Topic: Why Bitcoin Core needs to die - page 3. (Read 2357 times)

While I'd agree with some of the points made (particularly the principle that users matter, not only programmers), I can't help but think the overall conclusion is a little too simplistic.  All proposals on how to run the network should be weighed on their pros and cons.  It's not really fair to paint the picture that everything about Core is a negative.  That's no better than what some are saying about XT.  Neither proposal "needs to die" and both have their potential drawbacks, but the network will ultimately decide which chain to follow.  But at the risk of complicating matters further, the two proposals we currently have aren't the only possible outcomes.

A fairer and more neutral appraisal of the situation is that certain developers have strong ideological differences, which is what lead to the alternative client being made.  There's no real "right" or "wrong" way to run a development team and one isn't somehow inherently "better" than the other, but if a group of developers can't agree, there's nothing wrong with said team splitting into separate camps and submitting their own proposals on how the network should be run.  That's precisely what happened here and there's nothing wrong with that.  It wouldn't matter if there are two separate development teams or twenty and it also wouldn't matter if some teams resembled a dictatorship while others looked like a hippy commune.  The more options we have, the easier it should be to reach a compromise.  The only thing that really matters is the users securing the blockchain can run the code they agree with and the longest chain decides the outcome.  

So forget the personalities involved.  Forget what the names of the clients are.  Forget how the development teams are organised.  We're placing too much emphasis on that.  Focus instead on which proposal would result in what you believe is the best outcome for Bitcoin.  If you're somewhere in the middle and don't agree with either proposal, either get coding, or get in contact with someone who can code and get them to create a proposal you do agree with.  

I agree but if people can change the bitcoin core, then its not decentralized anymore. As you said 3 of 5 bitcoin core developers are bought out from a company , and they will do what the company tells them to. They will change the bitcoin core so the company benefits and not the bitcoin community. We should remove any right to change or modify the bitcoin protocol from one or more people.

But right now we are not ready for XT, I mean that this software is made in a hurry and no one knows what Gavin is hiding behind his code. And it will also make Bitcoin centralized.

I agree. Ultimately, the market should decide what implementation it wants to uses that fit best its needs. If a group a developers fail to deliver something that will reach a real consensus, the market should be free to opt out. It adds a lot more resilience to the whole system.

Yeah you know what: the raftsmen were very decentralized too - and due to techical evolution they are long gone.
Beeing "decentralized" does not mean that you can stop to evolve and to become better over time....

I think that once the bitcoin core is forked it should be removed from github. The developers need to make a final change and final version so people can't mess with the bitcoin core and change the path of bitcoin. This way bitcoin will stay more decentralized.

But every person with committer access, can make some noise in the community get some people behind (you can always some few people behind anything) and then mark a change as controversial. With a change marked controversiol it will not be applied. That's how it is now...

Bitcoin Core is not a democracy thank God.

In the whole debate of XT vs bitcoin core, many times the statement is made, that the blocksize should be increased but with bitcoin core. Or otherwise if XT succeeds then the bitcoin core project would then stop. This is then told as if it is a downside. For me it would be a big plus if the bitcoin core project would die out.

And here is why:

• The structure of the bitcoin core project is consensus driven to a point that it simply makes no sense. In the current structure every commiter can mark a change as "controversial" - with that it will not be implemented. Mike Hearn said that they discussed the topic of increasing block size for 3 years without coming to a solution. For me that is just nonsense. if the current structure is not able to come to a solution about a very obvious question (of course you need to increase block size at a certain point in time) then you have to abandon it. I think a consensus driven culture to the point that EVERY commiter has a defacto veto is very naive. Large communities are not run by consensus, but by majority vote. In existing democracies you never get close to even 90% of the voters. Important decisions are made all the time with 51% approval.  
• Usually open source projects are managed in a way that there is one "chief" maintainer (think of him as the boss) who is giving direction and the others follow than this vision. Take Linux for example Linus torwald clearly steered Linux more in the direction he wanted to have it than all the others together. This is not bad actually but healthy. If one has a vision of fire and the other has a vision of ice you can not average that. In technical aspects it makes in many cases absolutely no sense to meet "half way" because thats not feasible - not funtioning. In fact some of the worst decisions in political systems were made because of making consensus were one shouldn't have made it just its technically not feasible.
• Very unappealing about the new programmers at bitcoin core is that they simply do not want to consent to the unavoidable is simply because the are with blockstream and got 21 Mio of Venture cap. The slower the bitcoin network the better for their solution blockstream. So in other words they exploit a flaw in the culture of bitcoin core (to consensus driven) to achieve personal gains.
  
• Approxmately 75% of the users are in favor of an increase in blocksize. So another really ugly quesition for bitcoin core arises with these 21 mio $. This sum has been apparantly enough for the new programmers in Bitcoin core to ignore the wishes of the absolute majority of the users. The users are bitcoin! Even before the programmers or the nodes, without users there is no point in an payment solution.
  

So in this way XT is much more than just an increase in blocksize, but an long needed reform of culture of bitcoin core project. Bitcoin XT wants to achieve 3 things (according to website):

• making bitcoin scalable
• The principle that users matter, not only programmers
• pragmatic community

So maybe this post helps some to see clearer why its true that mike hearn and gavin want to establish a development team which is more  hierarchically organized but why this is not bad but needed. And by the way: the consesus vote of 5 programmers from which 3 have been strait out bought by a company is not democracy at all...