Subject: Re: [bitcoindev] CTV + CSFS: a letter

From: Anthony Towns <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2025 16:19:43 +1000

On Tue, Jun 10, 2025 at 01:23:06PM +0000, Andrew Poelstra wrote:
> > The usual purpose of an open letter is to generate public pressure against
> > the target (otherwise, if you didn't want to generate public pressure, you
> > would send a private letter).
> There isn't really any place to send a "private" letter.

Here's one way to get a list of such places:

  $ git log src/script/ | grep ^Author: | head -n10000 | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head -n20

I feel pretty sure you've got my telegram contact info too, if nothing
else.

> And of course I could email specific developers personally, but there
> are no individuals that it makes sense to target, because this isn't an
> individual problem. It's an incentive problem.

I think if you're looking at it as "targeting" people, that's probably
not going to be very constructive. It certainly comes across as an
implied threat.

> My goal was to start exactly this discussion, by talking about the role
> Core plays in this ecosystem and pointing to (in my view) the incentive
> problems that are getting in the way of that role.

I've written my perspective of what core's role in this should be
[0], and am happy to discuss that further if there's some way in which
that approach falls apart. The approach proposed there doesn't require
pressuring core for support.

[0] https://delvingbitcoin.org/t/bitcoin-forking-guide/1451

>From my perspective, the CTV discussion has missed important steps,
and instead of those steps being taken, advocates have been attempting
to use public pressure to force adoption on an "accelerated timeline"
pretty much continuously for at least three years now. I've tried to help
CTV advocates take the steps I believe they've missed, but it's mostly
resulted in silence or insults rather than anything constructive. At
least from where I sit, this is just creating incentive problems, not
solving them.

> I apologize if it comes off as an ultimatum -- it has a timeline, but
> one for a "respectful ask" for "review and integration" and no specified
> consquences

Asking for "integration" as well as review presupposes the outcome of the
review, which doesn't come across as very respectful of the reviewers'
opinions, for what it's worth.

To analogise to book publishing, there are two sorts of review one might
undertake: if you're an editor or beta reader, when you review a book,
you can engage with the author and suggest ways in which the book seems
flawed and can be improved; on the other hand, if you're a columnist,
the book is already published, and the only thing you can do is recommend
whether the book is worth buying and reading or not.

If you're asking for the first sort of review, for that to be a
success, you need an author or community that's willing to engage with
criticisms, rather than, for instance, dismissing them in advance as
bikeshedding. Matt's already raised some specific issues in this thread
that could be engaged with and resolved, for instance, as has Greg
Sanders. I don't think you've engaged with either, and while James has,
it's only been to dismiss them.

If you really want this to be treated as final unchangeable proposal
and just get a detailed "CTV+CSFS sucks, 0 stars, NACK" review that
will inevitably be used to justify another round of "core are idiots
who are killing bitcoin, we have to replace them now", I guess I can
provide that; but I don't see a way of doing that while maintaining my
(already pretty shaky) assumption that "this is a serious proposal by
serious people who are willing to engage with criticism and resolve
problems with their ideas, they're just ... a bit over-excited and have
other demands on their time right now I guess".

Cheers,
aj

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