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

[sAt0sHiFanClub]

I think a lot of you are unstable. But threats are always a clever means of promoting your ideas.

Quite compelling when everything else fails.

Some of us actually care about the security of the network and spend time and effort to protect it from malicious actors. Part of this process is understanding the attack vectors , and educating others the risks so we can collectively make the right decisions so threats aren't realized. MP and other fringe lunatic 1MB forever disciples can indeed carry out this attack and are no friends to me or most/all developers in Core. In fact he has threatened to murder some prominent developers.

If you consider my politics to classify me as unstable , than so be it. I call them principles, you consider them unstable ... but perhaps you would be better off considering them "insane convictions" or "convictions you disagree with" instead because these principles are quite stable and consistent . I'll respect your thoughts and try to offer you some consolidation that we truly do want to increase capacity and are working hard to do so safely.

Don't care, irrelevant. Stay on topic. We're still trying to determine how the network decides which nodes have money/"humans" behind them and which do not.
Please explain the mechanism.
ty

You are fixated on the code acting as a form of AI that solely does the voting. The network consists of nodes with human agents behind them that "vote" with the BTC in their wallet. Actual human being interacting with the code is part of the network!

That last statement.

[BitUsher]

That last statement.

What are you insinuating? Don't be shy.

[Tavos]

It's not that bad. If they make some stupid update, people could just choose to use an older version and the new dumb update would be useless. (Unless lots of people still use it though)

[blunderer]

At this point, I'm interested in how the Bitcoin protocol can differentiate between "real" (money-backed) and "unreal" (unbacked by anything other than crunch power) non-mining nodes.
The answer is "IT FUCKING CAN NOT."

This question has already been answered. The protocol cannot assign value to these tokens. Just like with Gold, Commodities, Fiat... value is assigned by human agents or AI in the future. This means that 1 person can fork off of the network, have almost no hashing power and his/her coins can be extremely valuable as long as they and another believe it is real money and has value.

This is very basic economics that applies to any assets, that seems to escape you.

Economics have absolutely nothing to do with nodes, since non-mining nodes *DO NOT REPRESENT BTC OR HASHPOWER*. They are IRRELEVANT.
Stop turning what was intended as nothing more than "trustless" wallet, of use to no one but the guy running it (to protect *his* BTC), into some mystified majical security measure. It's not. It's a friken wallet. No majix, no meestyry.

"... They vote with their CPU power, expressing their acceptance of valid blocks by working on extending them and rejecting invalid blocks by refusing to work on them. Any needed rules and incentives can be enforced with this consensus mechanism."

At the time when Satoshi wrote that, CPU power was synonymous with Full nodes.  This distinction has changed over the years. Now there are differences in the vote and influences of a full node and mining full node.

Unless you can describe *how* these nodes "vote and influence" (and how they're differentiated from "fake" nodes by the network), I'm gonna assume magical thinking on your part.
Which is cool, but not here. Not now.

[Cconvert2G36]

At the time when Satoshi wrote that, CPU power was synonymous with Full nodes.  This distinction has changed over the years. Now there are differences in the vote and influences of a full node and mining full node.

Satoshi was well aware of the direction the network would take as it scaled. Your view is oft repeated by experts (who do/should know better), so I can see how you might have picked it up along the way.

-snip-
Also keep in mind that back when Satoshi was around, the idea was that every node would be a miner among equals. That is no longer the case.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=532.msg6306#msg6306

The technical experts you derive your arguments from have always thought that the network needed paternal stewardship.

The mindset reminds me of an excerpt from Mustapha's Chorus Sacerdotum.

"Created sick, commanded to be sound."

If it was true, it would probably mean guaranteed failure at some point in the future. Thankfully it isn't, and our consensus mechanism is built in, as described up thread.

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

Estimates have Classic at 16% of full nodes. This is madness. What will happen to Blockstream's alliances/sidechains under Classic? Any change in business strategy? Are we all doomed?

I count 8.89% of all nodes now... where are you getting your data?

Not Classic, but Others than Core. That's my bad.

I'm not trying to subvert here. I swear.

[BitUsher]

Unless you can describe *how* these nodes "vote and influence," I'm gonna assume magical thinking on your part.
Which is cool, but not here. Not now.

I already described one way in which the nodes themselves (without humans) vote that you seem to ignore. The more important vote includes the human actor, or future AI/oracle controlling the coins. If you don't want to consider the agent as being essential to the nodes vote than so be it.... we are merely talking past each other.  

Not Classic, but Others than Core. That's my bad.

I'm not trying to subvert here. I swear.

Excellent, I hope that cores percentage continues to drop... hopefully in the future we can have safer non contentious implementations steal marketshare from core like libbitcoin.

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

Edit: But won't there be the threat of a contentious HF if one of them overtakes Core in nodes? Or are some implementations more benign than others?

[blunderer]

Unless you can describe *how* these nodes "vote and influence," I'm gonna assume magical thinking on your part.
Which is cool, but not here. Not now.

I already described one way in which the nodes themselves (without humans) vote that you seem to ignore.

And I, in turn, have explained to you that is irrelevant since this mechanism is both available to/is trivially countered by "fake" nodes.
In other words, ineffective as a defense against a malefactor.

The more important vote includes the human actor, or future AI/oracle controlling the coins. If you don't want to consider the agent as being essential to the nodes vote than so be it.... we are merely talking past each other.  

This is getting into heavy mystikal shit.
I'm asking you how this seemingly goldbergian contraption called non-mining node help to keep burglars out of our safe, and you reply "economics and the human factor."
My hands just drop, really.

[BitUsher]

-snip-
Also keep in mind that back when Satoshi was around, the idea was that every node would be a miner among equals. That is no longer the case.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=532.msg6306#msg6306

I support the use of SPV nodes with fraud proofs, pruned nodes , lite nodes, and mining on scale. We don't need everyone mining just sufficient decentralization where governments or industry members or malicious actors cannot subvert the will of individual users. Otherwise we will just have a very inefficient paypal and what is the point in that?

You understand that bitcoin is an incredibly inefficient distributed database by design, right? Are you comfortable having only a few banks, processors, and governemnts running full nodes in our future? what level of decentralization would satisfy you?

The technical experts you derive your arguments from have always thought that the network needed paternal stewardship.

If it was true, it would probably mean guaranteed failure at some point in the future. Thankfully it isn't, and our consensus mechanism is built in, as described up thread.

Yikes, I haven't heard this argument before. So when should Classic devs walk away from maintaining their repository?

[BitUsher]

This is getting into heavy mystikal shit.
I'm asking you how this seemingly goldbergian contraption called non-mining node help to keep burglars out of our safe, and you reply "economics and the human factor."
My hands just drop, really.

This is now a different question. Perhaps you believe that all the questions you are asking are the same, and you are merely rephrasing them? This is not the case. I can't keep holding your hand explaining things to you.

A good place to start to understand the role Full Nodes have is here -

http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920032281.do

The book is available for free as well.

[blunderer]

This is getting into heavy mystikal shit.
I'm asking you how this seemingly goldbergian contraption called non-mining node help to keep burglars out of our safe, and you reply "economics and the human factor."
My hands just drop, really.

This is now a different question. ...

lessee... let's go back to where you jumped in...

An example of non-mining nodes "deeply constrain[ing] miners," if possible, would also be nice.

Well for one thing , economic Full nodes are what determine what is valid and what is not ...

Nope, one and the same, still unanswered

[BitUsher]

Edit: But won't there be the threat of a contentious HF if one of them overtakes Core in nodes? Or are some implementations more benign than others?

Nope, most implementations don't break consensus rules thus there is no risk of a HF occurring even if they have greater node count (miner or not). There can be multiple implementations with slightly different features and unique wallets with no contention or risk of a fork. It does require more coordination but that is why Core is working hard on libbitcoinconsensus to insure that other implementations can prosper.

The good news is that Open Bazaar and Airbitz use libbitcoin implementations and thus are making that codebase more popular.

Nope, one and the same, still unanswered

Yes, that why I suggested we must be talking past each other. You are better off trying to understand the code directly like I have done and read that book.

[Cconvert2G36]

-snip-
Also keep in mind that back when Satoshi was around, the idea was that every node would be a miner among equals. That is no longer the case.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=532.msg6306#msg6306

I support the use of SPV nodes with fraud proofs, pruned nodes , lite nodes, and mining on scale. We don't need everyone mining just sufficient decentralization where governments or industry members or malicious actors cannot subvert the will of individual users. Otherwise we will just have a very inefficient paypal and what is the point in that?

You understand that bitcoin is an incredibly inefficient distributed database by design, right? Are you comfortable having only a few banks, processors, and governemnts running full nodes in our future? what level of decentralization would satisfy you?

A majority of hashrate makes decisions by deciding to extend the chain of blocks, a bad decision impacts their profitability directly, as does a good decision. They have an interest in keeping the system sufficiently decentralized or they destroy part of the value of their product, bitcoin. This slippery slope argument is tiresome, we're talking about a 1MB increase to the Max block size.

The technical experts you derive your arguments from have always thought that the network needed paternal stewardship.

If it was true, it would probably mean guaranteed failure at some point in the future. Thankfully it isn't, and our consensus mechanism is built in, as described up thread.

Yikes, I haven't heard this argument before. So when should Classic devs walk away from maintaining their repository?

Again, you are ascribing control to developers, which they simply don't possess. Miners decide to use a particular team's software, until they don't. It's a component of antifragility, an escape valve from capture.

[BitUsher]

Again, you are ascribing control to developers, which they simply don't possess. Miners decide to use a particular team's software, until they don't. It's a component of antifragility, an escape valve from capture.

I keep suggesting the exact opposite and you keep insisting on ignoring my statements:

The reality is miners share power with many other groups and there exists a complex interwoven power dynamic between nodes, users, merchants, processors/banks/exchanges, developers, and miners.

My question was in response to your statement. So are you insinuating miners have 100% control and developers/ economic full nodes /users, merchants, processors/banks/exchanges have no control or vote?

[blunderer]

...
My question was in response to your statement. So are you insinuating miners have 100% control and developers/ economic full nodes /users, merchants, processors/banks/exchanges have no control or vote?

Users do have control: they can hold or sell -- that's their voting mechanism. Merchants have control: they can accept a particular coin or not accept it, value it higher or lower.
The notion of "economic full node" is ...empty verbiage.
P.S. How about another chunk of useless jargon: "economic light node"? How would those vote?

[Cconvert2G36]

Again, you are ascribing control to developers, which they simply don't possess. Miners decide to use a particular team's software, until they don't. It's a component of antifragility, an escape valve from capture.

I keep suggesting the exact opposite and you keep insisting on ignoring my statements:

The reality is miners share power with many other groups and there exists a complex interwoven power dynamic between nodes, users, merchants, processors/banks/exchanges, developers, and miners.

My question was in response to your statement. So are you insinuating miners have 100% control and developers/ economic full nodes /users, merchants, processors/banks/exchanges have no control or vote?

I apologize. I've had these debates with you before, so it's difficult to completely wipe that slate clean simply because it's a different thread.

Miners have direct control. Nodes /users, merchants, processors/banks/exchanges can and do influence miners by buying or selling their product, the coins. They may even form an altcoin if miners go against them in a way that is intolerable.

[gmaxwell]

I count 8.89% of all nodes now... where are you getting your data?

/r/btc Bitcoin Classic math: Computing a proportion as x/y instead of x/(x+y). But hey, they're totally ready to handle making critical survival decisions for a global decentralized cryptography consensus system.

Miners have direct control. Nodes /users, merchants, processors/banks/exchanges can and do influence miners by buying or selling their product, the coins. They may even form an altcoin if miners go against them in a way that is intolerable.

This is simply untrue.  Lets imagine that 75% of miners start paying themselves 50 BTC again instead of 25 BTC per block.  Nothing, it's the same as if they simply turned off (which they may do when the subsidy halves). Nodes simply ignore their blocks. So much for "direct control".  Miners do have power over some things-- they can choose the order of unconfirmed and recently confirmed transactions; but they can't break the rules of the system enforced by the nodes... if they do, they're not miners anymore as far as the nodes are concerned.

[blunderer]

... Miners ... can't break the rules of the system enforced by the nodes... if they do, they're not miners anymore as far as the nodes are concerned.

Yes, they are miners -- for the updated nodes/wallets/users.
The legacy nodes/wallets/users won't have any miners, and thus become subject to savage rapings by any kid with a couple of vidya cards.
Bonus points: no tx confirmations forever because outrageous difficulty/hashpower ratio, no diff. adjustment forever, because see aforementioned.
That's how hard forks work, always assumed it was understood.

[Cconvert2G36]

This is simply untrue.  Lets imagine that 75% of miners start paying themselves 50 BTC again instead of 25 BTC per block.  Nothing, it's the same as if they simply turned off (which they may do when the subsidy halves). Nodes simply ignore their blocks. So much for "direct control".  Miners do have power over some things-- they can choose the order of unconfirmed and recently confirmed transactions; but they can't break the rules of the system enforced by the nodes... if they do, they're not miners anymore as far as the nodes are concerned.

Of course nodes could ignore their blocks, and holders can dump their coins. If a particular change is disagreeable enough to a sufficient portion of the market... an opportunity exists to change the proof of work and lower the difficulty to continue on an altchain that could possibly become more popular than the original. In any case, a blockchain needs solved blocks, and solved blocks require PoW.

It baffles me how you could remain so interested in Bitcoin if you see its central free market based consensus mechanism as natively flawed and irrelevant. Again, created sick, and commanded to be well.

Miners are incentivized by the market to make decisions, they don't make these decisions in a vacuum, free of consequence.