Alert: chain fork caused by pre-0.8 clients dealing badly with large blocks

[dscotese]

Ultimately, I think centralization is not the essence of what those of us who want to avoid it actually loathe.  We loathe coercion.  After all, for whatever reason, we have violated directive #3 (I think - right?  That was Stephen's example, right?) because, through some centralization, the community was able to reason with miners and thereby convince enough of them to switch to a broken client in order to save the masses of bitcoiners still on that version, unable to validate the good block that forked them over.  There is a kind of coercion in that, but it depended on the cooperation of the miners and isn't something I would call coercion because no rights of anyone were violated or threatened to be violated.

[solex]

Ultimately, I think centralization is not the essence of what those of us who want to avoid it actually loathe.  We loathe coercion.  After all, for whatever reason, we have violated directive #3 (I think - right?  That was Stephen's example, right?) because, through some centralization, the community was able to reason with miners and thereby convince enough of them to switch to a broken client in order to save the masses of bitcoiners still on that version, unable to validate the good block that forked them over.  There is a kind of coercion in that, but it depended on the cooperation of the miners and isn't something I would call coercion because no rights of anyone were violated or threatened to be violated.

IMHO, I think coercion is too strong a term. BTC Guild had some 25% of the hashing power and 60% recognized the large problem block. So it was up to BTC Guild alone to decide what they wanted to do, and they obviously gave weight to the opinion of core dev. This was an unusual situation resolved by actions which did not strictly violate the principles which support #3.

[johnyj]

Ultimately, I think centralization is not the essence of what those of us who want to avoid it actually loathe.  We loathe coercion.  After all, for whatever reason, we have violated directive #3 (I think - right?  That was Stephen's example, right?) because, through some centralization, the community was able to reason with miners and thereby convince enough of them to switch to a broken client in order to save the masses of bitcoiners still on that version, unable to validate the good block that forked them over.  There is a kind of coercion in that, but it depended on the cooperation of the miners and isn't something I would call coercion because no rights of anyone were violated or threatened to be violated.

Everyone can be a prophet afterwards

[taltamir]

Ultimately, I think centralization is not the essence of what those of us who want to avoid it actually loathe.  We loathe coercion.  After all, for whatever reason, we have violated directive #3 (I think - right?  That was Stephen's example, right?) because, through some centralization, the community was able to reason with miners and thereby convince enough of them to switch to a broken client in order to save the masses of bitcoiners still on that version, unable to validate the good block that forked them over.  There is a kind of coercion in that, but it depended on the cooperation of the miners and isn't something I would call coercion because no rights of anyone were violated or threatened to be violated.

That is semantics. Centralization explicitly refers to the centralization of power in the hands of governments through legal coercion.
That being said, semantics are important...
That being said, the whole concept of p2pool is to further avoid "centralization" of power done not by the government and not via coercion.

[dscotese]

Ultimately, I think centralization is not the essence of what those of us who want to avoid it actually loathe.  We loathe coercion.  After all, for whatever reason, we have violated directive #3 (I think - right?  That was Stephen's example, right?) because, through some centralization, the community was able to reason with miners and thereby convince enough of them to switch to a broken client in order to save the masses of bitcoiners still on that version, unable to validate the good block that forked them over.  There is a kind of coercion in that, but it depended on the cooperation of the miners and isn't something I would call coercion because no rights of anyone were violated or threatened to be violated.

That is semantics. Centralization explicitly refers to the centralization of power in the hands of governments through legal coercion.
That being said, semantics are important...
That being said, the whole concept of p2pool is to further avoid "centralization" of power done not by the government and not via coercion.

Ok, so I think you're agreeing and being nitpicky.  I like that!  So I'll join you:
"not by the government and not via coercion" is redundant.
That being said, redundancy is important, especially in the bitcoin world! 

[taltamir]

Ok, so I think you're agreeing and being nitpicky.  I like that!  So I'll join you:
"not by the government and not via coercion" is redundant.
That being said, redundancy is important, especially in the bitcoin world!  

Yes on all counts
The redundancy parts especially.