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> I'm saying anyone can write their own client but the burden is on them to drum up support and achieve consensus if it's going to be useful. Consensus aside,

> I'm saying anyone can write their own client but the burden is on them to drum up support and achieve consensus if it's going to be useful. Consensus aside, this is a lot harder said than done. one of the reasons btcd is not widely adopted, even though it's purporting to be 100% compliant with core, is that there is no formal definition of what that even means. to be 100% compatible with the bitcoin protocol is to be 100% compatible with core - bugs and all. the community needs an RFC like paper describing in details what 100% compatible means. Then we can safely run other nodes without worrying that we'll get screwed by not having the same bug as core for example. I'm not one to believe in conspiracies or even subscribe to the thinking of core==blockstream. But I don't think you'll disagree that what goes into the consensus protocol is under control of the 5 maintainers

sonoffett 11y ago
I think the consensus protocol is absolutely not under control of 5 maintainers. Convince a few of the miners and exchanges (e.g., f2, ant, bitfury, coinbase, blockchain.info, bitstamp) to actually start running classic and we'll have 2MB blocks on the longest chain in no time. Conversely, suppose those 5 maintainers release a hard fork version of segwit tomorrow without a block size increase--nobody would upgrade. The consensus protocol is dictated by exactly that, consensus, not this allegedly omnipotent cabal.
- TheOsiris 11y ago
  no one is saying they're omnipotent, or impossible to replace. however, you have to admit that replacing them/core or convincing all of these people/companies to adopt anything other than what is coming in core v-next is an uphill battle. I'm going to assume you've been watching this whole blocksize debate, the endless roundtables, conferences... and we're still on square 1. Actually, with classic I think we've at least moved one step forward and a lot of full-node adoption is underway. Miners are a different story though; understandably, they're very reluctant to change (who would with so much money on the line). It is also unfortunate how miners switch back and forth between classic and core so quickly.

sonoffett 11y ago

I think the consensus protocol is absolutely not under control of 5 maintainers. Convince a few of the miners and exchanges (e.g., f2, ant, bitfury, coinbase, blockchain.info, bitstamp) to actually start running classic and we'll have 2MB blocks on the longest chain in no time. Conversely, suppose those 5 maintainers release a hard fork version of segwit tomorrow without a block size increase--nobody would upgrade. The consensus protocol is dictated by exactly that, consensus, not this allegedly omnipotent cabal.

TheOsiris 11y ago
no one is saying they're omnipotent, or impossible to replace. however, you have to admit that replacing them/core or convincing all of these people/companies to adopt anything other than what is coming in core v-next is an uphill battle. I'm going to assume you've been watching this whole blocksize debate, the endless roundtables, conferences... and we're still on square 1. Actually, with classic I think we've at least moved one step forward and a lot of full-node adoption is underway. Miners are a different story though; understandably, they're very reluctant to change (who would with so much money on the line). It is also unfortunate how miners switch back and forth between classic and core so quickly.