Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] On the regularity of soft forks

From: Billy Tetrud <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2022 20:26:12 -0600

>  That day is nowhere near IMO and maybe we won't see it in my lifetime.

I think there is a reasonable argument to be made that maybe bitcoin needs
to move faster now than it should in the future, and the cost of having the
community remain vigilant against harmful changes is worth the extra speed.
The question then becomes, does doing soft forks more often make things go
faster? Its not clear to me that the answer is yes.

> This is not possible in a decentralized network like Bitcoin and makes no
sense.

Why do you think that its not possible? I completely disagree. The bitcoin
community has already come up with cultural norms like this, like the idea
of doing soft forks instead of hardforks wherever possible. Its impossible
to prevent others from doing otherwise, but its completely possible and
desirable for the bitcoin community to adopt standards that we attempt to
adhere to.

> More changes bundled require more review and still more probability to
have bugs.

I already addressed this in my previous email. Why do you think there is
more to review in a soft fork with two bundled changes than in two separate
concurrent soft-fork activations using BIP8 or BIP9? Both require both
changes to be in the software and both require testing to ensure that the
changes interact appropriately. The difference is that in the second case,
you have to test all combinations of which order the proposals activate in.

And let's consider the easiest case of change A, then soft fork 1, then
change B, and soft fork 2. Change A needs to be tested all on its own, and
change B when it comes along also then needs to be tested on code that
already has change A. If the changes are bundled, the same procedure needs
to happen. You just avoid having to do soft fork 1.

> BIP 8 with LOT=TRUE was a better activation mechanism

I completely disagree, but that's not relevant to this topic.

On Tue, Jan 18, 2022 at 11:22 AM Prayank <[email-masked]> wrote:

> > We should strive to one day get to a point where the bitcoin consensus
> isn't updating at all.
>
> That day is nowhere near IMO and maybe we won't see it in my lifetime.
>
> > Perhaps we should come to a consensus as a consensus as a community what
> the minimum time between soft forks should be, and just as importantly,
> what the minimum time between finalized consensus-change implementation and
> when we decide community consensus has been achieved.
>
> This is not possible in a decentralized network like Bitcoin and makes no
> sense. Soft forks can/should be done as and when required. This does not
> mean we do them often but if a change makes sense, looks ready, got enough
> consensus, reviewed properly etc. then timing doesn't really matter in
> every case.
>
> > Activating multiple consensus changes in a bundle is far safer than
> having multiple separate in-flight soft forks at once.
>
> This is not true. More changes bundled require more review and still more
> probability to have bugs. Security is always about keeping things simple.
>
> > One solution is that we could be a lot more direct about how decisions
> are made. There's been a lot of rhetoric around UASF and how the economic
> majority is really who's running the show.
>
> BIP 8 with LOT=TRUE was a better activation mechanism option in Taproot
> but some influential developers wrote its misleading, unsafe etc. on social
> media so you can call me negative at this moment however I have realized
> the truth is really sad and we can't blindly follow some people. There are
> lot of people who will tell you bad things about UASF and how speedy trial
> is the best thing Bitcoin has ever experienced.
>
> Michael Folkson also had some opinion in activation mechanism IIRC,
>
>
> --
> Prayank
>
> A3B1 E430 2298 178F
>