Bitcoin Core or XT, you dont have to choose NOW. Dont bother with the poll....

[canth]

How about not forking Bitcoin at all since this is not an imminent issue.

That's your opinion and you're welcome to it, but that doesn't mean you can stop people from proposing a fork.  How about calling off the next general election because I disagree with a policy of one of the candidates?  How about closing a restaurant because I don't like one of the dishes on their menu?  How about we shut down the internet because I don't like a particular website?  Your opinion doesn't trump everyone else's.  It just doesn't work that way.  At the end of the day, you have to allow people to make their own choices and that's what's going to happen whether you like it or not.  

The majority of Bitcoin developers agree with this statement, the developer of XT decided to make his own version of Bitcoin so he could control Bitcoin's code without needing consent from anyone else.

Anyone can modify Bitcoin's code without needing permission from the core devs.  It's called Open Source and it's one of the fundamental principles behind Bitcoin.  Consent comes from the users securing the network, not the developers.  If you want a closed source coin where a small number of developers make all the decisions and everyone is forced to use that code and only that code, what the hell are you even doing here?

The question is who decides which version gets published. So far i read bitcoin xt has by far not the protection that bitcoin core has. And it only makes sense that gavin is switching there when he thinks he cant get his will on bitcoin core. The only reason he would switch would be because he would know he would get his will with bitcoin xt. So all the theoretical security about bitcoin xt are only theoretical as long as the project can be decided by 2 developers. All the fans download the client and thats it.

Im still not sure what will happen when gaving and hearn would implement tainting in their client and many newbs got aware that some coins might be worth less than others. Or if bitcoin xt would really become THE chain. Would a bad thing implemented be possibly made rolled back in any circumstances without leaving bitcoin behind hurt?

If Bitcoin XT gets a majority, rest assured that there will be more than 2 developers contributing and reviewing code. Even if it's solely Hearn or Gavin that get commit access, every submission will get reviewed. If something controversial is committed, rest assured there will be a migration away from Bitcoin XT.

It doesn't matter if it's Bitcoin Core or XT or some other version - you're getting the same level of review unless developers leave the project and go work on Doge or something.

I see what you mean. Review after the release might happen. Though that might mean that already alot of people downloaded the client and made transactions on, maybe a fork. Surely they could switch away but a potential harm might be done already.

You dont fear something like that happening at all?

On top of that, what do you think if a reasonable high amount of users think the bitcoin xt bitcoins are the one with value and the rest thinks it the unforked bitcoin core? When they are not compatible then you have copied a currency and both chains fans believe their coin is the real deal. Maybe even exchanges are undecided. You simply dont copy a currency and have double the value. So what do you think will happen?

Miners take months or more to upgrade and they are really the only ones who can fork the network - aka, create blocks that are rejected by other legitimate nodes. No, I'm not really concerned about the evil software upgrade that gets pushed out overnight and perhaps a few hundred users run. Hell, for a new user it takes nearly a day on modern hardware to get caught up with the full blockchain. There's very little damage that can be done short of a "steal your private keys and send them to FTP site" type of hack - and there's no fixing that. Put a gun to any of the core devs head and they'll push out a hacked version of Bitcoin Core - it's the other devs that review it, warn others and in the case of Core, roll back changes.

We're going to know long before we have a forked chain whether or not XT nodes have a clear majority. If they do, I don't imagine that the core devs are going to sit on their hands - they'll capitulate and this larger block controversy will go away. Alternatively, XT could fail to gain attraction and then it's not much of a concern.

This is a lot of handwringing over something important but that will ultimately be resolved smoothly.

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[NxtChg]

We can do so much better than democracy in its present guise.

We can? How?

I've been thinking about how we could build effective Bitcoin governance and the best I could come up with is the same "a bunch of wealthy individuals and companies [...] effectively buy the policies they like best".

And even that is damn difficult to implement.

--

It seems that we might go a bit different way, though, with Core and XT continue co-existing in parallel, mostly in a compatible state, out of the need that "there can be only one".

Both having the same technical protocol, but different people, structure, processes and political standing; serving as a kind of two-party system and keeping each other in check.

Their respective power will be determined by the number of Core vs XT nodes running and people/businesses on board. They will have to negotiate any significant change at the risk of yet another full fork.

And occasionally the full forks will still happen and the minority will have to concede and change their protocol to match the winning side.

Can there really be any other way for a decentralized system?   

[TheMage]

I stopped reading after this

Of being undermined by a developer who’s gone rogue, using his political influence to convince vendors that an upcoming minor problem will be a major crisis, getting them to accept his own extraordinarily bad pet solution to that problem, and as a result hurtling the whole ecosystem towards potential disaster.

If someone, anyone, wants to be taken serious in these discussions they need to avoid slander and ad hominems.

That's nothing...  some of these folks actually make it sound like it's Gavin's fault that Bitcoin mining is already centralized...  

Sigh......Ignorance is a hard thing to fight

[SebastianJu]

How about not forking Bitcoin at all since this is not an imminent issue.

That's your opinion and you're welcome to it, but that doesn't mean you can stop people from proposing a fork.  How about calling off the next general election because I disagree with a policy of one of the candidates?  How about closing a restaurant because I don't like one of the dishes on their menu?  How about we shut down the internet because I don't like a particular website?  Your opinion doesn't trump everyone else's.  It just doesn't work that way.  At the end of the day, you have to allow people to make their own choices and that's what's going to happen whether you like it or not.  

The majority of Bitcoin developers agree with this statement, the developer of XT decided to make his own version of Bitcoin so he could control Bitcoin's code without needing consent from anyone else.

Anyone can modify Bitcoin's code without needing permission from the core devs.  It's called Open Source and it's one of the fundamental principles behind Bitcoin.  Consent comes from the users securing the network, not the developers.  If you want a closed source coin where a small number of developers make all the decisions and everyone is forced to use that code and only that code, what the hell are you even doing here?

The question is who decides which version gets published. So far i read bitcoin xt has by far not the protection that bitcoin core has. And it only makes sense that gavin is switching there when he thinks he cant get his will on bitcoin core. The only reason he would switch would be because he would know he would get his will with bitcoin xt. So all the theoretical security about bitcoin xt are only theoretical as long as the project can be decided by 2 developers. All the fans download the client and thats it.

Im still not sure what will happen when gaving and hearn would implement tainting in their client and many newbs got aware that some coins might be worth less than others. Or if bitcoin xt would really become THE chain. Would a bad thing implemented be possibly made rolled back in any circumstances without leaving bitcoin behind hurt?

If Bitcoin XT gets a majority, rest assured that there will be more than 2 developers contributing and reviewing code. Even if it's solely Hearn or Gavin that get commit access, every submission will get reviewed. If something controversial is committed, rest assured there will be a migration away from Bitcoin XT.

It doesn't matter if it's Bitcoin Core or XT or some other version - you're getting the same level of review unless developers leave the project and go work on Doge or something.

I see what you mean. Review after the release might happen. Though that might mean that already alot of people downloaded the client and made transactions on, maybe a fork. Surely they could switch away but a potential harm might be done already.

You dont fear something like that happening at all?

On top of that, what do you think if a reasonable high amount of users think the bitcoin xt bitcoins are the one with value and the rest thinks it the unforked bitcoin core? When they are not compatible then you have copied a currency and both chains fans believe their coin is the real deal. Maybe even exchanges are undecided. You simply dont copy a currency and have double the value. So what do you think will happen?

Miners take months or more to upgrade and they are really the only ones who can fork the network - aka, create blocks that are rejected by other legitimate nodes. No, I'm not really concerned about the evil software upgrade that gets pushed out overnight and perhaps a few hundred users run. Hell, for a new user it takes nearly a day on modern hardware to get caught up with the full blockchain. There's very little damage that can be done short of a "steal your private keys and send them to FTP site" type of hack - and there's no fixing that. Put a gun to any of the core devs head and they'll push out a hacked version of Bitcoin Core - it's the other devs that review it, warn others and in the case of Core, roll back changes.

We're going to know long before we have a forked chain whether or not XT nodes have a clear majority. If they do, I don't imagine that the core devs are going to sit on their hands - they'll capitulate and this larger block controversy will go away. Alternatively, XT could fail to gain attraction and then it's not much of a concern.

This is a lot of handwringing over something important but that will ultimately be resolved smoothly.

Youre right. Sounds like a big problem wont arise. Only thing that might be possible is that some people might download it and use the old blockchain as base to run the new client. They might send their coins to someone and he doesnt get it because the transaction is only on the wrong chain. Or he might send his coins from the old wallet to the new one. Which might mean having sent their real bitcoins to an address that doesnt have a corresponding on the real chain. Though it should be possible to import the keys from the altchain into the old chain and get the coins back as long as the private keys system wasnt changed.

Does that sound right? If im right then this might mean some bad press or people complaining but youre right, it wont be the big problem most probably.

[canth]

Youre right. Sounds like a big problem wont arise. Only thing that might be possible is that some people might download it and use the old blockchain as base to run the new client. They might send their coins to someone and he doesnt get it because the transaction is only on the wrong chain. Or he might send his coins from the old wallet to the new one. Which might mean having sent their real bitcoins to an address that doesnt have a corresponding on the real chain. Though it should be possible to import the keys from the altchain into the old chain and get the coins back as long as the private keys system wasnt changed.

Does that sound right? If im right then this might mean some bad press or people complaining but youre right, it wont be the big problem most probably.

Let's say that someone holds a gun to Hearn's head (or Vladimir for Bitcoin Core for that matter) and makes them do a commit like "reject all blocks larger than 100KB". I think that a situation like this wouldn't last even 1 hr before alarms and the community went apeshit all over reddit, twitter and this forum, but let's say that it lasts for even 24 hours before someone figures it out. At that point, perhaps 1000 users download the client.

Any new users needing to download a new chain would basically get a broken client since they probably wouldn't be able to download any blocks past sometime in 2010 once larger blocks started happening.

Users who upgrade would get a huge warning on QT wallet (or in the logs for bitcoind) telling them they are diverged more than 3 blocks from the main chain. I don't think that they'd even be able to do a successful spend, since the client wouldn't be able to find other clients with a current block.

Again, it's not a zero concern problem it's just not a credible threat short of creating nasty code that does stuff like "send via FTP wallet.dat and keylog passwords to ftp.pwned.ru" - that's a risk that we all have to deal with and only run releases that have been vetted, signed and not released < 24 hours ago.

[SebastianJu]

Youre right. Sounds like a big problem wont arise. Only thing that might be possible is that some people might download it and use the old blockchain as base to run the new client. They might send their coins to someone and he doesnt get it because the transaction is only on the wrong chain. Or he might send his coins from the old wallet to the new one. Which might mean having sent their real bitcoins to an address that doesnt have a corresponding on the real chain. Though it should be possible to import the keys from the altchain into the old chain and get the coins back as long as the private keys system wasnt changed.

Does that sound right? If im right then this might mean some bad press or people complaining but youre right, it wont be the big problem most probably.

Let's say that someone holds a gun to Hearn's head (or Vladimir for Bitcoin Core for that matter) and makes them do a commit like "reject all blocks larger than 100KB". I think that a situation like this wouldn't last even 1 hr before alarms and the community went apeshit all over reddit, twitter and this forum, but let's say that it lasts for even 24 hours before someone figures it out. At that point, perhaps 1000 users download the client.

Any new users needing to download a new chain would basically get a broken client since they probably wouldn't be able to download any blocks past sometime in 2010 once larger blocks started happening.

Users who upgrade would get a huge warning on QT wallet (or in the logs for bitcoind) telling them they are diverged more than 3 blocks from the main chain. I don't think that they'd even be able to do a successful spend, since the client wouldn't be able to find other clients with a current block.

Again, it's not a zero concern problem it's just not a credible threat short of creating nasty code that does stuff like "send via FTP wallet.dat and keylog passwords to ftp.pwned.ru" - that's a risk that we all have to deal with and only run releases that have been vetted, signed and not released < 24 hours ago.

I think you described a situation that would hinder itself. Though there might be situation where the blockchain is changed so that the downloaded wallet is working, you only cant get back anymore. Malfunctions would be something that could be avoided if the alert would be misused for a "bad plan". You want that this plan works. In order to do that you would chose a change that would make the new client work fine... but you cant switch back. In fact you always can but it might be that you always were harmed. Lets say the new client creates transactions that only verify on the new client but not on the old one. Receiving and sending coins would be no problem but when you realize you have to switch back already some bad situation might have happened. Coins you didnt receive in reality or so.

Yes, most probably the community would react fast. But i mean the weakest are the one in danger. We have enough newbies that make failure and we might have many downloads of a client when the alert is good enough. You dont check forums when it says you need to do instantly... else harm... maybe.

I agree, of course, that its a theoretical problem. Only... bitcoin and bad news is such a thing... We want it to be a trustworthy currency. Tales of vanishing coins surely will have a huge negative impact. I think its good at least to think about these things.