So what are the conclusions of this wanna be something special elite kind of freemasons crap roundtable??
This one was just for a bunch of startups on life support to commiserate and glad hand about how,
last weekend, a group of 4 dudes already shook hands on the path for the next 2 years.
sorry, thats not what happened last week in hk and its not what happened at the roundtable either. you're being very negative about a group thats trying to be constructive and alleviate bottlenecks and try and knock a few heads together so we can all 'get on with it' and stop bickering.
bitcoin is an ecosystem of many parts. miners, exchanges, wallets, devs, retail, wholesale, data, and most important, users. future direction needs to consider its users and potential users, and keep making improvements that ideally bring the entire ecosystem forwards (in a timely fashion) and shouldn't be decided by small parts of the ecosystem without considering the interests of the other parts.
one of the goals of the roundtable was to involve stakeholders in trying to bring forward a commitment to deal with the scaling issues, and most likely will knowingly kick the can down the road a little bit, because many blocks are full - today - and most people feel like a little breathing space This Year is better than leaving it a whole year before that happens - so that it gives the devs time to find a better technical solution for the future. There was unanimous agreement that bitcoin needs to scale but not agreement on how quickly. After a lot of debate, it seemed like the goal converged into one of time-scale.
the handshake from last week in hk had a worst case 'go live' date of mid 2017 for raising the block size (july 2017? i recall). the roundtable was trying to explore if there was a will and a way to bring that worst case date forwards (perhaps into late 2016, or sooner), and achieved, perhaps with a simpler and less risky implementation at least initially, with further improvements to follow.
there was strong feeling by all but certainly wasn't 100% agreement. With 80 people there, there certainly weren't 80 opinions. Most were in one of only a few camps. some wanted to throw the baby out with the bathwater... but most wanted to find a compromise that could let everyone achieve something positive and be happier instead of grandstanding and digging heels into their legacy positions.
there was also agreement on all sides to stop disparaging each other publicly as it helps no one and actually hurts bitcoin. we all have the same ultimate goal, to make bitcoin successful.. and the nastiness in public forums has to stop (as does the fanboys doing their ddos attacks etc)
The roundtable was VERY useful for everyone concerned and for bitcoin in general, and it should happen more often. instead of these people sniping at each other on the forums and on reddit, they need to meet, and iron out differences.
And this isn't just a Dev issue. The actual users, product people, tier 2 people, wallets, exchanges etc... ALL should have a voice. It would be very wrong if only the core devs decide the future strategy and direction. stakeholders should have a say in the feature set and strategy (but clearly, since they aren't all techies, they won't design the tech nor define how its achieved)
if you were to somehow liken or simplify bitcoin to a 'company' that makes a product or service... no company would just have devs doing their own thing in isolation without input and guidance from other areas like the 'market', strategy and biz dev. a company has a lot of working parts that all contribute to the end product direction and it would be arrogant to think a product can solely be defined by a group of devs, no matter how smart they are (and they are the smartest devs on the planet) - but they still need input from the rest of the virtual parts of the organisation - different types of users of the 'product/service'
a lot of folks worked very hard for a positive outcome, and to try and find space to compromise. unfortunately, i left early (flight home to london) before the conclusion of the meeting and wasn't present to hear what progress was made. presumably since there has yet to be an announcement, they're still knee deep in discussion, even after the event.
There were some very helpful characters. it does bitcoin a disservice to shit on any of them. Bruce especially. He did NOT grandstand like you suggest.
