On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 8:29 AM, Pieter Wuille wrote: > On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 1:14 PM, Wladimir J. van der Laan < > laanwj@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Like in any open source project there is lots of decision making ability >> for code changes. I'd say look at the changelog for e.g. 0.11 >> https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/0.11/doc/release-notes.md#0110-change-log, >> or follow pull requests for a while, to see how many decisions about >> changes are made from day to day. No, I'm not sitting on my hands, and so >> is none of the other contributors that you'd like to get rid of. >> > > The analogy goes further even. Even though I disagree with some of the > changes you're making, I respect Mike's (and anyone's) right to make a fork > of Bitcoin Core. That's how open source works: if people disagree with > changes made or not made, they can maintain their own version. However: > > >> Consensus changes are *much* more difficult, on the other hand. Even >> relatively straightforward softforks come with a long discussion process >> (see BIP62, BIP66). A hardfork is hard to do at the best of times (everyone >> needs to upgrade their software!), and simply not possible if almost the >> entire technical community disagrees with you. >> > > Consensus changes - in particular hardforks - are not about making a > change to the software. You are effectively asking users of the system to > migrate to a new system. Perhaps one which is a philosophical successor to > the old one, but a different system, with new rules that are incompatible > with the old one. > Indeed. I think Mike is glossing over this major facet. Consensus changes - worded another way - change Bitcoin's Constitution - The Rules that everyone in the system is -forced- to follow, or be ignored by the system. Changing bitcoin's rules IS IN NO WAY like Wikipedia or other open source software. -- Jeff Garzik Bitcoin core developer and open source evangelist BitPay, Inc. https://bitpay.com/