http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/07/how-to-set-up-ubuntu-linux-on-a-mac-its-easy-and-free/ http://osxdaily.com/2012/03/27/install-run-ubuntu-linux-virtualbox/ Once you get the hang of it, it gets very useful. I often spin up a VM for a single application. It keeps my personal desktop clean.
Thanks for the clarification, and excuse my use of words (like clan) that may not be accurate, as I stumble into this rabbit hole. I am attempting to get a feel for the size of Decred, and would like to learn more about the creator(s) of the white paper, and their motivations.
I repeat, I am not a programmer. I have other skills that are valuable, but I do not want to learn another language. If Decred is not yet ready for people like me, please let me know.
david-r-allen you don't need a VM to run decred on a mac or compile the code yourself. I test dcraddrgen on the mac and also test the full node/wallet software there as well. Some people feel better about running things in a VM from a security perspective, but it is in no way a requirement. And if you hit any mac issues or questions, definitely let us know. I'm mostly a Linux/Bitrig user but I have macs around too.
That is encouraging @jcv and I will PM you here if possible. Like making contact with the author of the white paper, I want to keep an open mind and feel comfortable asking the beginners questions.
You can ask questions here if you'd like. A lot of people are familiar with the contents of the technical brief. People are pretty busy with all the activity and focus is on the code at the moment, so it's not really realistic to expect individual attention by a developer on every question at this critical juncture. I'm sure if you ask technical questions someone will be able to help you - it's a pretty welcoming community.