Why do 95% of node runners refuse to undate their software?

[Baghdad]

The bitcoin node as I have been made aware adds to the decentralization of the network. looking through this article on the backslide of bitcoin node operators in updating their software. This thought sneaked in, why people who  run a software that authorize the order or mode of the bitcoin network are inattentive to upgrading their nodes. In his analysis he stated that it takes 3 years for 95% of bitcoin node operators to update their software. I don't run a node, yet, exploring and checking up on what's like to run a node engrosses me. What could be the distraction? Do they forget?

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[DaveF]

The bitcoin node as I have been made aware adds to the decentralization of the network. looking through this article on the backslide of bitcoin node operators in updating their software. This thought sneaked in, why people who  run a software that authorize the order or mode of the bitcoin network are inattentive to upgrading their nodes. In his analysis he stated that it takes 3 years for 95% of bitcoin node operators to update their software. I don't run a node, yet, exploring and checking up on what's like to run a node engrosses me. What could be the distraction? Do they forget?

Zombie nodes a lot of times. People spun them up for project 'X' and then when that project didn't work, or get funding, or whatever, they just left them running.

Although, there are a lot of people here trying to run a node on a RPi or an old PC or a $10 VM, a lot of times it's businesses with 'real' hardware in the background and 1TB of storage and 8GB of ram and a bunch of virtual CPU cores is nothing. So when you contacted me to get that project running and I setup core 20.0 over 3+ years ago in your data center it was the current version. When the project went nowhere it's still there running because nobody wants to bother taking it down since they may need it sooner or later and it costs them nothing to leave it there.

Side note that is how a lot of data breaches happen in general. Just old things sitting there that nobody maintains since it's not their job.

-Dave

[BlackHatCoiner]

Here are some reasons from the top of my head:

• "If it works, don't touch it"-- motto for technicians. I've myself applied it. I think I was running a 23.0 for a long time, until 26.0 was released. If it does your job, why risk breaking anything?
• People want to run older versions until they feel newer are tested and reviewed enough.
• People are bored to update.
• An older version of Bitcoin Core might contain features that were removed in newer, and a part of other software and processes might depend on them.

[Wind_FURY]

Here are some reasons from the top of my head:

• "If it works, don't touch it"-- motto for technicians. I've myself applied it. I think I was running a 23.0 for a long time, until 26.0 was released. If it does your job, why risk breaking anything?
• People want to run older versions until they feel newer are tested and reviewed enough.
• People are bored to update.
• An older version of Bitcoin Core might contain features that were removed in newer, and a part of other software and processes might depend on them.

OR the network, and the community, have probably become large enough that it's perhaps becoming harder and harder to coordinate everyone for software updates.

It's the same as OS updates/patches. Users don't have them installed immediately during the moment the update is ready and available for download.

OP, where did you get 95%?

[nc50lc]

Why do 95% of node runners refuse to undate their software?

In his analysis he stated that it takes 3 years for 95% of bitcoin node operators to update their software. I don't run a node, yet, exploring and checking up on what's like to run a node engrosses me. What could be the distraction? Do they forget?

You're taking the article too literally.
Saying that "it takes 3years for 95% of the network to update" doesn't mean that only 5% of the nodes updated within those 3 years.
Based from the chart he created based from Bitnode's data, there are already a good percentage of nodes that updated to 26.0 and it's only been 2months since its release.
Just from eyeballing the provided chart, there're about 20%+ of the network that already using the latest version and about 50% using the previous version.

Others already stated the possible reasons of those who are late to update.

[ranochigo]

The version of Bitcoin Core, or the specific variant of the Bitcoin node that people are running doesn't affect their ability to contribute to the network and to decentralization. Reason being, the core functions remain the same and improvements are by and large features and bugs that may not affect the operation of the node.

Save for the several mandatory upgrades that we've had, it isn't absolutely necessary for an update to be done with every single update. Especially given how some of the nodes are essentially required to be online for operations with minimal downtime.

[pooya87]

Any analysis of this type has to be based on the change not the version. Meaning the researcher shouldn't check when people upgraded from version x to version x+1, instead they should study what changed in x+1 that could encourage or discourage people from making the upgrade.

Imagine we are on version 50 and version 51 is adding new RPC commands, fixes some UI bugs, optimizes the wallet, etc. Then there is version 52 that is introducing and activating witness version 5.
In this scenario, people are more willing to upgrade to v. 52  than to v. 51 because of WHAT changed.

I skimmed through the article and the author seems to have recognized this effect although they were not able to figure out the reason (claims it is due to "user friendly plug and play node hardware and software" which I disagree with).

Another thing to keep in mind is that it IS a good thing to have not-upgraded full node implementation running. New versions may contain unintended bugs and when old versions continue to exist, they ensure the chain continues growing on the "correct chain" if the bug were exploited.
Example:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5032443.0

A bug was found which allows anyone capable of mining a sufficient-PoW block to crash Bitcoin Core nodes running versions 0.14.0 to 0.16.2.

Nodes older than 0.14.0 were unaffected.