[img]-snip-[img]
If such scenario ever happens, good luck trying to convince the overwhelming majority that their version is not bitcoin.
If such scenario ever happens, good luck trying to convince the overwhelming majority that their version is not bitcoin.
Again, thats not how it works. You don't have to convince anyone of anything. Bitcoin is a protocol that is based on consensus, not who can pander to the most people. Frankly, this is really a no win situation. Both XT and Core have problems, rather than solving those problems, they are just fighting a publicity battle, which is causing a bigger issue. If Bitcoin works the way that people are trying to make it work, the way you suggest, it is the greatest security risk Bitcoin has ever had, and "Bitcoin" can be safely called dead unless its fixed. Block size issues need to be fixed, a solution that doesn't require 15Mb upload/download speeds to broadcast larger sized blocks needs to exist, anonymity things need to be added, amongst other things. But those can all wait, as soon as all it requires is a majority to modify Bitcoin, anyone who can buy support for whatever cause they want can, be that block size increases, block reward increase/decreases, etc.
Again, the protocol requires consensus. This isn't a majority rule system, because majority rule systems are not stable nor secure. While Theymos has expressed that he isn't a fan of XT's proposed changes, I believe his greater concern is the same I addressed a moment ago. The straight definition however of an Alt Coin, is a Blockchain/Coin that is not Bitcoin. Bitcoin requires 99.9% concensus. Without that concensus its not Bitcoin, and therefor an alt coin.
*99.9% is just an aproximation, whatever the actual value is is aproximate 100% - statistical misrepresentations/margin of error etc, but its near 100%.
The thing is, achieving a near complete consensus among large groups of people with diametrical views is outright impossible (as shown) although it would be ideal. The only thing we can expect in the future is hard-forking by the of majority of economic participants and let the minorities decide if they follow or not. XT is the first but not the last of these kind of alternate client implementations. Don't fool yourself.
Waiting for a 99.9% consensus belongs to fantasy land at this point and will never happen.
Both points are correct in a way. I'd feel much better about the process if all ideas were welcomed and taken seriously (assuming they're put out there with a level of seriousness and effort). Unfortunately, the status quo is over-politicized were people resort to manipulation of discourse (trolling, sock-puppetry, marketing, deleting, banning, etc.) to prevent full debate and full consideration of alternatives. Also, the development process feels closed and overly ideological. I get the sense that there are some core contributors that are not willing to seriously consider all serious proposals. That seems like a breach of something, but I'm not sure what exactly (in law, contracts come with an implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing - I feel like good faith negotiations are impossible to some extent; but I hope I'm wrong) - maybe this is a problem endemic of digital and distributed decision-making that a Ledger article could tackle.
In short, consensus is ideal, but it only works when the decision makers are genuinely open to change. When fingers are put in ears b/c of ideology, then true consensus is not possible in a growing ecosystem with diversity of ideas. Instead, Bitcoin seems like its being held hostage. Such an environment makes hard forks inevitable and necessary for those with different ideas. I don't see how Gavin and Mike had any other choice with how they released XT given how hostile folks have been towards them and their proposal. I don't believe one person said - good effort, why don't you try tweaking X. Or, here's what a blocksize increase BIP has to cover, this didn't cover it, make some edits and we'll look again. From my perspective, the process lacks any real clarity, transparency, respect/professionalism, intellectual rigor, or regard for users. This is what the XT brouhaha has been about, not blacklisting or blocksize or other nerd things that should be debated.
Glad I'm not the only one seeing it that way. From the offset it was presented as a binary choice, as if there were no room for compromise. This seems to be why the debate always gets dragged back to this silly "XT vs Core" mindset. But it was never going to be that simplistic. We need to keep an open mind and not enough people are managing to do that. When presented with a proposals for change, we should be looking at ways to make them better, not ways to shut them down. Weigh up the pros and cons, suggest amendments and highlight potential pitfalls in a constructive way.
I suspect that as soon as any proposal begins to gain traction and people start paying attention to it, the same group in such a haste to torpedo BIP101 without looking to negotiate or compromise will be repeating the same tactic, as if this were some game of whack-a-mole. But the goal shouldn't be to slap down every proposal as quickly as possible without considering merit. Such actions aren't conducive to a healthy debate and those attempting to do so should be disregarded. I look forward to a far more positive discourse in future once we've isolated and sidelined the zealots. With a community as abundant in intelligence as this one, we should be able to find a happy middle ground. One that allows room for growth, but doesn't jeopardise decentralisation.
If we can't manage that and the debate becomes increasingly divisive, then an inimical split is going to become ever more likely.
