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Whoever who convinces 50+% of the miners to adopt their version of the software wins. The core developers can commit code and make releases that do whatever th

Whoever who convinces 50+% of the miners to adopt their version of the software wins. The core developers can commit code and make releases that do whatever they want, but if they e.g. tried to pay all transaction fees to themselves, miners wouldn't install the new version and someone would fork the project. How much control does any open source developer have over the projects they work on? Linus seems to have pretty tight control over Linux, but if he started messing up, he'd lose his position pretty fast. Likewise, the developers have a lot of control, as long as they are effective and behave well.

pjbrunet 13y ago
How many of the miners know how to evaluate updates? Most of these miners I read about, they bought some expensive hardware and just plugged it in. Is there some evaluation period before updates go live? Also, what if a seemingly innocuous change has unforeseen consequences? Nothing like Bitcoin has ever existed.
- RoboTeddy 13y ago
  So far, changes seem to happen fairly slowly. Things are discussed ahead of time. Some kinds of changes are proposed ahead of time in the form of a BIP (Bitcoin Improvement Proposal) -- https://github.com/bitcoin/bips https://github.com/bitcoin/bips. Even tiny changes, that seem entirely reasonable to me, can generate controversy. Core developers ask each other to acknowledge each pull request. If the developers tried to push something through that many miners wouldn't like, I'm confident people would notice and it would cause a large outcry. > Seemingly innocuous changes can indeed have unforseen consequences. The core Bitcoin developers seem conservative, reasonable, skilled, and they test things quite heavily. That said, changes are risky, and they've caused problems in the past. Bitcoin is risky!
- hendzen 13y ago
  Pool operators are usually quite savvy. Most miners will just do whatever their pool decides on.
tlrobinson 13y ago
Note that (in theory) it's the "economic majority", not the "miner majority" that matter: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Economic_majority https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Economic_majority If a bunch of miners decide to change the protocol but the majority of users stayed on the old protocol then those miners would be mining a worthless (or at least less valuable) fork of the blockchain.
- RoboTeddy 13y ago
  My post is mistaken -- thank you for correcting it.

pjbrunet 13y ago

How many of the miners know how to evaluate updates? Most of these miners I read about, they bought some expensive hardware and just plugged it in. Is there some evaluation period before updates go live? Also, what if a seemingly innocuous change has unforeseen consequences? Nothing like Bitcoin has ever existed.

RoboTeddy 13y ago
So far, changes seem to happen fairly slowly. Things are discussed ahead of time. Some kinds of changes are proposed ahead of time in the form of a BIP (Bitcoin Improvement Proposal) -- https://github.com/bitcoin/bips https://github.com/bitcoin/bips. Even tiny changes, that seem entirely reasonable to me, can generate controversy. Core developers ask each other to acknowledge each pull request. If the developers tried to push something through that many miners wouldn't like, I'm confident people would notice and it would cause a large outcry. > Seemingly innocuous changes can indeed have unforseen consequences. The core Bitcoin developers seem conservative, reasonable, skilled, and they test things quite heavily. That said, changes are risky, and they've caused problems in the past. Bitcoin is risky!
hendzen 13y ago
Pool operators are usually quite savvy. Most miners will just do whatever their pool decides on.

tlrobinson 13y ago

Note that (in theory) it's the "economic majority", not the "miner majority" that matter: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Economic_majority https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Economic_majority If a bunch of miners decide to change the protocol but the majority of users stayed on the old protocol then those miners would be mining a worthless (or at least less valuable) fork of the blockchain.

RoboTeddy 13y ago
My post is mistaken -- thank you for correcting it.