Gavin Threatens to Quit Bitcoin Development and Join Hearn's Fork

[MicroGuy]

"Today on the Sourceforge hosted Bitcoin-development mailing list Gavin Andresen has threatened to leave his present group of Bitcoin software developers over their objections to his demands for a rapid hardfork of the Bitcoin network. In the event his demands are not met Gavin plans to join Mike Hearn's Bitcoin-XT project which is a fork of the Bitcoin client where Hearn implements patches that Gavin's current affiliated developers find too risky to implement in any mainline Bitcoin client. If Gavin defects to Bitcoin-XT he plans to work with Hearn to lobby merchants, miners, and businesses to move to Bitcoin-XT. Previously Mike Hearn was responsible for the March 2013 Bitcoin network crisis."

Original post: http://qntra.net/2015/05/gavin-threatens-to-quit-bitcoin-development-and-join-hearns-fork/

[Vod]

"Today on the Sourceforge hosted Bitcoin-development mailing list Gavin Andresen has threatened to leave his present group of Bitcoin software developers over their objections to his demands for a rapid hardfork of the Bitcoin network. In the event his demands are not met Gavin plans to join Mike Hearn's Bitcoin-XT project which is a fork of the Bitcoin client where Hearn implements patches that Gavin's current affiliated developers find too risky to implement in any mainline Bitcoin client. If Gavin defects to Bitcoin-XT he plans to work with Hearn to lobby merchants, miners, and businesses to move to Bitcoin-XT. Previously Mike Hearn was responsible for the March 2013 Bitcoin network crisis."

Original post: http://qntra.net/2015/05/gavin-threatens-to-quit-bitcoin-development-and-join-hearns-fork/

Such a move will only weaken Bitcoin's credibility in the eyes of the public.   

[TinEye]

"Today on the Sourceforge hosted Bitcoin-development mailing list Gavin Andresen has threatened to leave his present group of Bitcoin software developers over their objections to his demands for a rapid hardfork of the Bitcoin network. In the event his demands are not met Gavin plans to join Mike Hearn's Bitcoin-XT project which is a fork of the Bitcoin client where Hearn implements patches that Gavin's current affiliated developers find too risky to implement in any mainline Bitcoin client. If Gavin defects to Bitcoin-XT he plans to work with Hearn to lobby merchants, miners, and businesses to move to Bitcoin-XT. Previously Mike Hearn was responsible for the March 2013 Bitcoin network crisis."

Original post: http://qntra.net/2015/05/gavin-threatens-to-quit-bitcoin-development-and-join-hearns-fork/

Such a move will only weaken Bitcoin's credibility in the eyes of the public.   

You can bet that if this happens some altcoins will be able to suitable spin it for their benefit. Even a 1% movement of money away from Bitcoin to a particular altcoin will make their marketcap shoot up.

So be prepared to  get a lot of negative marketing from within the community itself, not just general public.

[jeannemadrigal2]

This could be catastrophic for bitcoin.  If he leaves then in my opinion neither would be successful.  I suppose a major alt like litecoin could take over but I think even alts would be damaged by this.  Lets hope they can find a solution.

[EndTheFed321]

catastrophic Indeed, it will open the doors for the scam OneCoin to flood the market 

[BusyBeaverHP]

Nice try Mircea, try putting this spin on the front page of /r/Bitcoin then we'll talk.

[AGD]

We should have known before:

[TPTB_need_war]

So be prepared to  get a lot of negative marketing from within the community itself, not just general public.

And we have MP's promised nuke on Gavincoin.

My long-standing prediction for a bottom < $100 is coming to fruition. 

The dip will likely drag the altcoins down too. They will be shooting themselves in the foot, but perhaps with exceptions.

[NorrisK]

It is a bad thing that one person currently has so much influence on the bitcoin perception
 him leaving should not cause more than a small dip on the news, otherwise it has become to centralized around him.

[franky1]

it doesnt matter what fork gavin wants to manage.. all that counts is what fork mining pools work on..

if all the pools stick with the current github version. then the hearn fork will just be a its own little crappy fork that will end up being an altcoin. the issue will then be that no one will want to trade real bitcoins for altbitcoins(hearns fork) as they wont be worth as much.

the only thing that i am concerned with is if gavin brutalizes the github by revoking membership and preventing coders from continuing on with the current bitcoin code, forcing people to use hearns fork

[shulio]

it doesnt matter what fork gavin wants to manage.. all that counts is what fork mining pools work on..

if all the pools stick with the current github version. then the hearn fork will just be a its own little crappy fork that will end up being an altcoin. the issue will then be that no one will want to trade real bitcoins for altbitcoins(hearns fork) as they wont be worth as much.

the only thing that i am concerned with is if gavin brutalizes the github by revoking membership and preventing coders from continuing on with the current bitcoin code, forcing people to use hearns fork

I dont think he will be forcing people.this could be a move from him so that people realize that he is importat for bitcoin community and then people will accept his fork proposal. Hearn fork is just another stupid altcoin fork, it serve bitcoin not better than any altcoin, much more like a copy of altcoin

[LiteCoinGuy]

it doesnt matter what fork gavin wants to manage.. all that counts is what fork mining pools work on..

if all the pools stick with the current github version. then the hearn fork will just be a its own little crappy fork that will end up being an altcoin. the issue will then be that no one will want to trade real bitcoins for altbitcoins(hearns fork) as they wont be worth as much.

the only thing that i am concerned with is if gavin brutalizes the github by revoking membership and preventing coders from continuing on with the current bitcoin code, forcing people to use hearns fork

I dont think he will be forcing people.this could be a move from him so that people realize that he is importat for bitcoin community and then people will accept his fork proposal. Hearn fork is just another stupid altcoin fork, it serve bitcoin not better than any altcoin, much more like a copy of altcoin

why dont we stay with bitcoin core and just raise the fucking blocksize limit?  

like he wrote: "big increase now that grows over time so we may never have to go through all this rancor and debate again."

or isnt that possible with bitcoin core?

[franky1]

it doesnt matter what fork gavin wants to manage.. all that counts is what fork mining pools work on..

if all the pools stick with the current github version. then the hearn fork will just be a its own little crappy fork that will end up being an altcoin. the issue will then be that no one will want to trade real bitcoins for altbitcoins(hearns fork) as they wont be worth as much.

the only thing that i am concerned with is if gavin brutalizes the github by revoking membership and preventing coders from continuing on with the current bitcoin code, forcing people to use hearns fork

I dont think he will be forcing people.this could be a move from him so that people realize that he is importat for bitcoin community and then people will accept his fork proposal. Hearn fork is just another stupid altcoin fork, it serve bitcoin not better than any altcoin, much more like a copy of altcoin

i think its worth people looking at what other hidden lines of code hearn wants to impliment. as i dont think the hearn vs github is just about 20mb..

[pitham1]

It is a bad thing that one person currently has so much influence on the bitcoin perception
 him leaving should not cause more than a small dip on the news, otherwise it has become to centralized around him.

The question is why is he leaving?
Opinions are divided on the blocksize limit. So it is not just one person who is branching out.

[Kyraishi]

After this, I don't think the community should support Gavin on anything.
Nobody has the right to threaten Bitcoin or it's community and that includes Gavin.

[dothebeats]

I don't see any problem when others create their own fork of bitcoin, but given that the well-known developer of bitcoin is threatening to leave the github version to support another fork is alarming. Though we know that even if Gavin supported this fork and the network stays on mining the current fork, still there will be doubts among the general public seeing that one of the prominent figures in bitcoin leaves for another project. This would only drag bitcoin not only in price but also in adoption as well.

-snip-
the only thing that i am concerned with is if gavin brutalizes the github by revoking membership and preventing coders from continuing on with the current bitcoin code, forcing people to use hearns fork

This will cause a massive outrage from the community and the network that may result to a great loss. If ever Gavin did this thing, I think no one will ever trust bitcoin and its concept anymore. If he wants something to change in the code, he should consult the community and other developers as well, because first and foremost, he doesn't own anything in bitcoin's code; he's just another developer too of this great code, but only more widely-known by the community and the world, but still the fact remains that he's a developer and not the owner of bitcoin.

EDIT: Fixed some grammatical errors and spelling.

[Fedoraeuphoria]

This is rather interesting. This news almost makes it seem that the confidence of the bitcoin currency is tied to a software developer when this digital currency is touted to be independent of any central authority.

[connectthebots]

Wow, so a developer has so much centralized influence that that him moving away is gonna decide an outcome?

Looks like Bitcoin's semi-decentralization is over. Onto the full centralization road people.

[BTCat]

Bitcoin is King and no other altcoin will get that huge amount of adoptionrate within the next 20 years.

[Lauda]

Wow, so a developer has so much centralized influence that that him moving away is gonna decide an outcome?

Bitcoin can't get more centralized than this.

This is only minor centralization. Someone has to actually code things, it can't magically work and repair itself. The project is open source; anyone can contribute hence the decentralization.

It's obvious that many will understand this news the wrong way. Gavin is one of the main faces behind Bitcoin, and some highly respect him. He has influence. This move is what could start tearing Bitcoin apart from within. If the network splits even to 50-50, we can start looking towards the end of the line.

Such a move will only weaken Bitcoin's credibility in the eyes of the public.  

Exactly. No good will come from this.