Re: [bitcoin-dev] Annoucing Not-BitcoinXT

From: Eric Lombrozo <elombrozo@gmail•com>
To: Levin Keller <post@levinkeller•de>
Cc: bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org
Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Annoucing Not-BitcoinXT
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 2015 07:30:24 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <83343736-3F56-4F94-946E-3FBB9525FCD9@gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAG86ZOxWBMaBKzgRUp=Q5TvaT1v3OjNRFx2Xofd4FdLvpg9dGQ@mail.gmail.com>

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Levin,

The hope is that eventually the network will be sufficiently resilient and robust to be able to handle anything that’s thrown at it. But it’s still a baby…and this is a serious problem indeed, because on the one hand we don’t want any central authority but on the other it still needs some guardians…and we don’t have anything resembling the kind of institution that could possibly be entrusted to nurture and care for this baby until it is ready to go out on its own.

Imagine, when the US Constitution was being written, if suddenly everyone started to just propose their own different version of it and insisting (under threat of fork) on their own versions before any sort of government could be created. Yes, I know the US federal government is not exactly the paragon of decentralization…but regardless of your views on the US government, it’s still a somewhat analogous situation. Until the system was in place, some people (who at the time were unelected) had to bootstrap the process.

For better or worse, Satoshi has left the picture…and no clear succession model was put in place. The Bitcoin Foundation, which for a time attempted to be a guardian institution, ended up self-destructing. It was an utter failure.

We don’t have any sort of institution like this…and we don’t really want one. But the system is still not fully in place. Importantly, we lack any mechanisms to be able to make potentially controversial changes without serious risks.

It would be amazing if despite this trial-by-fire we still survived and managed to pull through. And if we do we’ll be stronger for it. But quite sincerely, I would have wanted the system to be a little more mature before putting it through this trial. At least I would have liked to have gone through a test hard-fork using a far less politically divisive issue.

Anyhow, completely separate from my views on governance, etc…my main point is that we’re ALL trying to do what’s best given our understanding and resources…and we’ve all poured our hearts and souls into this. We might disagree on certain things, but let’s stop this negativity and misrepresentation and try to figure out a way forward that is less likely to lead to a war.

- Eric

> 
> 
> Eric Lombrozo via bitcoin-dev <bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org> schrieb am Mo., 17. Aug. 2015 um 16:03 Uhr:
> NxtChg,
> 
> In the entire history of Bitcoin we’ve never attempted anything even closely resembling a hard fork like what’s being proposed here.
> 
> Many of us have wanted to push our own hard-forking changes to the protocol…and have been frustrated because of the inability to do so.
> 
> This inability is not due to any malice on anyone’s part…it is a feature of Satoshi’s protocol. For better or worse, it is *very hard* to change the rules…and this is exactly what imbues Bitcoin with one of its most powerful attributes: very well-defined settlement guarantees that cannot be suddenly altered nor reversed by anyone.
> 
> We’ve managed to have a few soft forks in the past…and for the most part these changes have been pretty uncontroversial…or at least, they have not had nearly the level of political divisiveness that this block size issue is having. And even then, we’ve encountered a number of problems with these deployments that have at times required goodwill cooperation between developers and mining pool operators to fix.
> 
> Again, we have NEVER attempted anything even remotely like what’s being proposed - we’ve never done any sort of hard fork before like this. If even fairly uncontroversial soft forks have caused problems, can you imagine the kinds of potential problems that a hard fork over some highly polarizing issue might raise? Do you really think people are going to want to cooperate?!?
> 
> I can understand that some people would like bigger blocks. Other people might want feature X, others feature Y…and we can argue the merits of this or that to death…but the fact remains that we have NEVER attempted any hard forking change…not even with a simple, totally uncontroversial no-brainer improvement that would not risk any sort of ill-will that could hamper remedies were it not to go as smoothly as we like. *THIS* is the fundamental problem - the whole bigger block thing is a minor issue by comparison…it could be any controversial change, really.
> 
> Would you want to send your test pilots on their first flight…the first time an aircraft is ever flown…directly into combat without having tested the plane? This is what attempting a hard fork mechanism that’s NEVER been done before in such a politically divisive environment basically amounts to…but it’s even worse. We’re basically risking the entire air force (not just one plane) over an argument regarding how many seats a plane should have that we’ve never flown before.
> 
> We’re talking billlions of dollars’ worth of other people’s money that is on the line here. Don’t we owe it to them to at least test out the system on a far less controversial, far less divisive change first to make sure we can even deploy it without things breaking? I don’t even care about the merits regarding bigger blocks vs. smaller blocks at this point, to be quite honest - that’s such a petty thing compared to what I’m talking about here. If we attempt a novel hard-forking mechanism that’s NEVER been attempted before (and which as many have pointed out is potentially fraught with serious problems) on such a politically divisive, polarizing issue, the result is each side will refuse to cooperate with the other out of spite…and can easily lead to a war, tanking the value of everyone’s assets on both chains. All so we can process 8 times the number of transactions we currently do? Even if it were 100 times, we wouldn’t even come close to touching big payment processors like Visa. It’s hard to imagine a protocol improvement that’s worth the risk.
> 
> I urge you to at least try to see the bigger picture here…and to understand that nobody is trying to stop anyone from doing anything out of some desire for maintaining control - NONE of us are able to deploy hard forks right now without facing these problems. And different people obviously have different priorities and preferences as to which of these changes would be best to do first. This whole XT thing is essentially giving *one* proposal special treatment above those that others have proposed. Many of us have only held back from doing this out of our belief that goodwill amongst network participants is more important than trying to push some pet feature some of us want.
> 
> Yadayadayada.
> 
> If someone could threaten the network by releasing a hard-forking bitcoind version, then already all is lost. Bitcoins stability does not (and cannot) depend on the "good will" of anyone. If it would, we should all abandon this silly project. Relying on the good will of people is the worst idea one could have.
> 
> So please (please please) go ahead and release your hardforking bitcoinds you have been holding back. Competition is everything.
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Levin
> 
> 
> Please stop this negativity - we ALL want the best for Bitcoin and are doing our best, given what we understand and know, to do what’s right.
> 
> 
> 
> > On Aug 17, 2015, at 6:34 AM, NxtChg via bitcoin-dev <bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
> >
> >
> >> We should have the highest respect for what these people are doing, and we should try to do something constructive, not waste time with anger and disrespect.
> >
> > Why, exactly, should I have any respect for what these people are doing (and supposedly not have any respect for what the other side is doing)?
> >
> > From my point of view, the XT side _does_ something constructive. It's the Core side that resorts to dirty tactics and tries to sabotage community's free choice instead.
> >
> >
> >> Nobody should be forced to do anything.
> >
> > Great, so how about you go tell theymos to stop censoring XT posts and banning the other side on /r/Bitcoin?
> >
> > Let users decide what Bitcoin is or isn't.
> >
> >
> >> The developers are not telling you what to do, they are trying to do what they consider is best for the ecosystem given their technical abilities.
> >
> > The developers & Co are doing their best to stay in power, so they could continue imposing their will on Bitcoin ecosystem. This is the real power grab, not Gavin and Hearn, who merely provided an alternative.
> >
> > And the fear they show is most telling.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org
> > https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
> 
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