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He might be able to compel contributors to fork the code on his behalf, but he can't force the miners to use that codebase. He cannot compel a fork of the chain

He might be able to compel contributors to fork the code on his behalf, but he can't force the miners to use that codebase. He cannot compel a fork of the chain, only of the codebase. What would happen, worst case scenario, is that the "official" codebase gets code included to give him his rightfully owned monies, but an unmolested "fork" would be adopted by the network and continue on as the widely used codebase, probably contributed to by the same people, possibly under pseudonyms to prevent this horse shit in the future.

nullc 5y ago
> He might be able to compel contributors to fork the code on his behalf The US frowns on compelled speech and compelled labor. :) > but he can't force the miners to use that codebase. Miners aren't the relevant party of interest-- users are. He can't force users to adopt a version of Bitcoin that allows blocks which steal coins. > What would happen, worst case scenario, is that the "official" codebase gets code included to give him his rightfully owned monies Nah, that wouldn't happen. That repository would be shut off before that would happen, not only for ethical reasons but because anyone who distributed such maliciously backdoored software would be exposed to litigation by everyone else, especially if Wright established that in practice open source developers could be found civilly liable even though their license has a hard bar against that kind of liability. > but an unmolested "fork" would be adopted by the network and continue on as the widely used codebase Indeed, there are already many forks and alternative versions. > probably contributed to by the same people, possibly under pseudonyms to prevent this horse shit in the future That I doubt. It's not worth it to take the risk of millions of dollars of legal fees to contribute to a volunteer open source project.

nullc 5y ago

> He might be able to compel contributors to fork the code on his behalf The US frowns on compelled speech and compelled labor. :) > but he can't force the miners to use that codebase. Miners aren't the relevant party of interest-- users are. He can't force users to adopt a version of Bitcoin that allows blocks which steal coins. > What would happen, worst case scenario, is that the "official" codebase gets code included to give him his rightfully owned monies Nah, that wouldn't happen. That repository would be shut off before that would happen, not only for ethical reasons but because anyone who distributed such maliciously backdoored software would be exposed to litigation by everyone else, especially if Wright established that in practice open source developers could be found civilly liable even though their license has a hard bar against that kind of liability. > but an unmolested "fork" would be adopted by the network and continue on as the widely used codebase Indeed, there are already many forks and alternative versions. > probably contributed to by the same people, possibly under pseudonyms to prevent this horse shit in the future That I doubt. It's not worth it to take the risk of millions of dollars of legal fees to contribute to a volunteer open source project.