@maxentropy Hi Cryptonaut,
Again... no one in software development rolls back to another fork eights months back in a live operational system... hundreds of code changes.
This is the definition of bizarre.
Not sure what you mean? Yesterdays release of BitcoinXT brings it up to the latest version of Core, but with the additional block size changes.
@maxentropy Adam says:
How has he shown this? Can you link to anything? - Why is development any less centralized with two voting developers compared to five? are they both really centralized by any standard? Why does "Andresen being a poster child for XT but control lies in London" matter?
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Software developers who can not lead the development activity are quickly moved aside - in development projects. Competent developers are unlikely to follow the designated lead developer, if the lead can not demonstrate leadership skills both technically and design.
So... if Andresen has thrown the towel in with Bitcoin Core team and hence any possibility of achieving the bump to Block Size, then he is not seen as the lead developer.
I don't believe Gavin is the lead developer of Bitcoin Core, and I don't believe he leads the team - They're all equals right? That's what's led us to this problem - If Gavin was the boss he wouldn't need to get every single person to agree and in practice this is them saying they don't believe they can
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Code changes incrementally... design features are slipped into the code base without distribution channels; 3rd party developers and customers... knowing. New software releases are always required, else the software becomes stale. This requirement introduces the need to keeping evolving the code base at different levels. There will be 'features' added that do not affect the backwards compatibility that advance someone's interests.
It is the features that are slipped in that are subject to regional interests. Example, if Microsoft funded Bitcoin Core you would see Addon's and extensions and eventionally multiple implementations of Bitcoin Core... unique to Microsoft's interests.
I do not sense that Reddit follows the code changes in Github closely... so who would know?
Years ago I proposed a "Bitcoin Watchdog" that would have bitcoin media embed bitcoin-core "correspondents" within the developer haunts to pro-actively report and alert on anything important that might warrant educating the broader community about. The idea was for it to be somewhat cooperative and somewhat competitive and to limit the amount of developer time it required so they could focus just on developing. Might be time to revisit that idea if there is interest.
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California should not outsource Bitcoin software development to the UK, London group.
I don't understand why this matters? I live in California, it's not a good environment here either
@maxentropy Adam says:
Do you also have this curiousity for who is funding developers supporitve of the no-block-increase school of thought? Seems like everybody is obviously operating in what they perceive to be their own best interest in both camps.
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I would have thought that if Hearn wanted to affect positive change, then he would have made a 'single code change' to the Bitcoin Core software for the Block Size fix. Anyone could have done this.
He did not do that, he forked the project and has introduced a great many code changes.
Why?
If as Hearn and Andresen argue, that the Block Size change is so urgent... simply advocate for changing the Bitcoin Core.
They are not doing that.
Why?
Because it's been made clear that it won't be allowed in core? It's not like they just proposed this in a vacuum, the discussion has been ongoing for months and lacking any sudden shifts of long-standing positions this won't be allowed in core. Are you just looking for the symbolism of having made the attempt even if it's obvious it cannot succeed in the current environment?**
@maxentropy Adam says:
Do you also have this curiousity for who is funding developers supporitve of the no-block-increase school of thought?
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No... I expect that the developers simply need a source of funding. MIT stepped up after the fiasco at the Foundation became apparent.
I still advocate for California to take the project back.
The project lives on Github, I don't get the importance here
If Gavin was the boss he wouldn't need to get every single person to agree and in practice this is them saying they don't believe they can
Ironically, IIRC Gavin still has the main control over the Github repo, so if he really wanted to he could actually boot out everyone with commit access and start fresh. I'm sure he knows the epic levels of drama that would result in if he actually did though haha
I wonder about the argument that imposing higher transaction fees is a good thing. As I see it there are two ways to fund miners long term 1. Higher fees, 2. More transactions. #2 seems to be the best solution since it is good for user adoption and good for miners.
Sure maybe fees will need to rise as the market demands, but why make it happen artificially with an imposed scarcity of transaction space. Especially this early in the game.
Inviting more cheap transactions seems like a good thing for all parties.
Maybe I'm missing something?
Sorry, but comments like: "For the record, at LTB we will be switching all our nodes over to BitcoinXT to ensure we stay on the proper chain when the fork is triggered early next year." Just confirm a clear bias and partiality.. "the proper chain" ... really?
A site such as LTB always had an opportunity to try and be impartial, but apparently has never bothered. Mike Hearn's open letter justifying his actions is full of so many logical contradictions its embarrassing. The essential nature of the whole Bitcoin movement is about 'consensus', anyone going along with this coup, clearly doesn't understand that. Disruptive innovation takes time.. Those who lack patience and want to force their ideas through without clear consensus are not in this for the right reasons.. But the history of the crypto currency movement over the last few years is full of people who took an opportunistic, tokensistic approach.. (pun intended).
@adam From my perspective everyone is acting in their self interest and since any one objection derails taking any action, and not taking any action is the course of action desired by one side in the dispute, it seems perfectly reasonable that the other three core developers simply have taken their stand and will not be moved. If that is the case then for XT not to be proposed in this way is to concede to the other side that nothing will be done because they can prevent it by not giving consensus
The fact that this fork attempt is happening would seem to suggest that they HAVE exhausted their other less controversial options and this is what they perceive to be the lowest risk.
So the question comes back around to the one I keep asking: **If both sides believe they have the right answer, and those answers are mutually exclusive from one another (going with one neccesarily means you did not go with the other) and because of their different perspectives all believe they are right and will not change, how does a decision get made? XT would suggest that a worst-case is where we are now "putting it to the community" because developers failed to come to a consensus.
Yes, this is the point. The lack of ability to execute according to one's vision within the bitcoin-core dev process has made forking to XT inevitable. If not now, I could have seen another dev creating an 8M fork within the next year given the lack of progress within the group of core devs.
Also, another thing to point out - most of bitcoin-dev doesn't seem too interested in what end users want. This disconnect between devs and users is a large reason that XT has such a groundswell of support. Ignoring what the end user wants will almost always lead to revolt in one way or another.
@edgelogic Sorry, but comments like: "For the record, at LTB we will be switching all our nodes over to BitcoinXT to ensure we stay on the proper chain when the fork is triggered early next year." Just confirm a clear bias and partiality.. "the proper chain" ... really?
A site such as LTB always had an opportunity to try and be impartial, but apparently has never bothered. Mike Hearn's open letter justifying his actions is full of so many logical contradictions its embarrassing. The essential nature of the whole Bitcoin movement is about 'consensus', anyone going along with this coup, clearly doesn't understand that. Disruptive innovation takes time.. Those who lack patience and want to force their ideas through without clear consensus are not in this for the right reasons.. But the history of the crypto currency movement over the last few years is full of people who took an opportunistic, tokensistic approach.. (pun intended).
Proper chain = chain with more proof of work. Given that 75% of blocks will be marked as protocol 70010 blocks, it's reasonable to call this proper chain at that point.
@edgelogic Sorry, but comments like: "For the record, at LTB we will be switching all our nodes over to BitcoinXT to ensure we stay on the proper chain when the fork is triggered early next year." Just confirm a clear bias and partiality.. "the proper chain" ... really?
We decided to have this conversation in public since it effects LTB and Tokenly along with everybody else. We have no ideological stake in either camp, just a good outcome.
Also it's important to note that @Cryptonaut is not representing "LTB" any more than I am here, we're just talking this out and asking questions so that if we're wrong that can be identified and we can avoid doing the dumb thing.
A site such as LTB always had an opportunity to try and be impartial, but apparently has never bothered. Mike Hearn's open letter justifying his actions is full of so many logical contradictions its embarrassing. The essential nature of the whole Bitcoin movement is about 'consensus', anyone going along with this coup, clearly doesn't understand that. Disruptive innovation takes time.. Those who lack patience and want to force their ideas through without clear consensus are not in this for the right reasons.. But the history of the crypto currency movement over the last few years is full of people who took an opportunistic, tokensistic approach.. (pun intended).
We are being impartial, we're talking about it and inviting anyone who wants to post their thoughts and try and convince those who disagree with them to change their opinion based on a better understanding. Nothing has been censored (even the one post that didnt really add anything besides saying they were in the thread lol)
Wouldn't it be intellectually dishonest if we pretended we had no opinion and didn't care what anybody else said? This is a conversation, if you want to influence it please contribute rather than calling us out for having a conversation.
@edgelogic Sorry, but comments like: "For the record, at LTB we will be switching all our nodes over to BitcoinXT to ensure we stay on the proper chain when the fork is triggered early next year." Just confirm a clear bias and partiality.. "the proper chain" ... really?
Everyone has bias. It's better to know what that bias is up front so you can adjust your perception accordingly.
I contacted Jerry Brito from CoinCenter.org for comment and he directed me to Eli Dourado who has been focused on Bitcoin governance for a while now, I asked him
The announcement of XT and a hard fork attempt is a major event and we're trying to understand the repercussions of it on bitcoins governance model. This is made especially complex because there are no "official" mouthpieces any more, you've got bitcoin.org with a policy effectively forbidding exactly what Mike and Gavin have done
https://bitcoin.org/en/posts/hard-fork-policy
Are you up to speed on this? Would love your thoughts and comments to share with our audience. If you want to jump into the conversation directly it's here https://letstalkbitcoin.com/forum/post/upcoming-bitcoin-hard-fork-r-bitcoin-censorship we'll be covering it in a written piece and on the Let's Talk Bitcoin! show once we understand it a bit more.
First, let’s count our blessings. It’s good that there is no “official” organization that can control Bitcoin. Such an organization would be subject to political pressure and ultimately to political capture. Let’s be grateful that Bitcoin is so capture-resistant.
Second, hard forks allow controversial decisions about the direction of Bitcoin to be made by the market, not by particular developers. They are the method by which we decentralize Bitcoin governance. A policy of never allowing hard forks is tantamount to a policy of letting core developers, not the market, choose how Bitcoin will behave. Consequently, I am unsympathetic to the bitcoin.org policy of forbidding controversial hard forks.
This is how the system is supposed to work. If the big-blockists are able to persuade the majority of miners, exchanges, and users that bigger blocks are better, they will win in the end. If not, the small-blockists will win. Either way, in the end, the shorter chain will be abandoned eventually, and there will be only one Bitcoin again.
The community has several more months during which to debate this issue, since the fork will not occur before 2016. In the meantime, we should focus on improving the quality of arguments and communication so that the fork will be resolved in an informed manner.
All the best,
Eli Dourado
Director, Technology Policy Program
Mercatus Center
George Mason University
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