Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Concerns Regarding Threats by a Developer to Remove Commit Access from Other Developers

From: odinn <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2015 15:10:42 -0700

I maintain that you should apologize to those who traverse this list.
 What you are saying is digging yourself a deeper hole and is not
merely embarrassing but is crossing a threshold in which you have used
words, albeit subtly, to attack a community.

If you refuse to apologize, I get it.  You have not apologized thus
far, and pressing for an apology is unlikely to get an (authentic)
one.  But then, you should voluntarily step back and let others do the
hard work of coming to the consensus that you seem to think is
impossible to accomplish based on how bitcoin is run.

I believe this matter will be resolved, but not with the "help" of
those who make threatening statements (and who are unable to apologize
for having made them).

- -O

On 06/18/2015 03:00 AM, Mike Hearn wrote:
> Dude, calm down. I don't have commit access to Bitcoin Core and
> Gavin already said long ago he wouldn't just commit something, even
> though he has the ability to do so.
> 
> So why did I say it? Because it's consistent with what I've always
> said: you cannot run a codebase like Wikipedia. Maintainers have to
> take part in debates, and then make a decision, and anyone else who
> was delegated commit access for robustness or convenience must then
> respect that decision. It's the only way to keep a project making
> progress at a reasonable pace.
> 
> This is not a radical position. That's how nearly all coding
> projects work. I have been involved with open source for 15 years
> and the 'single maintainer who makes decisions' model is normal,
> even if in some large codebases  subsystems have delegated
> submaintainers.
> 
> This is also how all my own projects are run. Bitcoinj has
> multiple people with commit access. Regardless, if there were to be
> some design dispute or whatever, I wouldn't tolerate the others
> with commit access starting some kind of Wiki-style edit war in the
> code if they disagreed. Nor would I ever expect to get my own way
> in other people's projects by threatening to revert the maintainers
> changes.
> 
> Core is in the weird position where there's no decision making
> ability at all, because anyone who shows up and shouts enough can
> generate 'controversy', then Wladimir sees there is disagreement
> and won't touch the issue in question. So it just runs and runs and
> /anyone/ with commit access can then block any change.
> 
> I realise some people think this anti-process leads to better
> decision making. I disagree. It leads to no decision making, which
> is not the same thing at all.

- -- 
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and expansion of a giving economy, and a new social good"
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