Could members of the core development team become a threat to bitcoin?

[alani123]

I'm sure many of you have heard about Gavin Andresen's idea of increasing/replacing block size limit. There has been much debate about this topic lately and a recent dispute ended up with Gavin threatening to leave the core development team and giving hints about a fork. We're not certain if an overwhelming majority of the community would support something like this. It's been quite some time since a fork was seen as something possible for bitcoin.

From the looks of it however, it looks that Gavin has a big chunk of the crowd supporting his theory that other code developers had deemed too risky to include in core clients. Up to this date, core developers were considered the most major contributors to bitcoin. But a fork was rarely brought up even as a possibility. We know that bitcoin's network can be affected by consensus decisions, but disputes between the core development team could prove quite damaging.

What is your take on this? Should we be afraid forking? Is this an example of how core developers could even pose a threat to the community and even bitcoin itself?

[LiteCoinGuy]

Quote

"What do other people think?


If we can't come to an agreement soon, then I'll ask for help
reviewing/submitting patches to Mike's Bitcoin-Xt project that implement a
big increase now that grows over time so we may never have to go through
all this rancor and debate again.

I'll then ask for help lobbying the merchant services and exchanges and
hosted wallet companies and other bitcoind-using-infrastructure companies
(and anybody who agrees with me that we need bigger blocks sooner rather
than later) to run Bitcoin-Xt instead of Bitcoin Core, and state that they
are running it. We'll be able to see uptake on the network by monitoring
client versions.

Perhaps by the time that happens there will be consensus bigger blocks are
needed sooner rather than later; if so, great! The early deployment will
just serve as early testing, and all of the software already deployed will
ready for bigger blocks.

But if there is still no consensus among developers but the "bigger blocks
now" movement is successful, I'll ask for help getting big miners to do the
same, and use the soft-fork block version voting mechanism to (hopefully)
get a majority and then a super-majority willing to produce bigger blocks.
The purpose of that process is to prove to any doubters that they'd better
start supporting bigger blocks or they'll be left behind, and to give them
a chance to upgrade before that happens.


Because if we can't come to consensus here, the ultimate authority for
determining consensus is what code the majority of merchants and exchanges
and miners are running.


--
--
Gavin Andresen"

http://gavinandresen.ninja/

[randy8777]

they could. people have shown to bring down multi billion dollar companies just because of certain disagreements. i definitely hope it will cool down and the devs focus on what is the best for bitcoin and not for their egos.

[unamis76]

As it is obvious, they can be a threat to Bitcoin, but up only until a certain point. They could in theory push bad code... Although it would be detected before it hit a major release, I think. But we have very good and valid reasons to believe they will never botch Bitcoin code.

As for forking, well, we shouldn't be afraid of forking. Forking means Bitcoin is changing, and change can be good. We, as users, miners, merchants, etc just have to vote on which fork we want to be in, by running the matching client... Bitcoin and the blockchain make it all easy

[Meuh6879]

I'm sure many of you have heard about Gavin Andresen's idea of increasing/replacing block size limit. There has been much debate about this topic lately and a recent dispute ended up with Gavin threatening to leave the core development team and giving hints about a fork.

In French section, we are translate (the interview of) the main idea of gavin "head" job (volunteer ?) ... it's not like many members think/write about the developper team.

Gavin is the "head" of communication for the developper team ... not the only developper.

>>>>>> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1054632.msg11324585#msg11324585 <<<<<<

[NyeFe]

Could they become a threat? Of course they could, must of them are possibly working on Blockstream which will financially lead to a conflict of interesting during decision making. Im sure this could be sorted if developers closely affiliated with Bitcoin based businesses, we're not allowed to join the core development team.

[Amph]

what it is actually worse, is the possibility of having bitcoin wihout any dev, or without competent dev, that don't knows what to do with the future upgrade, something like this could easily destroy bitcoin...

i think it is better to have a vote system on a large scale, for every node of bitcoin, built in the client, there was a suggestion about that from someone, i think it is an awesome idea

[Meuh6879]

that don't knows what to do with the future upgrade, something like this could easily destroy bitcoin...

no so easy : more than 3 months to overtake the v0.9 branch on Bitcoin network. 

[Kprawn]

The biggest threat, is for countries to perceive this as a reason to ban Bitcoin. If ANY single core developer or a group can influence a development decision with these kind of tactics, these countries might see this as a threat.

I also want the same change, they are pushing for, but I am not willing to sacrifice the integrity of the consensus process to do this.

Some countries already fear the western monopoly on crypto currency development and they would rather steer clear of Bitcoin for that reason.

Today it's the block size, tomorrow it's something bigger... Do you trust this kind of forced decision making?  

Get all these parties together and have a global vote or something... but this is wrong...