Bitcoin Forum

It's open source code. Nobody is getting hired or fired. The founder outlined the only relevant consensus mechanism:

https://i.imgur.com/UxrfOqo.png (https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf)

If there's a group telling you that you need to keep them in power (administered by an unimpeachable priesthood, 'cause contentious), for your safety... best to watch what they do, and not swallow what they say.

I think some more healthy competition against Core would be welcome

You are confusing "healthy" (ie positive-sum) competition among consensus-critical blockchains with unhealthy zero/negative-sum contention within a single consensus-critical blockchain.

Altcoins are Bitcoin's healthy competition.  If Bitcoin isn't competitive we'll use Litecoin, Primecoin, and Monero instead.

Classic and other XT-like governance coup attempts are declarations of a war that only one side can win.

Altcoins are Bitcoin's healthy competition.  If Bitcoin isn't competitive we'll use Litecoin, Primecoin, and Monero instead.

I think "healthy" competition can come from both inside and outside of the Bitcoin ecosystem. Internal competition becomes problematic when productive discussion and collaboration devolves into mudslinging, which it too often does.

Open source software generally both cooperates and competes. Handled well the benefits of the former offset the costs of the latter and the result is a gain for everyone. --- but software differentiating in consensus rules is the worst kind of competition: competition here can deprive users of the practical freedom to use their preferred software, and the fight risks leaving a salted earth in its wake.

This is not completely unheard of outside of consensus systems: A less powerful version of it exists in the form of file format compatibility. Microsoft was a pioneer of business strategy based on making incompatible extensions to formats, first leveraging their network effect and then-- after introducing incompatible changes-- using it against them, an approach they themselves called embrace, extend, extinguish (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish). Worse than zero sum, these kinds of moves can be tremendously damaging overall.

Bitcoin's creator described alternative implementations as a likely "menace to the network"-- words which I think were spoken with an early insight into the incredible difficulty in making distinct software actually consensus compatible even when that is your highest goal, an art our industry is still just learning.  I wish we'd built mechanisms earlier on for better ways to enable diversity in the non-consensus parts without ending up with unintended diversity in the consensus parts.  But we play the hand we're dealt. The potential harms from consensus disagreements from mistakes in re-implementation are tiny in comparison to those from adversarial implementations which intentionally push incompatible rules.

You've got it all wrong.  "Mudslinging" is good.  Vigorous debate is the crucible from which truth emerges.  And Bitcoin runs on drama!   :)

Healthy (ie positive sum) internal competition comes from implementations competing to best preserve/protect/promulgate the critical consensus.  Unhealthy (ie zero-at-best but-probably-negative sum) competition comes from contention-generating hard forks that risk catastrophic consensus failure.

Gmax mapped it out here:

I'm starting to get the impression that coinbase is the main threat.

It's the core team that is the main threat.

Sad to see how Bitcoin is shooting itself in the foot with all of this nonsense.

It's the core team that is the main threat.

I doubt it the bitcoin devs are working for free. And a healthy competition is always a good thing even though the Core team has been a little bit too self-absorbed.

Brian Armstrong went pretty hard on the Core developers and their opinions on the block size.

It is a systemic threat because he can't push his own agenda. He's just wasting more time. This does not help anyone.

Disagree. The most influential Core devs want to use the block size limit as a production quota, forcing fees up (and some TXs/users out), partly to focus the minds of devs on other solutions. They have said as much.

The limit was never intended for that and there has never been any discussion or BIP or similar relating to this _completely new policy_.

Also, how is he "wasting more time"? We have to sit around and wait for SegWit anyway, which is at least a month away. We can't do anything about that.

In order to avoid such a frightening scenario, Armstrong argued that we need to take “a path forward” that accomplishes 3 major goals:
Long term, we need to form a new team to work on the bitcoin protocol

That's a complex economic question which is a straw man in this case. Just because they want to use it in a certain way, that does not make them a "systemic risk". You do have to realize that the block size limit can't be infinitely raised every time we start nearing the maximum that the blocks can take.

I'd like to see actual proposals that help solve problems.

I see nothing more than an attempt at taking over the keys of the main implementation (or control over developers).

core or classic ???

Using something like Monero's dynamic block size seems like a simple fix to a huge issue.

Agree that block sizes can't keep rising infinitely, but a simple increase _is_ a tool available to us.

The proposal is a temporary increase to address immediate concerns, then focus on other scaling improvements (weak/thin blocks, IBLT, a proper implementation of SegWit, etc). This sounds more sensible and less risky to me than where we are now.

Maybe the too strong influence of certain Core devs (and Adam Back, oddly) does need to be addressed. I don't see it as a power grab, more of a reset.

You are confusing "healthy" (ie positive-sum) competition among consensus-critical blockchains with unhealthy zero/negative-sum contention within a single consensus-critical blockchain.

Altcoins are Bitcoin's healthy competition.  If Bitcoin isn't competitive we'll use Litecoin, Primecoin, and Monero instead.

Classic and other XT-like governance coup attempts are declarations of a war that only one side can win.

Brian got point, some Core developers dont have social skills and dont want make compromises with substantial part of Bitcoin users and companies.

Social skills are not relevant to good code,

iCEBREAKER is example of user dividing Bitcoiners whenever he can, not because he has different opinion to some others, but because he is not willing to take compromises for the overal good to keep unity of Bitcoiners.

This is about Honey Badger, not silly old *me*.  You are personalizing the debate because XT/Classic is failing so badly and you (being a sore loser) want an excuse to lash out.

I give up. WHO is Honey Badger ?

Any relation to Winnie The Pooh?

The problem is the core developers and yes Gavin is part of the problem. So much for a decentralize fantasy

Gavin is not Core - he is Classic

Gavin is not Core - he is Classic

That there were 92 other contributors besides Gavin and Jeff Garzik, might suggest that they are indeed in the minority regarding their ideas. (See: release notes)

Technically, he is both. He was one of 94 contributors to the last release of Bitcoin Core.

Disagree. The most influential Core devs want to use the block size limit as a production quota, forcing fees up (and some TXs/users out), partly to focus the minds of devs on other solutions. They have said as much.

The limit was never intended for that and there has never been any discussion or BIP or similar relating to this _completely new policy_. Put another way, there would have been near zero support for a hard limit production quota if they had to introduce it via a BIP.

Also, how is he "wasting more time"? We have to sit around and wait for SegWit anyway, which is at least a month away. We can't do anything about that.

The limit is there because resources are limited, and no limit would lead to massive node centralization. We have data that shows raising the block size now would not be a good idea. SegWit will buy us some time, then we can start considering a blocksize rise, always having in mind that scaling bitcoin worldwide without an additional layer is impossible without mass centralization on the nodes.

Exactly. The other guy does not know what he is talking about. 'The most influential' Core developers can't do anything on their own. This is very important and I don't think that some realize this. For example, if Maxwell was the only one against a feature and everyone else agrees then it would be implemented. The same happened with Gavin, almost everyone was against his proposal and thus it was rejected. Segwit should provide adequate amount of transaction space for now.

segwit increases full node requirements just as much as 2MB blocks.
if you believe 2MB blocks will lead to node centralization, then you should come to the same conclusion with segwit.

removing the ability to create a full node on a free AWS server should not be seen as a bad thing.

'Just as much'? No. The problem with a dangerous TX that could take too long to process is not inherent to Segwit. Additionally, it is worth to say that 2 MB block size limit has positive effects that Segwit does not (i.e. Segwit comes with a few).

It is a paid Sybil attack.

hmm we'd have to confirm that... but notwithstanding this attack

there will be twice as many TX included pre block, requiring nodes to process relay and store twice as many TX, just as if we had simply increased block size.

more is not always better?

'Just as much'? No. The problem with a dangerous TX that could take too long to process is not inherent to Segwit. Additionally, it is worth to say that 2 MB block size limit has positive effects that Segwit does not (i.e. Segwit comes with a few).

It is a paid Sybil attack.

proof ?

808 nodes for a maximum of 213 supporters

Proof of what? That it is a paid attack? Read this: A date with Sybil (https://medium.com/@laurentmt/a-date-with-sybil-bdb33bd91ac3#.i64ieojet).

Sad to see how Bitcoin is shooting itself in the foot with all of this nonsense.

Very sad, any ideas on how we can repair the mess before another 3 months (or more) fly by?

Very sad, any ideas on how we can repair the mess before another 3 months (or more) fly by?

This Coinbase guy, Armstrong is becoming a real pain in the ass & a genuine threat to the future of bitcoin.

which future?

Decentralized future, the future of proper devs at Core & Blockstream. Armstrong can't be trusted, he is in bed with government officials & doesn't give a shit about the fundamentals of bitcoin.

this is a fairly big problem.

created by the ill conceived notion that running a full node should be accessible to everyone and anyone at a low low cost.

transacting on the blockchain should be accessible to everyone and anyone at a low low cost, not running its infrastructure..

i can't Believe i have to make this case.