Is it good or bad that Core development is virtually controlled by one company?

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

You could say it is implicit.
Any other efforts you have to skew this are just spin.

You can say it's "implicit" -- but there are also many other lies you can tell.  The paper describes a mechanism where nodes verify and enforce the system's rules for themselves, using POW for ordering. It doesn't describe a system where nodes stop enforcing their rules if the are overpowered, nor is that how Bitcoin was written.

the most senior core devs such as Gavin and Jeff, reject the settlement system.

"The fundamental engineering truths diverge from that misty goal:
Bitcoin is a settlement system, by design." -- Jeff Garzik

Ahem.

And the claim that Jeff and Gavin are more senior is bunk. Unless you mean to say that someone whos first changes were merged a few days earlier, regardless of how much involvement they've had since is "more senior".

"The world's citizens en masse
will not speak to each other with bitcoin (IP packets), but rather
with multiple layers (HTTP/TCP/IP) that enable safe and secure value
transfer or added features such as instant transactions.

This opinion is not a conspiracy to "put the bankers back in charge"
-- it is a simple acknowledgement of bitcoin's design."

Eck. Bummer.  

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[FlyingSaucer]

If all the development is done by one company it could lead to monopoly or pursuing of their own interests and centralization.

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

You could say it is implicit.
Any other efforts you have to skew this are just spin.

You can say it's "implicit" -- but there are also many other lies you can tell.  The paper describes a mechanism where nodes verify and enforce the system's rules for themselves, using POW for ordering. It doesn't describe a system where nodes stop enforcing their rules if the are overpowered, nor is that how Bitcoin was written.

the most senior core devs such as Gavin and Jeff, reject the settlement system.

"The fundamental engineering truths diverge from that misty goal:
Bitcoin is a settlement system, by design." -- Jeff Garzik

Ahem.

And the claim that Jeff and Gavin are more senior is bunk. Unless you mean to say that someone whos first changes were merged a few days earlier, regardless of how much involvement they've had since is "more senior".

In the sense of seniority where one person has been at a thing for longer than another person; Gavin was given the go-ahead straight from Satoshi, Jeff registered this very forum. Weren't you sort of a latecomer? I think that's what they meant, anyway. Not that there's anything wrong with that...

[iCEBREAKER]

You could say it is implicit.
Any other efforts you have to skew this are just spin.

You can say it's "implicit" -- but there are also many other lies you can tell.  The paper describes a mechanism where nodes verify and enforce the system's rules for themselves, using POW for ordering. It doesn't describe a system where nodes stop enforcing their rules if the are overpowered, nor is that how Bitcoin was written.

the most senior core devs such as Gavin and Jeff, reject the settlement system.

"The fundamental engineering truths diverge from that misty goal:
Bitcoin is a settlement system, by design." -- Jeff Garzik

Ahem.

And the claim that Jeff and Gavin are more senior is bunk. Unless you mean to say that someone whos first changes were merged a few days earlier, regardless of how much involvement they've had since is "more senior".

"That misty goal" refers to "universal payments" ("both a laudable goal and a shopworn bitcoin marketing slogan.")

The sooner the public understands "universal payments" may fit into Layer 2, but certainly not Layer 1, the better.

[gmaxwell]

Jeff registered this very forum.

Nah, the forum was kicked off Bitcoin.org in 2011 due to concerns about the lax moderation-- even I was part of that discussion.

In terms of commits: Matt and Luke predated Jeff on the project (by months in Luke's case). Pieter came nine days after him, Wladimir 51 days after that. I was 8 months behind on the commits, though most of what I do has never been coding-- I my logs show that I was the most active person in the development discussion channel the same month as Wladimir's first commit.

Characterizing someone who came later or who was earlier by mere days and less involved as "senior" is a bit of an insult.

[sAt0sHiFanClub]

You could say it is implicit.
Any other efforts you have to skew this are just spin.

You can say it's "implicit" -- but there are also many other lies you can tell.  The paper describes a mechanism where nodes verify and enforce the system's rules for themselves, using POW for ordering. It doesn't describe a system where nodes stop enforcing their rules if the are overpowered, nor is that how Bitcoin was written.

OK - you accept that it is implicit - but why then go off on the "many other lies" tangent? I'm not interested in the "many other lies" that can or cannot be implied from a loosely worded whitepaper.

We were discussing the issue of consensus and what it means -  Core have nurtured a false understanding that somehow it is written that consensus within Bitcoin means 95% or better. But this is not the case.  Without any explicit definition of what consensus means then we can fall back to the default - in this case the whitepaper - where it is very obvious that the idea of consensus within Bitcoin is that of a simple majority.

The fact that any hardfork is designed with a threshold of 75% should be considered a bonus.

[sAt0sHiFanClub]

Jeff registered this very forum.

Nah, the forum was kicked off Bitcoin.org in 2011 due to concerns about the lax moderation-- even I was part of that discussion.

In terms of commits: Matt and Luke predated Jeff on the project (by months in Luke's case). Pieter came nine days after him, Wladimir 51 days after that. I was 8 months behind on the commits, though most of what I do has never been coding-- I my logs show that I was the most active person in the development discussion channel the same month as Wladimir's first commit.

Characterizing someone who came later or who was earlier by mere days and less involved as "senior" is a bit of an insult.

I too have no time for seniority dick measuring. Its a vague appeal to authority that gets us nowhere, and moves the discussion away from the primary issues..

Everyone who contributes to making bitcoin a viable peer to peer cash system into the future should have their voice heard.

[sgbett]

51% is explicitly defined as consensus

Where is 51% defined as consensus?  The whitepaper?  Cite please!

No figures needed - voting with their feet is just simple majority - 51%  You could say it is implicit.

OK boys, you two have fun getting your story straight.

And I expect it to be explicitly logically and linguistically consistent, not the hand-waving implicit wink-wink-nudge-nudge version.

He used the right word, I used the wrong one.

Majority means 'the greater number', to me its pretty explicit, but I'll accept that it is implicit if it makes you happy.

It's explicit to me that your only rebuttal to claims that (in summary) "51% is a majority, this is consensus, it is implicit/explicit" is pedanticism over the linguistics.

Unless you want to argue about what the word majority means then we can agree that the definition amounts to 'the greater number'. So if it was 3 vs 1 that would be a majority. If it was 1000 vs 999 that would also be a majority. The 51% figure has been commonly used recently to express hashrate majority, but it is probably more accurate to state >50%.

Take a look at the closing sentence in section 12 of the white paper.

"Any needed rules and incentives can be enforced with this consensus mechanism."

The phrase "this consensus mechanism" refers to the immediately prior descriptions of the mechanisms that detail how the majority of CPU power will prevail by working on the chain they think is valid. If >50% accept and work on blocks that follow particular rules then inevitably leads to that blockchain becoming longer over time. The longest chain is the valid chain (as per the line in the abstract which states: "The longest chain not only serves as proof of the sequence of events witnessed, but proof that it came from the largest pool of CPU power.")

So the white paper explicitly states that consensus is achieved through a majority of CPU power. It is implicit that majority is >50%.

This is all logically and linguistically consistent (subject to Skitt's law!).

This OTOH is your opinion:

PS  Nobody else believes your preposterous "51% = consensus" falsehood.

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

Jeff registered this very forum.

Nah, the forum was kicked off Bitcoin.org in 2011 due to concerns about the lax moderation-- even I was part of that discussion.

In terms of commits: Matt and Luke predated Jeff on the project (by months in Luke's case). Pieter came nine days after him, Wladimir 51 days after that. I was 8 months behind on the commits, though most of what I do has never been coding-- I my logs show that I was the most active person in the development discussion channel the same month as Wladimir's first commit.

Characterizing someone who came later or who was earlier by mere days and less involved as "senior" is a bit of an insult.

Fair enough. I was just trying to expain how the author might have been justified in choosing those words. (I wasn't the author.)



Re: Blockstream's strategic alliances; I don't know if this is a popular idea around here, but I see Bitcoin as a public good. Are you in a position to reveal the precise nature of these new relationships? Are you inclined to? Are there contracts? 

[sAt0sHiFanClub]

Re: Blockstream's strategic alliances; I don't know if this is a popular idea around here, but I see Bitcoin as a public good. Are you in a position to reveal the precise nature of these new relationships? Are you inclined to? Are there contracts?  

AXA SV have updated their site with this:

Blockstream provides companies with the most mature, well tested, and secure blockchain technology in production – the blockchain original protocol extended via interoperable sidechains – along with one of the most experienced teams in the industry.

Sounds to me like they have bought Bitcoin. I wasn't aware that Blockstream had an alternative implementation that they were flogging, so I assume they mean Bitcoin Core. Were Blockstream in the position to do that? I guess core feel they were, if AXA  can feel justified in writing that on their website.

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

Re: Blockstream's strategic alliances; I don't know if this is a popular idea around here, but I see Bitcoin as a public good. Are you in a position to reveal the precise nature of these new relationships? Are you inclined to? Are there contracts?  

AXA SV have updated their site with this:

Blockstream provides companies with the most mature, well tested, and secure blockchain technology in production – the blockchain original protocol extended via interoperable sidechains – along with one of the most experienced teams in the industry.

Sounds to me like they have bought Bitcoin. I wasn't aware that Blockstream had an alternative implementation that they were flogging, so I assume they mean Bitcoin Core. Were Blockstream in the position to do that? I guess core feel they were, if AXA  can feel justified in writing that on their website.

Sounds a bit to me like they're being sold their own private on-ramp in the form of a sidechain maybe?

[franky1]

so we have had 3 corporate filled implementations which were rightfully beaten to the ground,
even if atleast 2 proposed code chances that the community wanted, they still dont deserve to survive due to the hidden corporate agenda


but where are these anti-corp bigmouths, now that blockstream has revealed their corporate hand aswell??..

is it, 'the first rule of blockstream club, is you dont talk about blockstream'?

i really hope the blockstream defenders are going to get paid, otherwise their lack of morals and blind devotion will be their downfall

[jbreher]

Judging by the lack of coins showing up on the bitcoinocracy polls, the vigorously attacking groups may not be big investors in Bitcoin.

Your incessant use of this canard only weakens your arguments. bitcoinocracy is no more credible than consider.it.

[Redrose]

If Bitcoin Core was controlled by one company, it would be indeed bad. However, it isn't the case, so your question is answered.

[jbreher]

In one hand they are stopping block size increase citing lack of consensus, and in other hand they are force feeding RBF & SegWit without consensus.

Removing the rules against actions that the network protocol expressly forbids against the will of an economically significant portion of users, and risking a persistent ledger split in the process is not a comparable thing. It's something that Bitcoin Core strongly believe it does not have the moral or technical authority to do, and attempting to do so would be a failure to uphold the principles of the system. It's not something to do lightly, and people who think that it's okay to change the system's rules out from under users who own coins in it are not people that I'd want to be taking advice from-- that kind of thinking is counter to the entire Bitcoin value proposition.

So just to be clear - do you maintain that block size increases are necessarily "Removing the rules against actions that the network protocol expressly forbids", and are therefore necessarily evil?

Finally--at some point the capacity increases from the above may not be enough.  Delivery on relay improvements, segwit fraud proofs, dynamic block size controls, and other advances in technology will reduce the risk and therefore controversy around moderate block size increase proposals (such as 2/4/8 rescaled to respect segwit's increase).

- Capacity increases for the Bitcoin system: https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2015-December/011865.html

If a miner violates the hard rules of the system they are simply not miners anymore as far as all the nodes are concerned.

For better or worse (I would say for worse), in this era of industrial mining, non-mining nodes have essentially zero power. Any viable mining operation has sufficient  resources to run a node of its own, and connect explicitly to other mining entities that share its philosophy. The only power outside of miners is the threat that users abandon the chain en masse.

[johnyj]

The beauty of bitcoin is that anyone can create a new hard fork version any time given a little bit IT expertise, so it is just a matter of whether enough people will use that new version. And I think over 51% of hash power is enough to present the major consensus, because that is how bitcoin was designed: With over 51% of hash power, you essentially control the bitcoin network consensus. People will move to the new chain and dump their coins on the old chain to kill it in a few days

Of course any company can lead the develop of bitcoin, only one condition: They must step down if the majority of community request it. That's the only requirement any company can lead the code development, otherwise it is a hostile corporation take over and can be solved by a hard fork

[gmaxwell]

Your incessant use of this canard only weakens your arguments. bitcoinocracy is no more credible than consider.it.

A few people here here keep arguing about some landslide "community opinion"-- and yet, strangely, that opinion is only visible in venues which are highly vulnerable to manipulation and not in person or, currently, on cryptographically verifiable counters.

The bitcoinocracy poll, as crappy and limited as it is-- both demonstrates that there is significant economically backed opposition to those views, and suggests that so much of that "landslide" is just bullshit manipulation.

With over 51% of hash power, you essentially control the bitcoin network consensus

You can keep repeating it, but it isn't true. I doubt you really believe it yourself. Otherwise, why aren't you calling your argument lost?

[franky1]

Your incessant use of this canard only weakens your arguments. bitcoinocracy is no more credible than consider.it.

A few people here here keep arguing about some landslide "community opinion"-- and yet, strangely, that opinion is only visible in venues which are highly vulnerable to manipulation and not in person or, currently, on cryptographically verifiable counters.

The bitcoinocracy poll, as crappy and limited as it is-- both demonstrates that there is significant economically backed opposition to those views, and suggests that so much of that "landslide" is just bullshit manipulation.

With over 51% of hash power, you essentially control the bitcoin network consensus

You can keep repeating it, but it isn't true. I doubt you really believe it yourself. Otherwise, why aren't you calling your argument lost?

is gmaxwel still trying to flog the dead horse of classic, as a dead horse. rather then talking about the cancer inside blockstream

yes gmaxwell XT is dead, classic is dead, but lets talk about the blockstream cancer that is eating up bitcoin and mutating it. and isnt willing to listen to the community either

[gmaxwell]

is gmaxwel still trying to flog the dead horse of classic, as a dead horse. rather then talking about the cancer inside blockstream

yes gmaxwell XT is dead, classic is dead, but lets talk about the blockstream cancer that is eating up bitcoin and mutating it. and isnt willing to listen to the community either

As I said, this thread is just a hall of mirrors.

If you actually want a serious discussion you could start by showing some integrity and calling out the misinformation in this thread and stop repeating it yourself. Try acknowledging that even without determining if some people are following Blockstream's interests instead of Bitcoin's (where these interests differ) Blockstream has no special control of Bitcoin Core-- except by being the _only_ company in Bitcoin directly contributing to maintaining the infrastructure.

[franky1]

Blockstream has no special control of Bitcoin Core

and here is my rebuttal

being the _only_ company in Bitcoin directly contributing to maintaining the infrastructure.