Deadlines and moving forward (BIP 16/17 support)

[m3ta]

The bottom line is that non-technical people should have no say in an issue that is purely technical. This is technocratic democracy and it's simply the best way. All technical people should be invited to the discussion and then they can vote amongst themselves, simple as that. Then the results are made public and the miners will upgrade based on that, if the team decided to go forward with either BIP. There should of course be a vote for "neither".

If this issue is handled in any other way, I will seriously lose confidence in Bitcoin. The public debates need to end, they are not helping to solve the issue, instead they are just adding doubt in people's minds.

In theory, what you say looks "ok". However, in practice, things are a bit different.
You are drawing a thin line between 'democracy' and 'dictatorship', thus the 'technocratic' loses its importance.

I do agree with what you said about the public debates, though. And I believe that, more than doubt, it can shift the voting based on something other than the technical issues:

This has moved from a pure decision between BIPs to a 'quarrel in the arena' between Luke and Gavin. I realized that when one day I woke up and just saw Luke campaigning in #p2pool.

And what happens then is that people will make decisions based on their personalities more than on the 'quality' of their technical arguments.
I can clearly see thoughts like "I don't know Candidate number 2, but I know Candidate number 1 is a fanatical religious zealot, so I'm voting for 2". (*1)
Albeit inevitable, certainly not good for Bitcoin as a whole.


(*1) Just a fictional example. Or maybe not.

[allten]

Interesting Thread. I find many perspectives very beneficial.

I'm very optimistic for the future of Bitcoin even with these sometimes undesired (but necessary) debates that could easily turn into mud slinging.
kudos to all that that have kept their cool and have genuinely sought the best actions for the future improvements.
Hope Luke and Gavin can find common ground in other areas of future Bitcoin improvements and move forward.

Based on Developer votes, BIP 16 looks like the leader so that is what I will support as a non developer.
As much as Luke dislikes BIP 16, I would hope he could endure whatever it is he finds objectionable and help make BIP 16 successful.

I really appreciated the thread Gavin started called "BIP 16/17 in laymen's terms"
Would someone please consider starting a thread that describes in laymen terms all the steps required to migrate the bitcoin community to a BIP 16 improved client?
I don't want to be left in the Dark - it would make me feel powerless to wake up one day and be told bitcoin is already bip 16 ready. In other words, where do I fit in as a non developer for this migration?

My other major concern is that BIP 16 has not been adequately tested. What is the game plan to put BIP 16 technology into action before the migration? It would be nice to experience its use for a period of time and know that many more programmers and developers had examined/improved the code.
It would be a huge black eye for a few core developers to rush a migration on something they "feel" is ready for prime time only to be followed with "let's revert back" and/or "here's an emergency fix" followed by "here's yet another emergency fix". Solidcoin anyone?

I'm more than willing to donate hashing power on a temporary bitcoin fork for testing purposes.

[jtimon]

My opinion on this controversial and purely technical issue.
We need transactions with multiple signatures. It will add more security and use cases. It seems that the better technical solution is p2sh.
But I don't see any important differences between BIP 16 and 17. Not that I've looked into this deeply.
I prefer 17 but my decision is more based in "aesthetics" than in a strong argument so I don't have nothing against 16. Not that luke-jr is a saint of my devotion. I didn't like how he managed his disagreement.

I really appreciated the thread Gavin started called "BIP 16/17 in laymen's terms"

I didn't. However he may had his reasons. I imagine his mail full of crap.

[paraipan]

My other major concern is that BIP 16 has not been adequately tested. What is the game plan to put BIP 16 technology into action before the migration? It would be nice to experience its use for a period of time and know that many more programmers and developers had examined/improved the code.
It would be a huge black eye for a few core developers to rush a migration on something they "feel" is ready for prime time only to be followed with "let's revert back" and/or "here's an emergency fix" followed by "here's yet another emergency fix". Solidcoin anyone?

I'm more than willing to donate hashing power on a temporary bitcoin fork for testing purposes.

+1 agree, as a side note the solidcoin resemblance of doing things is quite striking

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

My other major concern is that BIP 16 has not been adequately tested. What is the game plan to put BIP 16 technology into action before the migration? It would be nice to experience its use for a period of time and know that many more programmers and developers had examined/improved the code.
It would be a huge black eye for a few core developers to rush a migration on something they "feel" is ready for prime time only to be followed with "let's revert back" and/or "here's an emergency fix" followed by "here's yet another emergency fix". Solidcoin anyone?

I'm more than willing to donate hashing power on a temporary bitcoin fork for testing purposes.

+1 agree, as a side note the solidcoin resemblance of doing things is quite striking

+1 to that.
Let's go slow, and do a lot of testing before implementing something that breaks backward compatibility.

It is people's money that is at stake here, so there is no place for "we feel" this is good.You must KNOW that something is good and well tested before implementing it.

[cbeast]

Y'all make it sound like BIP 16 is gonna melt down or something. A short holiday for the exchanges should mitigate any real threat that a small bug might cause. It's a beta release, after all. Don't panic.

[jtimon]

You must KNOW that something is good and well tested before implementing it.

How do you test something before implementing it?

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

You must KNOW that something is good and well tested before implementing it.

How do you test something before implementing it?

On testnet perhaps ?

Gavin said he's already done some testing on testnet, but the question is if that was enough.

Perhaps people with considerate mining power should do some more heavy testing.

[jtimon]

You must KNOW that something is good and well tested before implementing it.

How do you test something before implementing it?

On testnet perhaps ?

We mean different things by "implementation". BIP 16 and 17 are already implemented. I think you mean deployment.

Gavin said he's already done some testing on testnet, but the question is if that was enough.

You can test it yourself until you feel is enough.

Perhaps people with considerate mining power should do some more heavy testing.

Why do you need heavy computing power for the tests?

[Luke-Jr]

Perhaps people with considerate mining power should do some more heavy testing.

Why do you need heavy computing power for the tests?

This is basically a miner-only change.

BIP 17 has had plenty of mainnet testing.

[SimonL]

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BIP_0016_QA