Topic: Can the Bitcoin Core developers make crucial changes? (Read 590 times)

you grant me a reply? aww your privilege elitism of thinking people need your grants and licences to engage with you, soo cute.

funny part is you accuse me of all these 'arguments and rants'. yet this forums own storing of historic posts show that my 'rants' in 2016-2019 reveal where you have became offensive to me, and caused you to abuse your moderation privileges.. which were due to me continually highlighting the cludgy code of segwit which DOES miscount and bypass validating every byte, and also allowed bloated junk data...
yes i was telling you about the 'anyonecanspend' trick of segwit which allows funky junky un-validated data to be appended to a transaction

you kept crying and denying, and yet the ordinal junk meme crap in recent years proved my point, heck just check the blockchain data to see all the junk bloat of junk/meme data since 2017... (so dont pretend i cant prove anything)

as for you pretending i am being vague about my arguments. thats because, unless you suffer from amnesia, you know exactly what i am on about due to historic posts and your own involvement in previous code changes which you were proud to have been involved in.. yes you know exactly how segwit bypassed the true byzantine generals solution. it did not activate via a real network readiness stat to then run segwit, but instead involved a mandatory blacklisting of blocks and nodes not signalling readiness, which lead to a faked 100% compliance readiness stat(version bits of blockdata prove the unnatural 100% threshold), and then after that we have not seen any big activation/upgrade requirement to do further protocol changes via true consensus readiness of nodes, because even you have been promoting the fact that nodes no longer need to upgrade to then reach a consensus before a new feature upgrades, aka "backward capability".. oh and dont play dumb that i am not explaining everything in "scientific detail", you are smart enough to know what i am on about (unless you suffer from debilitating amnesia)

you pretend to play dumb/forgetful and argue silly things or to deny your involvement and pretend to be just some lame janitor who cant control bitcoin/not a founder of a corporate group which expanded into 3 agencies(blockstream, brink, chaincodelabs), yet we can see your code changes of bitcoin core, we can see whom the maintainers are employed/founded by.. and for many years of proof we so can see your not just some independent contributor of the 100's but part of the small dev group of the maintainers. and those dns seeds are part of the same group with extra privileges in cores github and not just seeded by random independent contributors with no core reputation

i do laugh that you say that node users "manually add nodes" yet of the thousands of nodes, how many people do you think actually manually play around with it just to set it up, vs how many just let it use the defaults set up by your small group of devs(which you pretend are not linked by any core management hierarchy)

and yes we all know you are not some independent dev but part of the founders of blockstream which came up with the core brand.. previous to this was bitcoin-qt which was what gavin maintained before your corporate takeover and removal of gavin.. and yes that can be proven too via past records of github and this forums post history

i do love how you like to control the narrative, but beyond your imagination there is actual blockdata, quotes and records and github edit logs that prove how you are the narrative manipulator and moderation abuser

as for your silly explanation of why you hate different brands (quoted here)

the whole point of true consensus(the real byzantine generals solution YOU hate) is so that different brands can/could run code in different languages valiate the same data in different ways as a security protection of that same data(incase one method had a bug).. and come up with their own proposals pre-activation where by they only activate(in a true consensus) when they all come into agreement to the same majority agreed set of rules. to then have different brands be ready to understand the new proposed ruleset, so that when it activates they all understand the same new rules to then get the same data.
you and your colleagues bypassed this true consensus mechanism with the bypass tricks which your colleagues of the corporate founded group of contracted/sponsored devs invented, and since then now your small group of sponsored devs made bitcoin treat other brands even just making proposals as the enemy(check post history, blockdata, and github changelog if memory fails you)

Franky1,  sometimes people just don't agree with you, that doesn't make there be some dramatic conspiracy.   You got yourself removed from the development sub forum because of your constant raiding of threads with offtopic and often untruthful rants.  And because your toxic and accusatory gish galop just makes knowledgeable people give up on participating entirely, you're not just a thread serial killer, you're a discussion forum killer.

I'll grant you the courtesy of a reply here because for once it's not offtopic.

 DNS seeds are only used on initial startup or if some node has been offline for a long time and spends minutes unable to connect to anything.  They aren't the only initial discovery mechanism:  a peer or list of peers can be provided manually, and there is a static list.   At the moment there appear to be 9 dnsseeds, only one of them is run by a repo maintainer.  

For dnsseeds to be some kind of impediment to continuing to run an old version you'd have to imagine that all the hardcoded seeds go down or are corrupted, that all the 9 dnsseeds don't return useful stuff, and then people attempting to bring up new nodes in this case can't find manual settings to set.  Existing nodes learn their peers over the network and would be unaffected.

Generally it's *not* the same people, but I don't see any reason to argue this out:  the end of the day no mailing list or forum is a privleged place, it's the same story as the repo.  Anyone is free to create their own venues, they only have any impact to the extent that people that use them.  Bitcointalk's dev forum for example has lost all its influence particularly due to extremely high tolerance of abusive parties crapping over otherwise interesting discussions, thus chasing off those discussions.

The rekt comes from being wrong and off in space,  common but sad outcome for people with problems-- like falling for conartists or suffering from oppositional defiance-- that distort their ability to reason.  Very sad, not very relevant.

I'm sorry you don't like Satoshi's activation mechanisms.  But there is absolutely nothing the slightest bit inaccurate about my message.  You've not even explained what you think is wrong about it -- instead it's even more consistent (e.g. I didn't say anything about any kind of majorities).     The accusations you're making are ones that could be substantiate with concrete examples -- but I guess you prefer to stick with the vague stuff because it lets you evade actually defending your positions.

(I wonder who you think came up with that quorum sensing activation that you claim to like? )

Ironically, that choice of naming was an aggressive insistence of Gavin and Hearn, it was opposed by myself and a number of other contributors at the time.   I don't like it either and never have.   But if you think calling it 'core' has that much influence then well if the world is that stupid, then a world that stupid doesn't deserve Bitcoin.  But I don't believe for a moment that it is.

As a consensus system, "I don't believe a second, compatible implementation of Bitcoin will ever be a good idea. So much of the design depends on all nodes getting exactly identical results in lockstep that a second implementation would be a menace to the network."  and the reality of collaboration is that unless there is some disagreement there is no little advantage in a proliferation of different versions and a lot of cost.  So naturally sane people don't go around making them where they aren't.  But something is functionally going to be a reference until it isn't-- exactly as was the case for Bitcoin ABC.

Ironically, because what people believe matters your misrepresentations and exaggerating on this risk shifting things ever so slightly in that direction--  perhaps like the stupid "core" naming.  But while no one in this discussion was involved in or supported that change,  here you are, with years of advocating for a misleading fringe position that harms bitcoin's decentralization to the extent that it does anything at all-- by toxifying yet another discussion forum, and by telling people they don't have any power when they do.

no matter if you stick with an older version of bitcoin core and majority dont upgrade.. core still do perform upgrades to how the network accepts blocks. this is because the same maintainer devs also control the main node DNS seed servers. its also the same devs that control the moderation of not just this forums development category, but other platforms developer discussions such as the mailing list and IRC. and even the bips..
this means when ever there is discussion of other brands offering other proposals, these same devs treat these other proposals not as genuine options to upgrade the bitcoin network, but as possible altcoins if they activate. as history has shown #REKT


..
they also have the byzantine generals solution bypassed so doesnt need network majority readiness to then activate changes in a network safe manner of true byte counting and validating
..
as for "the only mechanism".. gmax is (purposefully)incorrect, the old mechanism is that no proposed changes occurred until there was network majority readiness to understand the new rules, and then and only then the new ruleset would activate.. but now due to a trick implemented by the same small group of devs, now new changes can occur even without majority of the nodes, meaning not upgraded to understand the change.. this again makes it difficult to have choice and decisions decentrally over protcol changes. and instead everyone becomes reliant and compliant to core because they control(moderate) most of the pre-proposal discussion and the post-proposal coding because they dont let anything the core devs dont like to proceed as an option for the bitcoin network. its the core roadmap or GTFO attitude

what gmax talks about in regards to him thinking 'people can choose which software or make their own' is anyone can write new software that just sheep follows core, or if they want to change things it will fork out into an altcoin. but the only way to get it as a bitcoin upgrade is to kiss ass and suck eggs to the core monarchy, bribe(sponsor them) and get them to code it.

it wasnt just luck or coincidence why they call their brand CORE(central) nor why they say they are THE reference client, rather than what should be a decentralised network of multiple brands being reference clients to active code and inactive(proposed) code waiting to populate to a majority of the network to activate

Yes,
1. People could just run current or older version of Bitcoin Core.
2. People could switch to different Bitcoin full node software.
3. Developer could clone Bitcoin Core's and setup new repository with different management.


Depending on what hard fork does (e.g. change total Bitcoin could be mined), i would agree. But such argument (without additional detail) also used when debating Bitcoin soft fork.


I agree with @nutildah, especially because OP ask similar question many times.

there is nothing particularly special about some github repository... if people at some repository do things people don't want or don't do things they do then people won't run their software and will software distributed by other parties (or just continue with whatever they were running).  The choice to use it is the only mechanism by which ongoing development has any effect at all, no mechanism exists by which anyone can be forced to run bitcoin software they don't want to run.  Anyone can continue developing the software (or just write something new from scratch, if they want), including you-- though you might have learn how first!

Consider BCH: this altcoin was created by Amaury Sechet and Jason Cox forking the Bitcoin code and blockchain, and they were the principle developers of the repository that almost all BCH users used (ABC).  After funding for them dried up they decided they would add code to redirect a portion of the newly mined coins to pay for development.  The users of the cryptocurrency didn't like this and after extensive public debate didn't adopt the change, and eventually setup another repository with different developers to continue development.  BCH was even worse than Bitcoin in terms of control risk because there were fewer participating developers and because the ABC codebase had a timebomb coded into it to force periodic upgrades, diminishing the "just continue with what you're already running" option but even this wasn't enough to force people to run changes that the community of users didn't want.

Where do you get such negative thoughts? Well, yes, you can't rule out this option completely, but it's unlikely. Most likely, even for such a case there is an "emergency" protocol that will help you sort out such a situation if it does happen. In the meantime, I strongly recommend that you don't think about it and set yourself up for a more positive motive.

Part of being a maintainer means having access to the repository.


This is the second time you're copy/pasting the same text straight from an article. I imagine you are trying to make a point. You should just make it.

So the positions the current maintainers hold can be replaced without access to Bitcoin Core’s GitHub repository? Found the names in an article from 2023 but it should be close to accurate if they didnt replace them recently.

Ford oversees the build system
Gloria Zhao writes and reviews the code that governs Bitcoin’s transaction validation process
Andrew Chow is in charge of programming for crypto wallets, which allow investors to store their bitcoin
Marco Falke focuses on testing
Stepanov maintains the network’s graphical user interface

Yes it could continue without core maintainers but like the name implies they are quite important in maintaining the bitcoin software and addressing bugs.
Not to mention it could lead to stagnation in its development.
Mind you there are other contributors that could help with development but won't be as efficient.

Can Bitcoin continue as usual without a hard fork and without the core maintainers and their access to Bitcoin Core’s GitHub repository? A hard fork is out of the question since it will not be Bitcoin anymore.

What's a "crucial change"? Anyone can change the source code and its protocol rules, but to change the consensus of the network requires convincing other people to run your software. Most crucial changes (consensus changes, like 21 million hard cap), if adopted, would practically result into a network split, where a few nodes run rules A, and the rest rules B.

If they die, project moves into different hands. Practically, this could be done by other Bitcoin Core developers forking and maintaining Bitcoin Core. If the present maintainers become dictators, then... Well, they have to achieve the impossibility of enforcing consensus changes on an open, global, permissionless network. Pretty tough job for a dictator.

There are 5 Bitcoin Core maintainers who hold the keys to implement changes: Hennadii Stepanov, Michael Ford, Andrew Chow, Marko Falke, and Gloria Zhao.

Each is responsible for an aspect of Bitcoin:

Ford oversees the build system
Gloria Zhao writes and reviews the code that governs Bitcoin’s transaction validation process
Andrew Chow is in charge of programming for crypto wallets, which allow investors to store their bitcoin
Marco Falke focuses on testing
Stepanov maintains the network’s graphical user interface

Together, these coders keep Bitcoin’s digital ledger up to date on its network’s thousands of computers. They must ensure that the software
remains compatible with the latest versions of operating systems like Windows or MacOS and that it keeps up with transaction volumes.

you really have no clue..

proposals are not actual changes/forks.. proposals are the idea of a change
there are many ways to show which idea wins before then doing a activation process of the actual code change, where by multiple brands are then all following the same winning proposed change of code.. thus uniting multiple brands on the same blockchain without needing to seek permission from one brand upfront to do the proposal/election part(governing the protocol)

learn more about how the blockchain invention can actually be more decentralised without having to rely on one brand

The point that seems to be missing is that what we have works.
As in "If it's not broken, don't fix it"

People may not like the way things are done, but as of now the system works.
Bugs get fixed, updates get done, and so on.

Some people may not like the way they are going (segwit, Ordinals, whatever) and you are free to fork off and make your own coin and try to get traction for it.
See how well it works out for you. Look at BCH as an example. It's actually a good example since a bunch of people didn't like the direction BCH was going and forked it again to ecash. See how far those got....

Having a small group that can actually merge the updates & changes while having a bunch of people do work under them is the way most large programming jobs are done.
Or do you think any programmer at Microsoft or Apple can just push a magic button and have their code merged as part of Windows / MacOS.

-Dave

It is the case now, because you have a lot of different altcoins. The main problem with them, is that they don't follow the heaviest chain of SHA-256 hashes, and they abuse 21 million coins limit, by creating new coins, not connected with Bitcoin in any way.

In that case, you would have more than one competing chain. And then, you can have for example three branches, where for example chain A has 6 million BTC, chain B has 7 million BTC, and chain C has 8 million BTC. Because having no single winner means, that some group will say for example "we want Segwit", and another group will say "we don't want Segwit". The same with Taproot, the same with Lightning Network, and the same with OP_CAT, and every other proposal. And then, the only case, where there is no single winner, is when every group can enforce it at the same time.

There is no way to find out, which way is "the best way". For example, someone may argue, that "Segwit won, and all brands then followed". Then, you may disagree, by saying, that "it is not the best idea". However, in consensus rules, you don't have "the best chain". You only have "the heaviest chain", which means, that some idea may be worse than others, and still win (see: Ordinals; it was possible to reject them, but the idea of stopping them didn't reach 51%, and now only some pools reject them, while others endorse them, and have no plans of turning them off).

The first step to change anything, is to know, what is available. So, which alternative client would you recommend? Where it can be downloaded?

Aside from what @franky1 said, different Bitcoin full node software also exist. Those software usually follow Bitcoin Core steps, but if they think changes or addition on Bitcoin Core which affect Bitcoin network or protocol is unreasonable, they could just ignore it.

yep the centralisation risk is not the propaganda fear of 'not many nodes exist'.. its actually how many nodes are too reliant on only one brand.

as for the car crash hypothetical, if all core devs died in a car crash then the core brand dies and people then rush to create a new github and fight to win trust of a new brand/group of devs that were not in a car crash. where this new brand suddenly gets to offer proposals for new protocol changes which people blindly follow

however the maintainers of core dont live in the same house and dont carpool to the same office together (unless they were at a convention/conference they all turned up to, that offered a minibus transport they all got on) so odds are if one died the other maintainers choose a replacement and just revoke privileges of the deceased one, and core continues governing the protocol

..
what should happen is multiple brands have proposals where not one single brand wins, but the best idea wins and all brands then follow.. but yea, core dont want to use the byzantine general fault solution. they prefer to keep the master general option

Sounds like bitcoin is kinda centralized to a handfull of maintainers who hold the keys. What happens if they all die in a car crash or become dictators?

As far as I understand, in theory, major changes could be proposed by Bitcoin Core developers (which actually has more than 900 people in it not just 5, as many people has mentioned in other replies), but even in the case when most of them are in support of a decision, they can't push it through. All in all, any modification to Bitcoin must achieve broad consensus among the greater Bitcoin community including miners, node operators, and users. Since Bitcoin is designed to be a decentralized model, no single group can force an outcome on it. For any modification or change to be implemented and take effect, it has to be adopted by a considerable number of nodes on the network.

So, while the majority of developers could technically force changes, those changes still must be accepted by the global Bitcoin community through some consensus mechanism, in a decentralized manner such that no single group can force key changes by themselves.

contributors make REQUESTS but the maintainers do the merging of those requests or reject them. and yes the maintainers can force merge their own code without anyone else. in short it needs the maintainers to decide. they govern bitcoin code

most contributors are not helping with code, but instead just spell checkers or translators. when you look at whom helms the code changes of the big features you see the same short list of names that do the real coding

in short contributors do not have the same power, access, privilege or rank of control as the maintainers
..
as for if another brand of a full node has equal chance of making a protocol change vs how easily core changing the protocol is just accepted without any notice/conflict/consent. well in recent years core have taken control and other brands of nodes if changing the protocol are treated as altcoin proposals, not bitcoin proposals. everything these days needs to go through the core maintainers governance to change bitcoins protocol

Van der Laan voluntarily gave up his access to the bitcoin client software after being at the helm for more than nine years. As the second successor to Bitcoin’s mysterious inventor Satoshi Nakamoto, he was one of the few individuals having final commit access to Bitcoin Core’s GitHub repository.

Nakamoto first owned this administrator key and then transferred it to Gavin Andresen. When Andresen, who received direct instruction from Nakamoto on maintaining bitcoin’s code, stepped down from the project nine years ago, Van der Laan took over. Van der Laan has played the lead role in maintaining all aspects of Bitcoin’s development for even longer than Satoshi. He led all operations involving bug fixes, code reviews, upgrades, software maintenance, and dispute resolution.

Only five Bitcoin Core maintainers remain. With Van der Laan’s departure, Bitcoin’s development will now be steered by five people: Hennadii Stepanov, Michael Ford, Andrew Chow, Marko Falke, and Gloria Zhao.

Each is responsible for an aspect of Bitcoin; for example, Stepanov maintains the network’s graphical user interface, while Ford oversees the build system.

Gloria Zhao, the only woman in the maintainers’ team, writes and reviews the code that governs Bitcoin’s transaction validation process. Andrew Chow is in charge of programming for crypto wallets, which allow investors to store their bitcoin, while Marco Falke focuses on testing.

Together, these coders keep Bitcoin’s digital ledger up to date on its network’s thousands of computers. They must ensure that the software remains compatible with the latest versions of operating systems like Windows or MacOS and that it keeps up with transaction volumes.

Many of the cryptocurrency’s proponents claim that its current value and future potential are partly in the hands of these maintainers.

https://crypto.news/bitcoin-core-has-only-5-developers-left-as-key-maintainer-departs/

You sure did well, but, yeah, you can't be considered a tester in that regard. Only a helper for testers
Thanks for sharing your experience. Never did something similar to your case.

Oh, that's me. I constantly make transfers in the Bitcoin network and not only. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages. Why choose only one Bitcoin when there are other coins, tokens? Many people just don't know about the existence or just don't trust? What's going on? What to do?

---

Naturally, there are many more Bitcoin network developers than 5. It has already become a truly grandiose project that has proven its viability and effectiveness to the entire world. Entire countries cannot be mistaken about this when they have adopted crypto at the official level.

No, no developer can make a significant change to the Bitcoin Blockchain. Also, as everyone else said, it's open source. You can contribute to it, so the number you came with (5 Devs) is very stupid and irrelevant to this conversation. Here is a screenshot of the GitHub Repo of number of contributors. And it's surely above 5... (https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin)

If you are a developer who contribute to Bitcoin Core Developments, like code it, report bug, you are one of maintainers.
If you are a translator who contribute to Bitcoin Core, you are a maintainer.
If you are a Bitcoin node operator, you are a maintainer of Bitcoin blockchain decentralization.
If you are a Bitcoin user, you are a maintainer too because you make transactions, spend fees to keep the network alive.

Surely you can find more than 5 people are doing one of these maintaining contributions.

The short answer is no.

Any Bitcoin developer including Satoshi can't make crucial changes just because they want, because in order the proposal to be implemented, they need to get votes by majority of developers.

Just like in Bitcoin Improvement Proposal, not all of them were accepted.

Anyone can make changes. It doesn't matter. What really matters is: who runs your software?

For example, I shared the code for mining coins on a CPU in testnets. And guess what: some people applied all of my changes, including accepting blocks, up to 20 hours in the future. As a result, some nodes saw a chain reorganization of more than 100 blocks, because if you have a lot of CPU-mined blocks, then the chainwork is similar in different chains.

And then, I was quite surprised, when I saw ASIC-mined blocks in my fork. But well, CPU miners only provide some content for testnets, and then, ASIC runners can decide, which chain they want to build on top of, and that chain then becomes real, when the time of the network will reach the time put inside blocks.

So, am I a testnet developer now, because some nodes adopted my changes?

I mean the maintainers.

Only 5 developers, really?
The list is more than 5 https://bitcoindevlist.com/

And you can contribute to Bitcoin Core developments too. https://bitcoin.org/en/bitcoin-core/contribute/

Don't know where you're getting the "5 developers" part from. There were 79 contributors to the latest release of Bitcoin Core. So far, 963 people have made contributions to Bitcoin Core in all.

From my understanding Bitcoin Core has only 5 developers. Can they make crucial changes to the Bitcoin network if they want to?