Why has Gavin left core and attempted to make a fork?

[n2004al]

Gavin didn't leave the Core, he is still contributing to the code.
He is just also helping other node implementations.

He is collaborating in the creations of "two typos of bitcoins"? This is the right thing to tell? Or I'm again wrong? How is possible this?

[turvarya]

Another thread that shows all that tinfoil nutjobs.

He made some code, he felt to be important. Other Dev Core Commiters didn't want it in Bitcoin Core, so he put it into an alternative client and wanted users to decide and not just the Core Dev Team.
The End.

[Hippie Tech]

Because of his CIA meeting

.. and/or his Feb 2014 weekend with the CFR..

Gavin will visit the Council on Foreign Relations --> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=412846.0

[sgbett]

I've been reading through the debates on these forums and other places.

I'm not sure what I'm missing but I'm confused why one of the original dev's have done this and did not simply stay with core and try and make the changes there? Was he forced out or couldn't make the changes he wanted or something else?

It seems that forking the coin in such a way is a dangerous move. The fact that it has a different name to me makes it FEEL like it is an alt-coin that's trying to take over by introducing the coin as a fork. The only difference is it has one of the original devs of bitcoin involved?

Thanks in advance to whoever can clear things up for me.

Yes, they couldn't make the changes they wanted. Why? This should clear it up...

https://medium.com/@octskyward/an-xt-faq-38e78aa32ff0

[S4VV4S]

LOL!
There is so many theories to this question.
The truth is, that only Gavin can answer that question.

Why don't you ask him?
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=224

[oblivi]

LOL!
There is so many theories to this question.
The truth is, that only Gavin can answer that question.

Why don't you ask him?
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=224

Well Gavin is barely active on the forum, it seems he is more active on the mailing lists and reddit. I think what happened is clear already. There wasn't consensus and Gavin was tired of the blocksize increase (and other BIPs) being ignored so they (Mike too) went the XT route, too bad they ruined it with all the extra code, now no one wants to trust XT. Also I don't like the idea of an insanely big blocksize which is what would happen with XT or BIP101.

[HostFat]

too bad they ruined it with all the extra code, now no one wants to trust XT.

https://www.reddit.com/r/bitcoinxt/comments/3hsc3f/bitcoinxt_with_just_the_patch_for_big_blocks_only/

[AGD]

LOL!
There is so many theories to this question.
The truth is, that only Gavin can answer that question.

Why don't you ask him?
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=224

What does Gavin mean with his sig? Core or XT or something else?

Signature:
How often do you get the chance to work on a potentially world-changing project?

[knight22]

LOL!
There is so many theories to this question.
The truth is, that only Gavin can answer that question.

Why don't you ask him?
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=224

What does Gavin mean with his sig? Core or XT or something else?

Signature:
How often do you get the chance to work on a potentially world-changing project?

Probably just "bitcoin" as a whole.

[DarkHyudrA]

too bad they ruined it with all the extra code, now no one wants to trust XT.

https://www.reddit.com/r/bitcoinxt/comments/3hsc3f/bitcoinxt_with_just_the_patch_for_big_blocks_only/

Too bad that the devs from XT don't give a f*ck about it and you have to compile on your own or trust someone other than Gavin or Mike.

[HostFat]

Too bad that the devs from XT don't give a f*ck about it and you have to compile on your own or trust someone other than Gavin or Mike.

There are already the Binaries, download them from the link, or ask someone else to do it for you.
You should wait for other devs to join on XT or other forks, or pay them to get the Binaries that you want.

There aren't free lunch.

[S4VV4S]

Well Gavin is barely active on the forum, it seems he is more active on the mailing lists and reddit. I think what happened is clear already. There wasn't consensus and Gavin was tired of the blocksize increase (and other BIPs) being ignored so they (Mike too) went the XT route, too bad they ruined it with all the extra code, now no one wants to trust XT. Also I don't like the idea of an insanely big blocksize which is what would happen with XT or BIP101.

Indeed.
I too am in favor of larger blocks but not too large.
The end result according to XT will be 8GB blocks.
That means that the trustless becomes depending on trust (on third party) because I doubt that we will have anywhere near as half as nodes as we have today.
Centralization is unavoidable down that road.

What does Gavin mean with his sig? Core or XT or something else?

Signature:
How often do you get the chance to work on a potentially world-changing project?

He had that signature before XT, so I am guessing he is talking about the chance to be a part of Bitcoin.
However, I doubt there are second chances in this game.

Let's all hope that it all goes well and consesus is reached so we can all go back to discussing truly important things.

[bitllionaire]

This has happened because there is no agreement between the bitcoin core developers

[wxa7115]

This was mostly done for a lack of consensus, but it’s also possible that this is an effort to debilitate bitcoin from the inside out.

[uxgpf]

I've been reading through the debates on these forums and other places.

I'm not sure what I'm missing but I'm confused why one of the original dev's have done this and did not simply stay with core and try and make the changes there? Was he forced out or couldn't make the changes he wanted or something else?

It seems that forking the coin in such a way is a dangerous move. The fact that it has a different name to me makes it FEEL like it is an alt-coin that's trying to take over by introducing the coin as a fork. The only difference is it has one of the original devs of bitcoin involved?

Thanks in advance to whoever can clear things up for me.

Developers of Bitcoin Core were unable to reach consensus about increasing the blocksize limit during some 3 years of discussion. This led Gavin to make his own implementation with Mike Hearn (Bitcoin XT), which includes his improvement proposal for a hard fork (BIP 101.) Seems like the plan has worked to some extent and the blocksize debate is moving somewhere.

No one knows which BIP (Bitcoin Improvement Proposal) will be chosen by the network. Or which implementations will end up being most popular (Bitcoin XT, Jeff Garzik's still unnamed and unreleased BIP 100 implementation or something else.) However I think the ball is rolling and we'll find out. Maybe it's even possible that Bitcoin Core developers can agree to something and we get some hardfork release from them also. (raising the blocksize cap requires a hard fork.)

These forums have been full of misinformation, misunderstandings, trolling and FUD last few weeks so do your own research and take everything you read with a grain of salt.

PS. I'm unaware that Gavin would have left Bitcoin Core development (or I've missed such info if he did). He's also working with BTCD (a bitcoin implementation made in golang).

[Hazir]

-snip-
It seems that forking the coin in such a way is a dangerous move.
-snip-

Forking is the only way these types of changes can take place. There is no other way than to fork a coin,if you want to increase block size.
Everything must done by forking. At one point there will be old and new fork present and then new will replace old fork completely.

[turvarya]

I've been reading through the debates on these forums and other places.

I'm not sure what I'm missing but I'm confused why one of the original dev's have done this and did not simply stay with core and try and make the changes there? Was he forced out or couldn't make the changes he wanted or something else?

It seems that forking the coin in such a way is a dangerous move. The fact that it has a different name to me makes it FEEL like it is an alt-coin that's trying to take over by introducing the coin as a fork. The only difference is it has one of the original devs of bitcoin involved?

Thanks in advance to whoever can clear things up for me.

Developers of Bitcoin Core were unable to reach consensus about increasing the blocksize limit during some 3 years of discussion. This led Gavin to make his own implementation with Mike Hearn (Bitcoin XT), which includes his improvement proposal for a hard fork (BIP 101.) Seems like the plan has worked to some extent and the blocksize debate is moving somewhere.
 ...

That is not right, BitcoinXT was there long before BIP 101. Most people get this wrong ...

Well Gavin is barely active on the forum, it seems he is more active on the mailing lists and reddit. I think what happened is clear already. There wasn't consensus and Gavin was tired of the blocksize increase (and other BIPs) being ignored so they (Mike too) went the XT route, too bad they ruined it with all the extra code, now no one wants to trust XT. Also I don't like the idea of an insanely big blocksize which is what would happen with XT or BIP101.

Indeed.
I too am in favor of larger blocks but not too large.
The end result according to XT will be 8GB blocks.
That means that the trustless becomes depending on trust (on third party) because I doubt that we will have anywhere near as half as nodes as we have today.
Centralization is unavoidable down that road.
 ...

This argument never made sense to me.
So, we have 3000 nodes instead of 6000. How does this matter? If you use a SPV you are looking at a handful of nodes anyways.
Besides: There is no incentive to run a full node for most people.
Have you ever looked at this map: https://getaddr.bitnodes.io/ ?

There aren't many nodes in countries with bad bandwidth, today.
All this talk about full nodes in Africa and China has nothing to do with reality.

[Mickeyb]

I've been reading through the debates on these forums and other places.

I'm not sure what I'm missing but I'm confused why one of the original dev's have done this and did not simply stay with core and try and make the changes there? Was he forced out or couldn't make the changes he wanted or something else?

It seems that forking the coin in such a way is a dangerous move. The fact that it has a different name to me makes it FEEL like it is an alt-coin that's trying to take over by introducing the coin as a fork. The only difference is it has one of the original devs of bitcoin involved?

Thanks in advance to whoever can clear things up for me.

The truth of the matter is that you will hear much nonsense and much FUD about this topic, even in this thread. Honestly, this is the topic that has caused the most FUD that I have seen in a while. But the answer is very simple. He has pushed for the bigger blocks for a while now. The consensus couldn't be found in the community or between the devs. So he has decided to give a decision to the community and he has rolled out new client the XT, which does include couple of more modifications.

This is where he went wrong, with these little modifications, you can read about them, just type BIP101 in Google. If he has rolled out only the bigger block size, I think there would not be so much controversy.

[BitcoinNewsMagazine]

I've been reading through the debates on these forums and other places.

I'm not sure what I'm missing but I'm confused why one of the original dev's have done this and did not simply stay with core and try and make the changes there? Was he forced out or couldn't make the changes he wanted or something else?

It seems that forking the coin in such a way is a dangerous move. The fact that it has a different name to me makes it FEEL like it is an alt-coin that's trying to take over by introducing the coin as a fork. The only difference is it has one of the original devs of bitcoin involved?

Thanks in advance to whoever can clear things up for me.

Developers of Bitcoin Core were unable to reach consensus about increasing the blocksize limit during some 3 years of discussion. This led Gavin to make his own implementation with Mike Hearn (Bitcoin XT), which includes his improvement proposal for a hard fork (BIP 101.) Seems like the plan has worked to some extent and the blocksize debate is moving somewhere.

No one knows which BIP (Bitcoin Improvement Proposal) will be chosen by the network. Or which implementations will end up being most popular (Bitcoin XT, Jeff Garzik's still unnamed and unreleased BIP 100 implementation or something else.) However I think the ball is rolling and we'll find out. Maybe it's even possible that Bitcoin Core developers can agree to something and we get some hardfork release from them also. (raising the blocksize cap requires a hard fork.)

These forums have been full of misinformation, misunderstandings, trolling and FUD last few weeks so do your own research and take everything you read with a grain of salt.

PS. I'm unaware that Gavin would have left Bitcoin Core development (or I've missed such info if he did). He's also working with BTCD (a bitcoin implementation made in golang).

Very well thought out reply, thanks. I find it compelling that the largest mining pools are publicly supporting BIP 100 and making it crystal clear they do not approve of Bitcoin XT. After all the mining pools will ultimately make the choice and they appear to be conservative but pressing for a solution within Bitcoin Core.

[MarketNeutral]

Hubris or greed or both.

He was also likely persuaded by hearn's keen sophistry and carefully framed arguments.

Gavin's blatant and defiant disregard for the opinions of the other devs, bitcoin luminaries, and uh....actual bitcoin users, is at best unprofessional and at worst dangerous, especially considering both Gavin's and Mike's amateur-level understanding of monetary science and economics.

Yet here we are.

The road up is the road down.