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Topic: Upgrade or hard-fork? Is it time to stop over-misusing the term hard-fork? (Read 328 times)

full member
Activity: 462
Merit: 155
-snip-
Ok, fine.
I just raised my opinion.
For now, I locked the topic, and months or years later, just remembered that I did it in 2019 ^^.
Best regards,
legendary
Activity: 3024
Merit: 2148

Thank you, Lauda, for your reply.
Everyone has their own opinion, so I don't fall into arguments here.

Only simple question, who create words/ terms/ definitions?
Human, and what's next?
All of words/ terms/ definitions can be changed/ adjusted over time.  Smiley

This is why the forum has merit system, then changes in Default Trust, right?
Even merit system and trust system might be changed more in the future, no one knows.

It's the same for hard fork definition.

Just because it can be changed, it doesn't mean that it will be changed or has to be changed. The current terminology works fine, I haven't seen anyone complaining before or proposing redefining any fork-related terms. Multiple very experienced people have explained the meaning of forks here, yet you still refuse to accept their explanation and keep saying that it's just their opinions. What you are doing is really counterproductive, because no one is going to accept your proposed changes, and you'll be just wasting your time. You really should try to read all the replies here carefully and try to understand them.
full member
Activity: 462
Merit: 155
If they are changing existing consensus rules at any point of time, then they are doing a hard fork. For the definition it does not matter whether there is consensus or not. You would say "Ethereum Advance was created by hard forking Ethereum" (or splitting from).
Thank you, Lauda, for your reply.
Everyone has their own opinion, so I don't fall into arguments here.

Only simple question, who create words/ terms/ definitions?
Human, and what's next?
All of words/ terms/ definitions can be changed/ adjusted over time.  Smiley

This is why the forum has merit system, then changes in Default Trust, right?
Even merit system and trust system might be changed more in the future, no one knows.

It's the same for hard fork definition.
legendary
Activity: 2674
Merit: 2965
Terminated.
After the Ethereum Classic Vision hardfork, it is time of Ethereum Advance hardfork.
So, what should we call them all?
Both of them are hard-forks from Ethereum or clone-forks?
If they are changing existing consensus rules at any point of time, then they are doing a hard fork. For the definition it does not matter whether there is consensus or not. You would say "Ethereum Advance was created by hard forking Ethereum" (or splitting from).
full member
Activity: 462
Merit: 155
After the Ethereum Classic Vision hardfork, it is time of Ethereum Advance hardfork.
So, what should we call them all?
Both of them are hard-forks from Ethereum or clone-forks?
legendary
Activity: 2674
Merit: 2965
Terminated.
If you really wanted to use the term upgrade, you might be able to use it only for soft forks. Unless a chain is completely centralized, a hard fork is always going to cause a chain split (read that again, always). That's why we call it a hard fork.
I like that, but at the same time, how do we deal with incompatible soft forks? Like a UASF that splits from the majority hash rate chain. In a technical sense, even a MASF with extremely high threshold for activation could still eventually cause a chain split.
I believe that you could label that as a soft hard fork; I haven't seen a lot of usage of this wording, but I do recall hearing it from someone (Adam maybe).

I implicitly assume that node operators are rationally motivated to maintain consensus and upgrade the protocol. But I don't think it's my place to say what those upgrades should be or whether they're upgrades at all. That's for nodes to decide. Everything else is just talk.
They should be; but many of them are very slow.
legendary
Activity: 1666
Merit: 1196
STOP SNITCHIN'
I think that chain-splits are not the most important things, instead the separation or un-consensus of core team's members or communities are.
Splits should be focused on splits inside the core team or communities. It is likely that we all focus on wrong point, simply focus on the effects, not causes of those effects.

Forget about developers and vague terms like "community" for a moment. The problem here is confusion about what "consensus" means. It refers to network consensus, i.e. unanimous agreement among nodes about what the protocol rules are.

Let's not get bogged down with abstract notions about governance. It's more useful to begin from a point of accurate descriptions about how nodes actually interact with each other.

When it comes to a hard (backwards incompatible) fork, the idea of consensus is impossible to apply to a "community," particularly one as large as Bitcoin's. The idea that every single Bitcoin user is going to unanimously and consensually agree to a backward incompatible fork is completely insane. The only narrow case where every single users' incentives align to fork is where a protocol failure would render Bitcoin valueless. Otherwise, it's insulting to assume that every other user agrees to consensus-breaking changes. Outside of the narrow case mentioned -- or the case of a protocol with only a few users -- there is no such thing as "consensus to fork." That's just a rhetorical idea used to pressure other people into forking their software.

A hard fork or incompatible soft fork always means "chain split." A chain split means forking nodes have broken the consensus and opted out of the previous network. It already means splitting from developers or part of the community, by definition. It doesn't help to introduce notions of Core developers -- that's just an appeal to authority. If decentralization matters at all, we should be focused on what the network does, not what Core developers want.

If you really wanted to use the term upgrade, you might be able to use it only for soft forks. Unless a chain is completely centralized, a hard fork is always going to cause a chain split (read that again, always). That's why we call it a hard fork.

I like that, but at the same time, how do we deal with incompatible soft forks? Like a UASF that splits from the majority hash rate chain. In a technical sense, even a MASF with extremely high threshold for activation could still eventually cause a chain split.

I guess I don't really like "upgrade" being applied to protocol changes at all. It can be too loaded and political. The network is an organism -- it will do what it will. It doesn't bow to these sort of abstract terms.

I implicitly assume that node operators are rationally motivated to maintain consensus and upgrade the protocol. But I don't think it's my place to say what those upgrades should be or whether they're upgrades at all. That's for nodes to decide. Everything else is just talk.
legendary
Activity: 2674
Merit: 2965
Terminated.
If you really wanted to use the term upgrade, you might be able to use it only for soft forks. Unless a chain is completely centralized, a hard fork is always going to cause a chain split (read that again, always). That's why we call it a hard fork.

I think that chain-splits are not the most important things, instead the separation or un-consensus of core team's members or communities are.
Splits should be focused on splits inside the core team or communities. It is likely that we all focus on wrong point, simply focus on the effects, not causes of those effects.
No; none of that has anything to do with technical terminology. Stop spewing nonsense.

I have still thought that it is time to add some strict criteria to the term hard fork.
We already have that: Anything that causes a chain split is a hard fork. End of discussion.

There is no such strict criteria to the term yet. One would not the wrong to call the constantinople upgrade a fork
Constantinopole is a forced-hard-fork (as ETH is not decentralized), not an upgrade.
legendary
Activity: 2114
Merit: 2248
Playgram - The Telegram Casino
The crux of the matter would be those who use the term 'hardfork' which most has associated with, airdrop of new tokens, to scam those who are little informed and obtain personal information.

I have still thought that it is time to add some strict criteria to the term hard fork.

There is no such strict criteria to the term yet. One would not the wrong to call the constantinople upgrade a fork
full member
Activity: 462
Merit: 155
I think that chain-splits are not the most important things, instead the separation or un-consensus of core team's members or communities are.
Splits should be focused on splits inside the core team or communities. It is likely that we all focus on wrong point, simply focus on the effects, not causes of those effects.
Which reasons behind cause chain-slpits.
The important point is here!
The criterion will determine for specific case that we should called it as a hard-fork or an upgrade.

For instance:
If you have a company, which operates with blockchain-based technology, has its own chain.
Some day, you and all members in your company decide to make a change in protocol to do something like: fix security holes, improve the capacity of your company's blockchain with 100 percent consensus.
Will you call it as a hard fork?
There is no separation, it does not have a hard fork, I meant!


Another example in real life.
Some day, you come inside a room, that is totally dark.
Then, you step at the contact, turn them to on position. Unfortunately, the lightbulb does not work, the rooms is dark.
Outside the house, the storm is around for recent hours. What do you think of in the case?
You think that the electricity supply has been down due to the storm, don't you?
But, the real cause maybe the lightbulb, the contact, or the electricity wire inside your house, not outside.
People tend to pay their attention on effects, not causes.
as others pointed out, "hard fork" has a very specific definition. it simply indicates that a fork is not backward compatible with previous versions. it could be implemented by a protocol's core developers, or it could be implemented by random people.

whether a fork could be considered an "upgrade" is a subjective matter. if the fork doesn't result in a network split and it's implemented by developers of the reference implementation, most people would agree it's an upgrade. if there's a chain split, probably not.....

I think that I expressed my opinion better there:
Yeah, over mis-using the term hard fork will create perfect chances for scammers, who will readily - of course - use the term for their shitty clone forked projects.
Before using the term hard fork, I think there are two main criteria should be taken into consideration:
1> Purposes of the event (I got those three ones below from the new-source there: https://cointelegraph.com/bitcoin-cash-for-beginners/what-is-hard-fork#terms-you-should-know)
Code:
1. To fix important security risks found in older versions
2. To add new functionality
3. To reverse transactions.
If the purpose is compromising open source code of others and use them to create new coins, it should be called as clone fork, not hard fork.
2> The separation of core team or communities or not (for projects that have full control of their core team, communities will not play a role in the criteria).

....
I totally agreed with you.
Code:
a breaking change in the protocol (an update)
and, it should be sticked with one supplementary criteria, a separation or un-consensus of core team or communities (for community-driven projects) on the update/ upgrade.


Our lives are trial-and-error learning process, so the topic is open-discussing.
I have still thought that it is time to add some strict criteria to the term hard fork.
It is the same situation when Galileo Galilei demonstrated his theory of tides to defend that 'The sun does not circle the Earth, but the Earth circle the Sun'.
Terms/ definitions created by people, and can be misused by people as well.
legendary
Activity: 1652
Merit: 1483
Consensus, or un-consensus, I meant.
Additionally, purposes of forks/ upgrades are important.

If upgrade comes from original core team with totally consensus, it should be called as upgrade.
Instead, if upgrade results in un-consensus, and the original core team or community divide into several parts with different visions and plans for developments after the update, it should be called fork.

as others pointed out, "hard fork" has a very specific definition. it simply indicates that a fork is not backward compatible with previous versions. it could be implemented by a protocol's core developers, or it could be implemented by random people.

whether a fork could be considered an "upgrade" is a subjective matter. if the fork doesn't result in a network split and it's implemented by developers of the reference implementation, most people would agree it's an upgrade. if there's a chain split, probably not.....
legendary
Activity: 3472
Merit: 10611
you are making things very complicated here.
you can only call a "hard fork" an "upgrade" to explain what it does. but to not call it a "hard fork" at all means you are removing the other characteristics that it has.

the fact is, there isn't any clear definition of a "hard fork" and "soft fork" when it comes to blockchain based projects but generally speaking a simple definition is this:
whenever you add/remove/change a new consensus rule you are creating a fork of the project. it is a hard fork of the changes are not backward compatible and they are considered soft fork if they are backward compatible.

now regarding chain split since it was mentioned, both hard fork and soft forks can lead to a chain split because you are changing consensus rules and people can decide not to follow them and remain on the previous chain and reject the new blocks.

If upgrade comes from original core team with totally consensus, it should be called as upgrade.
Instead, if upgrade results in un-consensus, and the original core team or community divide into several parts with different visions and plans for developments after the update, it should be called fork.

wrong. it doesn't matter where the "changes" come from and more importantly "consensus" means the whole network agree on the change not the (original/core/ether foundation) developer  team accept it!
full member
Activity: 462
Merit: 155
Consensus, or un-consensus, I meant.
Additionally, purposes of forks/ upgrades are important.

If upgrade comes from original core team with totally consensus, it should be called as upgrade.
Instead, if upgrade results in un-consensus, and the original core team or community divide into several parts with different visions and plans for developments after the update, it should be called fork.

If you keep your stance like this, what do you call projects used source codes of ETH to create their coins.
There are already so many coins like this, and will appear more later.

Of course, it is a open discussion, I will listen to all your opinion.
legendary
Activity: 3024
Merit: 2148
You are confusing things when you are saying that Constantinople is an upgrade and not a hard fork. A hard fork is a type of change that is not compatible with previous versions. The event when two chains occur after a hard fork is called "chainsplit". If chainsplit didn't happen after a hard fork, it doesn't mean that it wasn't "hard" fork. By calling hard forks only "update" you are hiding the important fact that this update is not backwards compatible and that a chainsplit might occur.

Similarly, SegWit was called "softfork" and not just "update", in order to emphasize that it is backwards compatible and that the risk of chainsplit is very low.
full member
Activity: 462
Merit: 155
Stimulated by the scam 'hard-fork', namely Ethereum Classic Vision project, I would like to give all newbies, new comers in the crypto world, or even old-ones who still not have enough experience, and knowledge to differentiate between the two terms:
1) Upgrade
2) Hardfork.

To start with, let's search and see what are upgrade and hard-fork in dictionaries or wikiepedia.
Fork's definition from Merriam-Webster dictionary
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fork
Code:
a division into branches or the place where something divides into branches

Hardfork
1) What is hard fork terms you should know (cointelegraph)
Code:
Blockchain protocol: the code convention which defines the connection, mining and transaction rules. To be a part of the network, you must comply with the protocol.
Fork: the moment you have a protocol version which is different from the main one.
And
Code:
After a hard fork, the previous version and the new one are completely split, there is no communication or transaction option between the two. Usually, the new version inherits all the historic transactions and, from now on, each version will have its own transaction history.
As the article presents, there are three main purposes of forks:
Code:
1. To fix important security risks found in older versions
2. To add new functionality
3. To reverse transactions.

2) Another definition from investopedia.com
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/hard-fork.asp
Code:
A hard fork can be implemented to correct important security risks found in older versions of the software, to add new functionality, or to reverse transactions (as in the case with the hard fork to reverse the hack on the DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) in the Ethereum blockchain).


I also explained reasons why we, from now on, should use the terms upgrade and hard-fork in relevant contexts.
It's time to completely stop over-using them overlapped.
You should call it as an upgrade, not hard fork.
There is no debate that Ethereum should hard fork or not in the Ethereum core team of developers.
So, it's totally consensus upgrade from ETH team.
Moreover, there is no serious debate and un-consensus that usually lead to 'real' hard-fork.

For the coming upgrade of Ethereum network, the old chain will be abandoned by Ethereum team after the upgrade.
Then, everyone who have interest can use those open-sourced code of the old chain to keep developing more things from it.
It's very simple and easy to understand.
If there are 100 teams of developers use the old-chain open-sourced codes, and use them to create their own coins.
Will you call all those 100 new coins as hard-forked coins from Ethereum network?

Honestly, I strongly believe that you won't call them as hard-forked coins.
Can you confirm that you agree with me at this point, please.

In a nutshell, this coming one will be an upgrade on Ethereum network.
That's all!

By now, there are two classic hard-forks in crypto world, Bitcoin Cash from Bitcoin last year, and Ethereum Classic from Ethereum after the DAO hack years ago.



RIGHT use-cases
[1] Ethererum's official announcement on Twitter channel
Code:
[SECURITY ALERT] #Constantinople upgrade is temporarily postponed out of caution following a consensus decision by #Ethereum developers, security professionals and other community members. More information and instructions are below.

[2] Ethereum (ETH) lethargic ahead of Constantinople upgrade
Contents:
Code:
In this upcoming case, the Ethereum upgrade has been widely embraced by the community and until now there have been no major players protesting Constantinople (the name of the upgrade).



WRONG use-cases
There are so many wrong usecases of the term hard fork.
Sometimes, inside the same articles, hard-fork and upgrade terms used overlapped without clarifications.
It's weird and at somewhat extents, very very terrible over-misusing.
[1] https://www.ccn.com/ethereum-postponed-its-hard-fork-but-some-miners-didnt-listen/
Tittle: Ethereum Postponed its Hard Fork, But Some Miners Didn’t Listen
Code:
On January 15, Ethereum’s developers put out a security alert that they were postponing the scheduled Constantinople upgrade.

Coindesk.com
[3] Ethererum Clients release new software in wake of hard fork delay
Contents:
Code:
The upgrade was postponed Tuesday during a developers call

[4] Ethereum's Constantinople upgrade faces delay due to security vulnerability
Contents:
Code:
Ethereum’s long-anticipated Constantinople upgrade

[5] The 'Thirdening' approach: How to watch  Etherum's fork as it happens
Contents:
Code:
Named Constantinople, the system-wide upgrade, or hard fork

[6] What to expect when Ethereum's Constantinople hardfork happens
Contents:
Code:
Expected to activate next Wednesday, Jan. 16, Constantinople is a type of upgrade known as a hard fork
Code:
Constantinople introduces five new upgrades to the network.



Scam hard-fork, namely Ethereum Classic Vision (ETCV) from ETH
- ETCV's ANN topic
There are so many warning and judgements that the ETCV is a scam one.
Its main purposes are stealing private keys of ETH's holders in order to steal as many ETH as possible from them.
Metamask has already raised red flag on the ETCV.
For the case like this, using old open-sourced codes of old chain in order to create a new coin, I would prefer to use a new term 'clone fork', not a 'hard-fork'. Do you agree with me at this term?

Ups web wallet nya kena razia oleh metamask, dianggap phising  Cheesy
https://etherscamdb.info/domain/etcvwallet.com



Skenario paling aman sih,

Bikin ETH address Baru --- Pindahin ETH ke address Baru --- Tunggu Snapshot --- Balikin ETH ke address lama setelah snapshot beres.

Mau ETVC legit atau scam , balance ETH tetap aman.

Below are other findings from community:
1) On etherscan.io
None, look at these contract addresses

https://etherscan.io/address/0x6d125ebb39238402cdd29f6232ac53df1b1b27f8
https://etherscan.io/address/0x4169170231678b9a33ce8fe291d6427a4763e137
https://etherscan.io/address/0x4817d74db306a6547f18d462f187affefaac313e
https://etherscan.io/address/0x1ae598ea59283576d72864291d01a47d368aac22

and one of the scammers eth wallet: https://etherscan.io/address/0x103B4e7f316a058a3299e601dff7e16079B72501
https://etherscan.io/address/0xd8ddfd63696127b18911546b13856cf98a246ff4


Sad to say, the guy who runs this scam token desperate for the people's privatekeys in their webwallet and steals much ETH he can find. This is the reason why cryptocurrency still isn't used legally worldwide because of the scammers...

2) Proof of plagiarism:
the op, 666#666, is also plagiarizing content really i don't see any point in defending or leaving any doubt about him or this project, since estensive proofs have been provided

Plagiarism http://archive.is/y8Qya

Original http://archive.is/jEO6D


Differentiate these terms well will help you avoiding invest into fake hard-forks, and considerable losses.
Enjoy it, everyone!
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