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Right. And that would be a disaster. Imagine if io.js forked node.js, but the fork was effectively unusable until 75% of projects started using it. And as soon

Right. And that would be a disaster. Imagine if io.js forked node.js, but the fork was effectively unusable until 75% of projects started using it. And as soon as that threshold was reached, everyone still using and developing node.js was stuck with unmaintainable software and forced to migrate against their wish. Personal opinions aside, what Bitcoin Classic is trying to do is follow the traditional open source project fork playbook, but it will not succeed with a consensus protocol - at best they are keeping attention focused on the issue. Blockchain development works best when there is competition _between_ blockchains, not within them.

zanny 11y ago
Except that is the problem in Bitcoin. None of the money, none of the participation, none of the market are in alternate blockchains. They are in the bitcoin blockchain. That is fine, like the article says, when you have BDFL steering the project and keeping the original vision absolute, but that is not the case with bitcoin. Development is hijacked by those in a small insular group who refuse to adopt extremely popular reforms despite the userbase dramatically demanding the change. This has happened before. It happened with ffmpeg when it was forked into libav. Up until the fork happened the leadership of ffmpeg did not yield - only after the competition was real did they change their behavior and then they made the smart decision of obsoleting libav by merging back in all changes made. I'm not sure how you think Bitcoin Classic is failing. They already have a majority of hashing power pledged, and last I saw they had around a quarter of nodes running Classic or XT a week or so ago. If Classic wins, it simply demonstrates that the current project leaders of bitcoin core are not acting in the interests of a supermajority of the community as a whole according to their desires, and free software never works like that. If everyone wants change, someone will provide that change - it has happened so many times in the past they are near innumerable to list. I do not see how, if 75% of bitcoin users want 2MB blocks, it will not happen.

zanny 11y ago

Except that is the problem in Bitcoin. None of the money, none of the participation, none of the market are in alternate blockchains. They are in the bitcoin blockchain. That is fine, like the article says, when you have BDFL steering the project and keeping the original vision absolute, but that is not the case with bitcoin. Development is hijacked by those in a small insular group who refuse to adopt extremely popular reforms despite the userbase dramatically demanding the change. This has happened before. It happened with ffmpeg when it was forked into libav. Up until the fork happened the leadership of ffmpeg did not yield - only after the competition was real did they change their behavior and then they made the smart decision of obsoleting libav by merging back in all changes made. I'm not sure how you think Bitcoin Classic is failing. They already have a majority of hashing power pledged, and last I saw they had around a quarter of nodes running Classic or XT a week or so ago. If Classic wins, it simply demonstrates that the current project leaders of bitcoin core are not acting in the interests of a supermajority of the community as a whole according to their desires, and free software never works like that. If everyone wants change, someone will provide that change - it has happened so many times in the past they are near innumerable to list. I do not see how, if 75% of bitcoin users want 2MB blocks, it will not happen.