Bitcoin should not have any leadership, which is why the development needs to become more distributed.
Do not be confused: The fact that most of the dozens of developers choose to collaborate to build a stronger and better Bitcoin implementation than we could build alone does not make development non-distributed.
The process is Bitcoin is one that amplify the independence of developers generally, even beyond the level of open source software, -- including down to the fact that multiple developers must collaborate to produce releases (so we do not just end up with only one or two person who knows how), that any user can produce the same binaries that we do, that we do not have an auto-update process, and so on. Many more complex features begin life in developers personal forks (which exist, though most don't make releases from them intended for the public (although Luke-Jr has for years)). Our software licensing enables developers to go off and do their own thing based on the codebase, even if the original authors strongly disagree with them.
When you say stuff like this, given the permissive open source software and development process what you're effectively saying is that developers should cooperate less and instead expend their efforts on more duplicated work.
I don't think that is a way to make Bitcoin successful. But I can think of a few parties that would benefit from that outcome...
Thank you for responding, I do respect much of the work you have done within Bitcoin Core.
Even if the internal governance structure of Core is as perfect as it can be it does not change that this still represents a singular governance and organizational structure which is ultimately controlled by just a few people. By extension having multiple implementations being worked on in tandem would in effect distribute this power of development more, since decentralization does exist on a spectrum. This would also allow for more freedom of choice which would further lead to the Bitcoin protocol better reflecting the will of the economic majority.
That the Bitcoin protocol should reflect the will of the economic majority however should be considered a subjective ideology. When there are fundamental ideological disagreements this type of split might be justified considering that one side of this disagreement is unable to have their choice reflected in Core.
I understand that distributing/decentralizing development more would slow down development. In the same sense that more totalitarian forms of governance can reach decisions quicker and more efficiently compared to more democratic systems. I would argue however that even though this would cause development to slow down, it would still be worth it considering that the protocol would better reflect the will of the economic majority. Especially considering that some of the issues that the governance of Bitcoin or body politic needs to decide on now and into the future are fundamentally ideological in nature, which should not be decided on by a small group of technical experts.
Cooperation will still be important, since in such a future different implementations would still need to negotiate consensus critical changes depending on how the miners vote. Since it would not be in the interests of everyone involved to split the network unless there are fundamental ideological differences that can not be resolved. Much of the work Core has done recently surely would not be rejected by other implementations, it adds value to the entire Bitcoin ecosystem so I do thank you for that and I do appreciate your contribution.
For some issues however like the blocksize specifically, it does seem like some other alternative implementations are willing to implement this change sooner then Core is willing to. So when it comes to fundamental disagreements like the blocksize in this case at least having multiple implementations might speed up the implementation of what the economic majority wants. More then seventy five percent of the miners are voting for an increased blocksize after all.
