5 ms·

It was wrong to fork Ethereum. Terms of DAO were pretty clear and there was no reason to refund.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
davidiach 9y ago
I wish there was a way to test this hypothesis. Some sort of A/B test where there were two versions of Ethereum, one with the fork and another one without the fork. That way we could have known for sure if forking was a good idea or not.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- Kiro 9y ago
  Is this sarcasm?
- zhte415 9y ago
  That's exactly what happened.
  - Paul-ish 9y ago
    No its not. There is only Etherium with the fork. There is no version of Etherium that never forked. If we could peek into the multiverse and see a universe where Etherium wasn't forked, davidiach's wish could come true.
- woodrowbarlow 9y ago
  i assume you're being sarcastic, but of course the hard fork succeeded: the vast majority of users switched to the hard fork. that doesn't mean classic would've failed without the fork.
flashmob 9y ago
The classic chain is still there, anyone can use it if they like. That's probably the best thing that happened, both groups had their own way and went their own way. You can't satisfy everyone and keep them on the same chain. Technically, no transactions were undone, but the fork agreed to a new state set in the future. The users of the new version also had a choice if they wanted to support the fork or not, the majority went with the fork. It's not like anyone was forced to fork. Actually, you could even run both, and I did for a time until it was clear who was the winner. This is a screenshot of the choice everyone was asked when starting up their wallet: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d7/Ethereum-Wallet_and_Mist_Beta_with_Hard_Fork_choice_0.8.1.png/1113px-Ethereum-Wallet_and_Mist_Beta_with_Hard_Fork_choice_0.8.1.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d7/Et...
- JackC 9y ago
  > The classic chain is still there, anyone can use it if they like. That's probably the best thing that happened, both groups had their own way and went their own way. Semantic games aside, this is a classic illegal maneuver in corporate law -- I think the term is "freezeout merger." It works like this: Alex, Beth, and Casey each own 1/3 of FooCo. So Alex and Beth get together and, by a 66% vote, agree to sell the assets of FooCo to BarCo for $1. BarCo just happens to be owned by Alex and Beth without Casey. It's a nice move for Alex and Beth, right? They just each increased their net worth by 50% with a simple legal formality. In fact, if you think about it, this maneuver is always a rational transaction for the majority shareholders in any corporation. Which is why it's illegal -- otherwise it breaks the game. So, what do you think Alex and Beth say in this scenario if they're called on it? They say exactly what you said here: Casey didn't lose anything! She still has 1/3 ownership of FooCo, plus she got her 1/3 of the $1 paid from BarCo, fair and square. No harm, no foul. (No kidding, I've actually had the lawyer for a company that did this to my client try to make this argument across a conference table. Then the lawyer tries to pretend no one has ever had that idea before. Like this wasn't thought of and dealt with about 5 minutes after the first minority shareholder existed.) A court, and the rest of the world, will find this argument ridiculous. The obvious intention and impact of Alex and Beth's action was to take net worth (in real world terms) from Casey and award it to themselves. They can't avoid that by playing clever games with the labels. Likewise, the obvious intention and impact of the Ethereum shareholders' actions was to take net worth (in real world terms) from the DAO hacker and award it to themselves. Play all the games you want with the words, that's what happened. And that's the takeaway: in the law, the minority has protection from the majority. In Ethereum, the majority shareholders rule, and if they decide you don't deserve to have ownership, they can vote to take it for themselves. It's potentially rational to decide you like your chances better with the majority-shareholder-vote-is-law system than the legal system in your jurisdiction. (If you live in the US or a similar jurisdiction then I disagree, but it's an interesting argument anyway.) But trying to pretend no one lost anything from the hard fork just doesn't fly.
baby 9y ago
no, consensus for the win.
decentralised 9y ago
Sometimes you need to break eggs to make an omelette. At the time, not hard-forking would have made the very concept of programmable blockchain a no-go area, never mind the damage to the project and the initial investors with some 10% of the whole token supply being drained because of a software bug. In a way, the decision to hard-fork proves the Ethereum Foundation and community are truly committed to creating a new internet and we will do whatever it takes to make it a success.
nerdponx 9y ago
Legal contracts are not immutable like this. That is one big reason courts exist: arbitration and resolution in the event that a contract is ambiguous or illegal. If I put a typo in a contract that could lead to malicious misinterpretation, I am not free to exercise that malicious misinterpretation because of what might happen if I am takien to court. That said, contracts also tend to have many "fail safe" and conditional provisions to handle unanticipated events and edge cases. It sounds to me (without much understanding of how exactly contracts are programmed) like there ought to be some kind of hard-coded "laws" restricting for controlling what contracts can do. Is there anything like a legal system in Ethereum?
colordrops 9y ago
The whole point of the proof of work blockchain is that no trust is needed, and the state of the chain is determined by distributed concensus. There is no moral right or wrong. Forking is the by-design mechanism to deal with large scale disagreement.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

I wish there was a way to test this hypothesis. Some sort of A/B test where there were two versions of Ethereum, one with the fork and another one without the fork. That way we could have known for sure if forking was a good idea or not.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Kiro 9y ago
Is this sarcasm?
zhte415 9y ago
That's exactly what happened.
- Paul-ish 9y ago
  No its not. There is only Etherium with the fork. There is no version of Etherium that never forked. If we could peek into the multiverse and see a universe where Etherium wasn't forked, davidiach's wish could come true.
woodrowbarlow 9y ago
i assume you're being sarcastic, but of course the hard fork succeeded: the vast majority of users switched to the hard fork. that doesn't mean classic would've failed without the fork.

flashmob 9y ago

The classic chain is still there, anyone can use it if they like. That's probably the best thing that happened, both groups had their own way and went their own way. You can't satisfy everyone and keep them on the same chain. Technically, no transactions were undone, but the fork agreed to a new state set in the future. The users of the new version also had a choice if they wanted to support the fork or not, the majority went with the fork. It's not like anyone was forced to fork. Actually, you could even run both, and I did for a time until it was clear who was the winner. This is a screenshot of the choice everyone was asked when starting up their wallet: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d7/Ethereum-Wallet_and_Mist_Beta_with_Hard_Fork_choice_0.8.1.png/1113px-Ethereum-Wallet_and_Mist_Beta_with_Hard_Fork_choice_0.8.1.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d7/Et...

JackC 9y ago
> The classic chain is still there, anyone can use it if they like. That's probably the best thing that happened, both groups had their own way and went their own way. Semantic games aside, this is a classic illegal maneuver in corporate law -- I think the term is "freezeout merger." It works like this: Alex, Beth, and Casey each own 1/3 of FooCo. So Alex and Beth get together and, by a 66% vote, agree to sell the assets of FooCo to BarCo for $1. BarCo just happens to be owned by Alex and Beth without Casey. It's a nice move for Alex and Beth, right? They just each increased their net worth by 50% with a simple legal formality. In fact, if you think about it, this maneuver is always a rational transaction for the majority shareholders in any corporation. Which is why it's illegal -- otherwise it breaks the game. So, what do you think Alex and Beth say in this scenario if they're called on it? They say exactly what you said here: Casey didn't lose anything! She still has 1/3 ownership of FooCo, plus she got her 1/3 of the $1 paid from BarCo, fair and square. No harm, no foul. (No kidding, I've actually had the lawyer for a company that did this to my client try to make this argument across a conference table. Then the lawyer tries to pretend no one has ever had that idea before. Like this wasn't thought of and dealt with about 5 minutes after the first minority shareholder existed.) A court, and the rest of the world, will find this argument ridiculous. The obvious intention and impact of Alex and Beth's action was to take net worth (in real world terms) from Casey and award it to themselves. They can't avoid that by playing clever games with the labels. Likewise, the obvious intention and impact of the Ethereum shareholders' actions was to take net worth (in real world terms) from the DAO hacker and award it to themselves. Play all the games you want with the words, that's what happened. And that's the takeaway: in the law, the minority has protection from the majority. In Ethereum, the majority shareholders rule, and if they decide you don't deserve to have ownership, they can vote to take it for themselves. It's potentially rational to decide you like your chances better with the majority-shareholder-vote-is-law system than the legal system in your jurisdiction. (If you live in the US or a similar jurisdiction then I disagree, but it's an interesting argument anyway.) But trying to pretend no one lost anything from the hard fork just doesn't fly.

baby 9y ago

no, consensus for the win.

decentralised 9y ago

Sometimes you need to break eggs to make an omelette. At the time, not hard-forking would have made the very concept of programmable blockchain a no-go area, never mind the damage to the project and the initial investors with some 10% of the whole token supply being drained because of a software bug. In a way, the decision to hard-fork proves the Ethereum Foundation and community are truly committed to creating a new internet and we will do whatever it takes to make it a success.

nerdponx 9y ago

Legal contracts are not immutable like this. That is one big reason courts exist: arbitration and resolution in the event that a contract is ambiguous or illegal. If I put a typo in a contract that could lead to malicious misinterpretation, I am not free to exercise that malicious misinterpretation because of what might happen if I am takien to court. That said, contracts also tend to have many "fail safe" and conditional provisions to handle unanticipated events and edge cases. It sounds to me (without much understanding of how exactly contracts are programmed) like there ought to be some kind of hard-coded "laws" restricting for controlling what contracts can do. Is there anything like a legal system in Ethereum?

colordrops 9y ago

The whole point of the proof of work blockchain is that no trust is needed, and the state of the chain is determined by distributed concensus. There is no moral right or wrong. Forking is the by-design mechanism to deal with large scale disagreement.