Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Updating the Scaling Roadmap

From: Gregory Maxwell <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2017 03:33:47 +0000

On Wed, Jul 12, 2017 at 1:40 AM, Paul Sztorc <[email-masked]> wrote:
> Separately, and very important to me, is that you feel that there are
> unresolved objections to drivechain's security model, which you decline
> to share with me and/or the list. So I would hope that you instead
> choose to share your thoughts (as is, presumably, the purpose of this list).

You've complained in this thread that Tao Effects' specific criticisms
were off-topic for the thread. I agree.

> Let me try to explain my point of view. I did speak to several people,

Yes, but apparently none of the most active developers or people
working on the proposals you named.  But you're fully entitled to
write about whatever you want while talking to whomever you want or
even without talking to anyone at all.

But, strategically it seems a little ill-advised.

For example, had you spoken to me I would have advised against the
dates offered for signature agg-- which would be more realistic for
publication of a complete proposal and implementation that the
community could finally have an opinion on, not for actual deployment;
and I probably would have discouraged highlighting compaction since we
haven't worked on that much since December due to other priorities.

(I also would have forwarded you my general concern about 'roadmaps'
as a communication tool.)

Maybe this could saved a bit of time and discussion, maybe not!

> used the information I volunteered to you against me (in the form of
> false characterizations of negligent email writing!), and you also

I apologize for causing you to feel anything was used against you.  I
don't support the roadmap-approach you propose here-- but my failure
to support it is definitionally non-personal according to the laws of
time and space: I wrote that opposition to other peoples similar
proposal some nine months ago, in private-- it has nothing to do with
you in a rather profound and physical sense.

To the extent that I criticize whom you talked to, it was intended to
be merely a remark on strategy: You yourself stated that "wrote the
roadmap to try to be representative of a Core / developer position",
but you didn't talk to the major developers or the authors of the
things you put on the roadmap--  there is /nothing improper/ or bad
about that... but I don't think it was good strategy. Feel free to
disagree, it was-- perhaps-- unsolicited advice.

It seems to me that your goal is creating more communication around
the clear set of obvious shared intentions; sounds great. Dressing it
as an official "roadmap" I think works counter to that purpose, and to
really be successful with the communications goal  I think it would be
best to go around privately polling major actors to find out what
they'd add or remove then take the intersection then spare everyone
the debate.  Not that debate isn't good, but we shouldn't shouldn't be
debating over an omnibus bill that needlessly ties things together,
people can debate each initiative on its own merits in its own
threads... the purpose was to communicate, right?  I do support that
goal, even though I don't think I support the current approach.

As before-- that is more unsolicited advice, feel free to ignore it.
Just keep in mind that no one owes anyone a response. I did take the
time to read and understand your message. I'm sorry that my response
isn't more to your liking. I'm thankful that you read and responded to
my reply.

Cheers,