Re: [Bitcoin-development] Concerns Regarding Threats by a Developer to Remove Commit Access from Other Developers
I don’t think the issue is between larger blocks on the one hand and things like lightning on the other - these two ideas are quite orthogonal. Larger blocks aren’t really about addressing basic scalability concerns - for that we’ll clearly need architectural and algorithmic improvements…and will likely need to move to a model where it isn’t necessary for everyone to validate everyone else’s latte purchases. Larger blocks might, at best, keep the current system chugging along temporarily - although I’m not sure that’s necessarily such a great thing…we need to create a fee market sooner or later, and until we do this, block size issues will continue to crop up again and again and economic incentives will continue to be misplaced. It would be nice to have more time to really develop a good infrastructure for this…but without real market pressures, I’m not sure it will happen at all. Necessity is the mother of invention, after all. The question is how to introduce a fee market smoothly and with the overwhelming consensus of the community - and that's where it starts to get tricky. —— On a separate note, as several others have pointed out in this thread (but I wanted to add my voice to this as well), maintenance of source code repositories is NOT the real issue here. The bitcoin/bitcoin project on github is a reference implementation of the Satoshi protocol…but it is NOT the only implementation…and it wasn’t really meant to be. Anyone is free to fork it, extend it, improve upon it, or create an entirely new network with its own genesis block…a separate cryptoledger. The real issue regarding XT is NOT the forking of source code nor issues surrounding commit access to repositories. The real issue is the *forking of a cryptoledger*. Open source repositories are meant to be forked - in fact, it is often encouraged. It is also encouraged that improvements be submitted for review and possibly merged back into the parent repository…although this doesn’t always happen. However, we currently have no mechanisms in place to support merging of forked cryptoledgers. Software, and most other forms of digital content, generally increases in value with more copies made. However, money is scarce…by design. The entire value of the assets of a decentralized cryptoledger rests on the assumption that nobody can just unilaterally fork it and change the rules. Yes, convincing other people to do things a certain way is HARD…yes, it can be frustratingly slow…I’ve tried to push for many changes to the Bitcoin network…and have only succeeded a very small number of times. And yes, it’s often been quite frustrating. But trying to unilaterally impose a change of consensus rules for an existing cryptoledger sets a horrendous precedent…this isn’t just about things like block size limits, which is a relatively petty issue by comparison. It would be very nice to have a similar workflow with consensus rule evolution as we do with most other open source projects. You create a fork, demonstrate that your ideas are sound by implementing them and giving others something that works so they can review them, and then merge your contributions back in. However, the way Bitcoin is currently designed, this is unfortunately impossible to do this with consensus rules. Once a fork, always a fork - a.k.a. altcoins. Say what you will about how most altcoins are crap - at least most of them have the decency of starting with a clean ledger. - Eric Lombrozo On Jun 18, 2015, at 5:57 PM, Chris Pacia ctpa...@gmail.com wrote: On 06/18/2015 06:33 PM, Mark Friedenbach wrote: * Get safe forms of replace-by-fee and child-pays-for-parent finished and in 0.12. * Develop cross-platform libraries for managing micropayment channels, and get wallet authors to adopt * Use fidelity bonds, solvency proofs, and other tricks to minimize the risk of already deployed off-chain solutions as an interim measure until: * Deploy soft-fork changes for truly scalable solutions like Lightning Network. One of my biggest concerns is that these solutions (lightning network in particular) could end up being worse, in terms of decentralization, than would be a bitcoin network using larger blocks. We don't exactly know what the economies of scale are for pay hubs and could very well end up with far fewer hubs than nodes at any conceivable block size. Of course, it could also turn out to be fantastic, but it seems like an enormous gamble to basically force everyone in the ecosystem to collectively spend millions of dollars upgrading to Lightning and then see whether it's actually an improvement in terms of decentralization. To me, a much more sane approach would be to allow people to voluntarily opt in to those other solutions after we've had an opportunity to experiment with them and see how they actually function in practice, but that can't happen if the network runs out of capacity first.
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Concerns Regarding Threats by a Developer to Remove Commit Access from Other Developers
Yeah, but increasing block-size is not a longterm solution. Are you sure? That sort of statement is hard to answer because it doesn't say what you think long term is, or how much you expect Bitcoin to grow. Satoshi thought it was a perfectly fine long term solution because he thought hardware would get cheaper as fast or faster than Bitcoin would grow. You may disagree with him, but as we're talking about the future are you 100% certain he was wrong? I did calculations a long time ago that suggested even with today's hardware (+some software optimisations) it would be feasible to keep up with Visa. Hardware improvements can be unintuitive. There's a spreadsheet here that lets you play with various parameters. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PJvrAAOVYVszfRRLhKqd1R9lRiOAImzAfdeb6ajATEY/edit#gid=1451669128 (note: the spreadsheet says avg txn size is 250 bytes, but if you check the formula for the middle column, it does actually use 500 bytes as the multiplier hard coded). Necessary higher fees are a logical consequence of lower subsidies. Bitcoin was basically free to use at the beginning because miners got paid with new coins at the expense of those who already hold coins. Eventually there needs to be a mechanism which matches supply and demand. That's not clear either, I'm afraid. Remember that there's an upper limit on how high Bitcoin fees can go. When fees become higher than what the banking system charges, many users won't use Bitcoin for moving money around anymore. Fees cannot really go much higher than that even if you assume the currency is still attractive for other reasons, because people would just sell their coins for fiat, move the fiat, and buy back the coins the other side. The way mining will be funded in future is an open question. There are differing proposals. Still, even with a higher hard block size limit, miners can always refuse to mine transactions that don't include a particular fee. So if you're worried about this, miners aren't being forced into any particular policy. -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Concerns Regarding Threats by a Developer to Remove Commit Access from Other Developers
When is the right time to allow space pressure to rise that ratio? When the subsidy is at 1.5625, for example, it may be too late to I don¹t believe we have to decide, the miners will do that and are doing that already. start a non-catastrophic transition from subsidies to fees. I don't claim to know that, but it's something that worries me. No matter how many people say that's too far away in the future to worry about it, I still worry about it and I'm sure more people do. What if when it's time to care about it we discover that we should have started to do things about it long ago to minimize the risks of this transition? Hmmm. What should be the price of an email? How much should DARPA have charged for using TCP/IP? I see a lot of well-paid, first-world technologists arguing for commercial returns on a nacent protocol which could could offer benefits to the unbanked. Is that really the vision: to (re)build a de-centralized Paypal with slightly cheaper fees and cool hooks into off-chain commercial systems providing profits for the already rich? -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Concerns Regarding Threats by a Developer to Remove Commit Access from Other Developers
Yeah, but increasing block-size is not a longterm solution. Necessary higher fees are a logical consequence of lower subsidies. Bitcoin was basically free to use at the beginning because miners got paid with new coins at the expense of those who already hold coins. Eventually there needs to be a mechanism which matches supply and demand. On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 11:37 AM, Mike Hearn m...@plan99.net wrote: Or alternatively, fix the reasons why users would have negative experiences with full blocks It's impossible, Mark. By definition if Bitcoin does not have sufficient capacity for everyone's transactions, some users who were using it will be kicked out to make way for the others. Whether that happens in some kind of stable organised way or (as with the current code) a fairly chaotic way doesn't change the fundamental truth: some users will find their bitcoin savings have become uneconomic to spend. Here's a recent user complaint that provides a preview of coming attractions: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/39r3bi/breadwallet_asking_me_to_pay_over_10_network_fee/ Hello, I'm just trying to send my small Sarutobi-tips stash (12,159 bits) onto a paper wallet. When I try to send it, a window pops up stating insufficient funds for bitcoin network fee, reduce payment amount by 1,389 bits? This would be a fee of $0.32 to send my $2.82, leaving me with $2.50. These sorts of complaints will get more frequent and more extreme in the coming months. I realise that nobody at Blockstream is in the position of running an end user facing service, but many of us are and we will be the ones that face the full anger of ordinary users as Bitcoin hits the wall. -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Concerns Regarding Threats by a Developer to Remove Commit Access from Other Developers
Benjamin, Timeframe for network congestion and users experiencing service degradation = between now and middle of next year. Timeframe for transaction fees topping block reward fees = many years in the future, based on current ratio of block reward to fees. What is the more pressing requirement now? A working ³fee market² or a reliable, useful payment network that scales without falling over in the next 2-3 years. On 19/6/15 4:53 pm, Benjamin benjamin.l.cor...@gmail.com wrote: Yeah, but increasing block-size is not a longterm solution. Necessary higher fees are a logical consequence of lower subsidies. Bitcoin was basically free to use at the beginning because miners got paid with new coins at the expense of those who already hold coins. Eventually there needs to be a mechanism which matches supply and demand. On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 11:37 AM, Mike Hearn m...@plan99.net wrote: Or alternatively, fix the reasons why users would have negative experiences with full blocks It's impossible, Mark. By definition if Bitcoin does not have sufficient capacity for everyone's transactions, some users who were using it will be kicked out to make way for the others. Whether that happens in some kind of stable organised way or (as with the current code) a fairly chaotic way doesn't change the fundamental truth: some users will find their bitcoin savings have become uneconomic to spend. Here's a recent user complaint that provides a preview of coming attractions: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/39r3bi/breadwallet_asking_me_to _pay_over_10_network_fee/ Hello, I'm just trying to send my small Sarutobi-tips stash (12,159 bits) onto a paper wallet. When I try to send it, a window pops up stating insufficient funds for bitcoin network fee, reduce payment amount by 1,389 bits? This would be a fee of $0.32 to send my $2.82, leaving me with $2.50. These sorts of complaints will get more frequent and more extreme in the coming months. I realise that nobody at Blockstream is in the position of running an end user facing service, but many of us are and we will be the ones that face the full anger of ordinary users as Bitcoin hits the wall. - - ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Concerns Regarding Threats by a Developer to Remove Commit Access from Other Developers
On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 4:37 AM, Mike Hearn m...@plan99.net wrote: Or alternatively, fix the reasons why users would have negative experiences with full blocks It's impossible, Mark. *By definition* if Bitcoin does not have sufficient capacity for everyone's transactions, some users who were using it will be kicked out to make way for the others. Whether that happens in some kind of stable organised way or (as with the current code) a fairly chaotic way doesn't change the fundamental truth: *some users will find their bitcoin savings have become uneconomic to spend*. Here's a recent user complaint that provides a preview of coming attractions: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/39r3bi/breadwallet_asking_me_to_pay_over_10_network_fee/ Hello, I'm just trying to send my small Sarutobi-tips stash (12,159 bits) onto a paper wallet. When I try to send it, a window pops up stating insufficient funds for bitcoin network fee, reduce payment amount by 1,389 bits? This would be a fee of $0.32 to send my $2.82, leaving me with $2.50. Has there been any talk about reducing the time between blocks? If blocks were allowed to come twice as fast, they would be able to clear pending transactions in the mempool the same as if the block size doubled, but would allow mining to stay more decentralized since miners wouldn't be working on such large-scale blocks? It would still take more storage space to store the blockchain, though. Brooks -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Concerns Regarding Threats by a Developer to Remove Commit Access from Other Developers
Or alternatively, fix the reasons why users would have negative experiences with full blocks It's impossible, Mark. *By definition* if Bitcoin does not have sufficient capacity for everyone's transactions, some users who were using it will be kicked out to make way for the others. Whether that happens in some kind of stable organised way or (as with the current code) a fairly chaotic way doesn't change the fundamental truth: *some users will find their bitcoin savings have become uneconomic to spend*. Here's a recent user complaint that provides a preview of coming attractions: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/39r3bi/breadwallet_asking_me_to_pay_over_10_network_fee/ Hello, I'm just trying to send my small Sarutobi-tips stash (12,159 bits) onto a paper wallet. When I try to send it, a window pops up stating insufficient funds for bitcoin network fee, reduce payment amount by 1,389 bits? This would be a fee of $0.32 to send my $2.82, leaving me with $2.50. These sorts of complaints will get more frequent and more extreme in the coming months. I realise that nobody at Blockstream is in the position of running an end user facing service, but many of us are and we will be the ones that face the full anger of ordinary users as Bitcoin hits the wall. -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Concerns Regarding Threats by a Developer to Remove Commit Access from Other Developers
And allegations that the project is run like wikipedia or an edit war are verifyably untrue. Check the commit history. This was a reference to a post by Gregory on Reddit where he said if Gavin were to do a pull request for the block size change and then merge it, he would revert it. And I fully believe he would do so! -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Concerns Regarding Threats by a Developer to Remove Commit Access from Other Developers
If you think it's not clear enough, which may explain why you did not even attempt to follow it for your block size increase, feel free to make improvements. As the outcome of a block size BIP would be a code change to Bitcoin Core, I cannot make improvements, only ask for them. Which is what I'm doing. I agree that BIP 1 is not clear enough. Gavin is writing a BIP to accompany his patch, because BIPs are best when they describe working code, and BIP 1 *is* at least clear about that. Otherwise it can turn out during implementation that something was different to what was anticipated. I'm sure you agree with this. So a BIP is coming. However, BIP 1 also says this: Vetting an idea publicly before going as far as writing a BIP is meant to save the potential author time and BIP authors are responsible for collecting community feedback on a BIP before submitting it for review OK. Gavin has been vetting the idea publicly and collecting community feedback. Note that the entire Bitcoin community is not on this list, so he published a series of blog posts to get wider feedback, and then was criticised for not doing it all here instead. But anyway - so far, so good. The procedure is being followed. What happens once a BIP is written? The process says: For a BIP to be accepted it must meet certain minimum criteria. It must be a clear and complete description of the proposed enhancement. The enhancement must represent a net improvement. The proposed implementation, if applicable, must be solid and must not complicate the protocol unduly. Once a BIP has been accepted, the reference implementation must be completed. This is where the problem starts. The BIP process you refer to *does not state how acceptance will happen*. It merely sets out a few minimum requirements like making some sort of sense, having code. It's also full of extremely vague descriptions like must represent a net improvement. Improvement according to who? That's left unexplained. And then it says what happens once a BIP is accepted. The middle bit is missing. When there is disagreement over a consensus BIP, how are decisions made? -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Concerns Regarding Threats by a Developer to Remove Commit Access from Other Developers
On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 5:00 AM, Mike Hearn m...@plan99.net wrote: Dude, calm down. Well hold on, his concerns are real and he seems perfectly calm to me and others apparently. and Gavin already said long ago he wouldn't just commit something, even though he has the ability to do so. Nobody is worried about Gavin or anyone else making commits to git repositories. You'll notice that this wasn't even mentioned in the original email you were replying to. Instead, the email was talking about commit access, which is a property of GitHub's repositories. So why did I say it? Because it's consistent with what I've always said: (That's not a good reason.) you cannot run a codebase like Wikipedia Wikipedia is a top-down centralized authority-based hierarchy. That's pretty close to what you're proposing. That's what everyone else is disagreeing with. You seem to have switched your position mid-flight...? This is not a radical position. That's how nearly all coding projects work. I have been involved with open source for 15 years and the 'single maintainer who makes decisions' model is normal, even if in some large codebases subsystems have delegated submaintainers. There are a number of reasons why that perspective is broken; throughout our conversations others have repeatedly reminded you (such as in -wizards) that forking an open-source repository is not at all like a hard-fork of the blockchain. Anyone can be glorious leader of any repository they want, that's how open-source works. However, it's critical that bitcoin users are never convinced to trust BDFLs or anything else that can be compromised. Should all bitcoin users suddenly start using software with BDFLs, even multiple implementations with separate BDFLs, then those users can be trivially compromised through their trust in those individuals and projects. The alternative is that every developer and every user is personally responsible for self-validation of the rules, checking for correctness and validity. Happy coincidence that this seems to match the strategy of operating the bitcoin network itself, which is to run a node that sees everything and validates all the transactions. Anyone is able to find an error in logic or flaw in the system rules, and they should make it known as widely as possible so that others may evaluate the evidence and consider which solutions preserve the important properties of the system. This is not a matter of majorities or minorities; these arguments should be true for anyone independent of who or what they are, or what level of unpopularity they may have. Anything other than this is somewhat radical, and I am confused as to why others have been talking about developer consensus. I suspect that the reason why they have been saying developer consensus is because they are talking about the Bitcoin Core project on GitHub at the moment. But the topic switched to contentious hard-forks already, which is not a topic of repositories but a topic of the blockchain and network; and in the context of contentious hard-forks it is clear why everyone individually must evaluate the rules and decide whether they the software is correct, or whether changes can trivially cause catastrophic broken hard-forks. These lines of reasoning should be true for everyone, and not merely true for one person but not another. Users, companies and developers must be aware of this, even though it's different from their usual expectations of how systems operate and are maintained. And it is important to be careful to not misconstrue this to others because it is entirely possible to unintentionally convince others that traditional and centralized models are safely applicable here. I realise some people think this anti-process leads to better decision making. I disagree. It leads to no decision making, which is not the same thing at all. Well, if you're talking about the recent disputes regarding a certain patch to hard-fork the blockchain, a decision to not include such a patch seems like the very definition of a decision. Gavin and I say - there is a process, and that process is a hard fork of the block chain. I doubt that other bitcoin software maintainers would agree with that sort of toxic reasoning; contentious hard-forks are basically a weapon of war that you can use against any other collaborator on any bitcoin project. Why would anyone want to collaborate on such a hostile project? How would they even trust each other? - Bryan http://heybryan.org/ 1 512 203 0507 -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Concerns Regarding Threats by a Developer to Remove Commit Access from Other Developers
So I'm *not* the decider for anything that concerns the behavior of the global consensus, and I cannot be, as I have explained in the previous post. The person who decides if a pull request is accepted is a decider and significantly affects the behavior of the global consensus. The only option for someone who doesn't agree is to hard fork. There is no way around that and you should just accept that fact and move on. Russ -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Concerns Regarding Threats by a Developer to Remove Commit Access from Other Developers
On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 6:31 AM, Mike Hearn m...@plan99.net wrote: The first issue is how are decisions made in Bitcoin Core? I struggle to explain this to others because I don't understand it myself. Is it a vote of people with commit access? Is it a 100% agreement of core developers and if so, who are these people? Is it whoever reverts the change last? Could I write down in a document a precise description of how decisions are made? No, and that's been a fairly frustrating problem for a long time. There is a quote from United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart to describe his threshold test for obscenity which is relevant here: I know it when I see it. It is hard certainly, and perhaps even impossible to write down a system of rules that is used to resolve every dispute among core developers. But that doesn't mean it isn't obvious to all the participants what is going on. If a contentious change is proposed, and if after sufficient debate there are still members of the technical community with reasoned, comprehensible objections who are not merely being obstinate in the views -- a neutral observer would agree that their concerns have not been met -- then there is a lack of consensus. If there was some sort of formal process however, the system wouldn't work. Rules can be gamed, and if you add rules to a process then that process can be gamed. Instead we all have a reasonable understanding of what technical consensus is, and we all know it when we see it. Where we do not see it, we do not proceed. -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Concerns Regarding Threats by a Developer to Remove Commit Access from Other Developers
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA512 This kind of thing always happens as projects become larger and more diverse. Something that was once a small group turns into a big group of diverse stakeholders. When it gets too big for the informal processes then some people get upset and defensive. Happens all the time but it is not really a good excuse to keep doing things in an inefficient manner. The old ways just don't scale and if you ever worked on massive projects then you know these formal processes work better. So then: make a proposal for a better process, post it to this list. In practice there has been zero interest in improving the BIP process. E.g. the BIP process was adapted from the Python Enhancement Proposals by Amir Taaki (in 2009 or so?). It hasn't really changed since then, apart from some spelling and grammar corrections. It is not specifically adapted to Bitcoin, and doesn't make a distinction between for example, consensus changes and non-consensus changes. So that's up to someone to do. You seem to be enthousiastic about it, so go ahead. Wladimir -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1 iQEcBAEBCgAGBQJVgufFAAoJEHSBCwEjRsmmAmYIAI9ndrMoqEuoaP5t+7W42UuH sh5qR7hojCCoZZl1N+rQ63UXcPBO/V4NUkUG97S3qpEFDzuoYSbOX2Eh+TRfK+s+ U+BpLhWteSexJ3N9aiFuR0q5jgesAzLZ9wtq1gCPI/Zu5/fgYBP4AVTiQGdXCZtv m6ZDKCf+aB/fW/59/AiY44NkMDjVQieEVRiT1IPFJULWesOOdtv7UoqIpz0vDa/5 Jplm41j8IpTPioJKSwUi5qzSDrF7O39PC9LMXNRx/0FIuYfwqJpvF0Frc+vtPpjQ llKE7945uMXz3FLSV0Orx26XPal/MuF5AYOPNk6pJfwYw7q91AUvQxVFepBa9vw= =dMO9 -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Concerns Regarding Threats by a Developer to Remove Commit Access from Other Developers
So then: make a proposal for a better process, post it to this list. Alright. Here is a first cut of my proposal. It can be inserted into an amended BIP 1 after What belongs in a successful BIP?. Let me know what you think. The following section applies to BIPs that affect the block chain consensus rules or the peer to peer protocol and thus require changes to Bitcoin Core. Once a draft BIP has been submitted to bitcoin-development for consideration, the Bitcoin Core maintainer will deliver a preliminary yes/no verdict within three weeks. This verdict may be informed by the debate that has taken part in the previous three weeks. If more time is required, the maintainer is required to request an extension from the BIP author, who may then elect to force an immediate decision (risking a no), or choosing to allow more time. The verdict will meet the following criteria: - It will address the latest version of the BIP at the time the verdict is rendered. - In case of a rejection, it will spell out and describe the technical rationale for this decision. Opinions held by other people are not considered technical rationales: if the maintainer agrees with a technical point made during discussion, he must own that opinion for himself. Therefore no BIP will be rejected on grounds of controversy, disagreement, lack of consensus or otherwise. - In case of rejection, the maintainer will provide a clear, specific list of actionable steps the BIP author can take next. For example, a list of what changes would address the technical objections raised. In case the maintainer believes no change could ever make the BIP acceptable, the list must consist of instructions for how to create a patch set and, in the case of changes to the consensus rules, how to initiate a hard fork. A BIP, even once rejected, may live on in the BIPS repository, though its entry in the index may be sorted below others. The BIP author may update the BIP with a summary of any resulting discussion. As such a summary may be inherently contentious in case of a dispute, the authors wording of that summary is final and may not be subject to meta-debate. -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Concerns Regarding Threats by a Developer to Remove Commit Access from Other Developers
You misunderstand what I am saying. I am not saying I have a specific process that should be followed, I am saying that whatever the process is then it should be formalized or at least written down. That way the stakeholders have something to work with and keeps people on track. Since some people are saying they don't really know what the process is the first step would be to describe the current process. I don't fully understand the current process but I can see it is not formalized and nobody can even give me a clear description of what it is. Once you have it written down then changes/improvements can be proposed. The first baby step was already done by the Foundation in developing that risk study. A NIST guide for developing such a document is at http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-30-rev1/sp800_30_r1.pdf. No one person can come up with this and it would take buy in from several different people who have expertise in specific technical areas as well as experts in coming up with test plans. I recently suggested to the people running the MIT lab that they look into developing a program along those lines. Gavin also recently suggested that list of Bitcoin metrics be developed to help resolve the current disputes. I can help develop this process if there is interest. Russ On 6/18/2015 11:46 AM, Wladimir J. van der Laan wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA512 This kind of thing always happens as projects become larger and more diverse. Something that was once a small group turns into a big group of diverse stakeholders. When it gets too big for the informal processes then some people get upset and defensive. Happens all the time but it is not really a good excuse to keep doing things in an inefficient manner. The old ways just don't scale and if you ever worked on massive projects then you know these formal processes work better. So then: make a proposal for a better process, post it to this list. In practice there has been zero interest in improving the BIP process. E.g. the BIP process was adapted from the Python Enhancement Proposals by Amir Taaki (in 2009 or so?). It hasn't really changed since then, apart from some spelling and grammar corrections. It is not specifically adapted to Bitcoin, and doesn't make a distinction between for example, consensus changes and non-consensus changes. So that's up to someone to do. You seem to be enthousiastic about it, so go ahead. Wladimir -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1 iQEcBAEBCgAGBQJVgufFAAoJEHSBCwEjRsmmAmYIAI9ndrMoqEuoaP5t+7W42UuH sh5qR7hojCCoZZl1N+rQ63UXcPBO/V4NUkUG97S3qpEFDzuoYSbOX2Eh+TRfK+s+ U+BpLhWteSexJ3N9aiFuR0q5jgesAzLZ9wtq1gCPI/Zu5/fgYBP4AVTiQGdXCZtv m6ZDKCf+aB/fW/59/AiY44NkMDjVQieEVRiT1IPFJULWesOOdtv7UoqIpz0vDa/5 Jplm41j8IpTPioJKSwUi5qzSDrF7O39PC9LMXNRx/0FIuYfwqJpvF0Frc+vtPpjQ llKE7945uMXz3FLSV0Orx26XPal/MuF5AYOPNk6pJfwYw7q91AUvQxVFepBa9vw= =dMO9 -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Concerns Regarding Threats by a Developer to Remove Commit Access from Other Developers
On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 9:07 AM, justusranv...@riseup.net wrote: On 2015-06-18 14:53, Jeff Garzik wrote: Consensus changes - worded another way - change Bitcoin's Constitution - The Rules that everyone in the system is -forced- to follow, or be ignored by the system. Bitcoin does not and can not function as a set of rules imposed by some people onto other people. This is an engineering list. The quote precisely describes how the bitcoin consensus system functions. Users' choice is largely binary: Follow the rules, or bitcoin software ignores you. -- Jeff Garzik Bitcoin core developer and open source evangelist BitPay, Inc. https://bitpay.com/ -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Concerns Regarding Threats by a Developer to Remove Commit Access from Other Developers
On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 06:05:58PM +0200, Mike Hearn wrote: Once a draft BIP has been submitted to bitcoin-development for consideration, the Bitcoin Core maintainer will deliver a preliminary yes/no verdict within three weeks. This verdict may be informed by the debate that has taken part in the previous three weeks. If more time is required, the maintainer is required to request an extension from the BIP author, who may then elect to force an immediate decision (risking a no), or choosing to allow more time. Again, for the last time: Bitcoin Core maintainer does not decide about protocol or consensus level changes. This is not a role for me. Find someone else, if you think you need an arbiter. There was an idea about a Bitcoin Standards Body once, but as far as I know that's not actively being worked on. BTW: for more exposure a proposal is better posted as a new thread, not as a deep reply to an existing topic. Wladimir -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Concerns Regarding Threats by a Developer to Remove Commit Access from Other Developers
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA512 On 2015-06-18 16:28, Jeff Garzik wrote: This is an engineering list. The quote precisely describes how the bitcoin consensus system functions. Users' choice is largely binary: Follow the rules, or bitcoin software ignores you. Software engineers should understand that they have a binary choice: produce the software that your customers want, or the world will ignore your software. There is *no inherent value* to Bitcoin's software rules. The only value that is exists is that produced by the individuals who voluntarily choose to run the software. Failing to account for all design requirements is bad engineering. Nobody cares about the design features of a bridge to nowhere. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v2 iQIcBAEBCgAGBQJVgvoDAAoJECpf2nDq2eYj0h4P/0YaTsS963qpb63zvB6WlIPS 2lhCJ9FtAd3II5Et+5c/cisfJ9YI2OnM0y8nQpyB9NEOeueN1L1sLFcayE5aHASd EgF7F81AhQD2iSIVwQNs2qAzrZNC2/Nx+nBzBDcrgZ6gRiPpQdsNLy2p0OuZdOgX yG4xl6tKADB2kNi6tVPtZqUC300uQHvggtm+pexYilT0ojEbeVHCoDV40MNDZC2h 1kcdTnGU2SHJJqeZN2vChJCOMfhmK4JwKgoz7JRXe/GHkUUJKriE6Kb7SVczii9e 9qfcosbnR3gjATMoHFYuJX/nsUx52Q1LM9eQgvE8Ml+6Mim5bj2KCJFh7YISxSq9 FhDujfZFCRRQLPJCSkEUePxU/LS7lmoTZXYl3Zz1j9zbq4ncpRHpIFy9QX6iIqK6 Dursnge9ELQwB+H6HoosWRzxOZyo+oiGj17OngJvZYcvzrc2wjHbpZfVqSkmZepU SfJZ64O7yjjXjITwhOc4XF2drzvhsjTsHH5BIwdbCn82SoCkJIwXraj7sxIundli LUJBPiAE0csdmsvW/2kkxLsd9JwTw9lJ9Pf8fiqH3itgrkPkO5mf10DPPnay1SNk Wnm1bAJ05WnKXSo0m0SzaFgZkdfFuhWR4fieSzhLpa+s/HHj18NZvJCmCBR6ic9G 0A+51wwSZnAdMIw7lwIb =r4Co -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Concerns Regarding Threats by a Developer to Remove Commit Access from Other Developers
On 06/18/2015 06:33 PM, Mark Friedenbach wrote: * Get safe forms of replace-by-fee and child-pays-for-parent finished and in 0.12. * Develop cross-platform libraries for managing micropayment channels, and get wallet authors to adopt * Use fidelity bonds, solvency proofs, and other tricks to minimize the risk of already deployed off-chain solutions as an interim measure until: * Deploy soft-fork changes for truly scalable solutions like Lightning Network. One of my biggest concerns is that these solutions (lightning network in particular) could end up being worse, in terms of decentralization, than would be a bitcoin network using larger blocks. We don't exactly know what the economies of scale are for pay hubs and could very well end up with far fewer hubs than nodes at any conceivable block size. Of course, it could also turn out to be fantastic, but it seems like an enormous gamble to basically force everyone in the ecosystem to collectively spend millions of dollars upgrading to Lightning /and then/ see whether it's actually an improvement in terms of decentralization. To me, a much more sane approach would be to allow people to voluntarily opt in to those other solutions after we've had an opportunity to experiment with them and see how they actually function in practice, but that can't happen if the network runs out of capacity first. -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Concerns Regarding Threats by a Developer to Remove Commit Access from Other Developers
On 18 June 2015 at 12:00, Mike Hearn m...@plan99.net wrote: Dude, calm down. I don't have commit access to Bitcoin Core and Gavin already said long ago he wouldn't just commit something, even though he has the ability to do so. So why did I say it? Because it's consistent with what I've always said: you cannot run a codebase like Wikipedia. Maintainers have to take part in debates, and then make a decision, and anyone else who was delegated commit access for robustness or convenience must then respect that decision. It's the only way to keep a project making progress at a reasonable pace. This is not a radical position. That's how nearly all coding projects work. I have been involved with open source for 15 years and the 'single maintainer who makes decisions' model is normal, even if in some large codebases subsystems have delegated submaintainers. This is also how all my own projects are run. Bitcoinj has multiple people with commit access. Regardless, if there were to be some design dispute or whatever, I wouldn't tolerate the others with commit access starting some kind of Wiki-style edit war in the code if they disagreed. Nor would I ever expect to get my own way in other people's projects by threatening to revert the maintainers changes. Core is in the weird position where there's no decision making ability at all, because anyone who shows up and shouts enough can generate 'controversy', then Wladimir sees there is disagreement and won't touch the issue in question. So it just runs and runs and *anyone* with commit access can then block any change. I realise some people think this anti-process leads to better decision making. I disagree. It leads to no decision making, which is not the same thing at all. Bicoin is not like other projects. There are large financial stakes involved. I was at a standards convention once and the head of standards at a large company joked to me: We know there are 6 people in the standards world that we can never buy. So we just buy everyone else. You have to luck out in a huge way to get a person like that running your project. Linux has done. Id say bitcoin has been lucky there too. But have a look at other projects, have a look at the alts, the *last* thing you want is a dictator in may cases. Ultimately bitcoin is a ledger based on consensus. There are 3 branches, the miners, the protocol and the market. They all play a role in regulating bitcoin and generally on the conservative side (which I think is a good thing). Whatever your view on the 20MB change, it's not a *conservative* approach, which is the approach that has served bitcoin very well so far. So bitcoin is not like other open source projects, and that's probably quite a good thing. -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Concerns Regarding Threats by a Developer to Remove Commit Access from Other Developers
Not that I know how to do this, but would you be willing to attempt some other method of measuring just how much of a super-majority we have before deploying code? Maybe that information would be helpful for everyone. Obviously such a poll couldn't be perfect, but maybe better than the information we have now. A) I don't believe we should consider changing the 1 MB limit now B) I conceptually believe in increasing block size, but would like to follow a more conservative process and wait to see if a stronger technical consensus on a plan to do so can develop. C) I'd like to go along with Gavin and Mike's 8MB proposal (maybe we wait til this is fully specified, but again not deployed) Perhaps there can even be 4 polls: Miners can vote in coinbases Known corporate entities can announce their vote Does the Bitcoin Foundation infrastructure still exist to represent some authenticated (I think) set of individuals A reddit poll I don't even know if I think this is a good idea, but just trying to find a way to move forward where more of us are on the same page. On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 2:23 PM, Gavin Andresen gavinandre...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 1:42 PM, Alex Morcos mor...@gmail.com wrote: Let me take a pass at explaining how I see this. 1) Code changes to Bitcoin Core that don't change consensus: Wladimir is the decider but he works under a process that is well understood by developers on the project in which he takes under reasonable consideration other technical opinions and prefers to have clear agreement among them. Yes. 2) Changes to the consensus rules: As others have said, this isn't anyone's decision for anyone else. Yes. It's up to each individual user as to what code they run and what rules they enforce. So then why is everyone so up in arms about what Mike and Gavin are proposing if everyone is free to decide for themselves? I believe that each individual user should adhere to the principle that there should be no changes to the consensus rules unless there is near complete agreement among the entire community, users, developers, businesses miners etc. It is not necessary to define complete agreement exactly because every individual person decides for themselves. I believe that this is what gives Bitcoin, or really any money, its value and what makes it work, that we all agree on exactly what it is. So I believe that it is misleading and bad for Bitcoin to tell users and business that you can just choose without concern for everyone else which code you'll run and we'll see which one wins out. No. You should run the old consensus rules (on any codebase you want) until you believe that pretty much everyone has consented to a change in the rules. It is your choice, but I think a lot of people that have spent time thinking about the philosophy of consensus systems believe that when the users of the system have this principle in mind, it's what will make the system work best. I don't think I agree with pretty much everybody, because status-quo bias is a very powerful thing. Any change that disrupts the way they've been doing things will generate significant resistance -- there will be 10 or 20% of any population that will take a position of too busy to think about this, everything seems to be working great, I don't like change, NO to any change. For example, I think some of the resistance for bigger blocks is coming from contributors who are worried they, personally, won't be able to keep up with a bigger blockchain. They might not be able to run full nodes from their home network connections (or might not be able to run a full node AND stream Game of Thrones), on their old raspberry pi machines. The criteria for me is clear super-majority of the people and businesses who are using Bitcoin the most, and I think that criteria is met. 3) Code changes to Core that do change consensus: I think that Wladimir, all the other committers besides Gavin, and almost all of the other developers on Core would defer to #2 above and wait for its outcome to be clear before considering such a code change. Yes, that's the way it has mostly been working. But even before stepping down as Lead I was starting to wonder if there are ANY successful open source projects that didn't have either a Benevolent Dictator or some clear voting process to resolve disputes that cannot be settled with rough consensus. -- -- Gavin Andresen -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Concerns Regarding Threats by a Developer to Remove Commit Access from Other Developers
2) Changes to the consensus rules: As others have said, this isn't anyone's decision for anyone else. It's up to each individual user as to what code they run and what rules they enforce. So then why is everyone so up in arms about what Mike and Gavin are proposing if everyone is free to decide for themselves? Because the notion that people are free to decide for themselves is just a rough approximation of the real world situation. If your software does not agree with merchants and exchanges you can't pay your bills and if Bitcoin splits the exchange rate could plummet and damage the ecosystem. People are free to decide within the constraints of the Bitcoin system. Russ -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Concerns Regarding Threats by a Developer to Remove Commit Access from Other Developers
Let me take a pass at explaining how I see this. 1) Code changes to Bitcoin Core that don't change consensus: Wladimir is the decider but he works under a process that is well understood by developers on the project in which he takes under reasonable consideration other technical opinions and prefers to have clear agreement among them. 2) Changes to the consensus rules: As others have said, this isn't anyone's decision for anyone else. It's up to each individual user as to what code they run and what rules they enforce. So then why is everyone so up in arms about what Mike and Gavin are proposing if everyone is free to decide for themselves? I believe that each individual user should adhere to the principle that there should be no changes to the consensus rules unless there is near complete agreement among the entire community, users, developers, businesses miners etc. It is not necessary to define complete agreement exactly because every individual person decides for themselves. I believe that this is what gives Bitcoin, or really any money, its value and what makes it work, that we all agree on exactly what it is. So I believe that it is misleading and bad for Bitcoin to tell users and business that you can just choose without concern for everyone else which code you'll run and we'll see which one wins out. No. You should run the old consensus rules (on any codebase you want) until you believe that pretty much everyone has consented to a change in the rules. It is your choice, but I think a lot of people that have spent time thinking about the philosophy of consensus systems believe that when the users of the system have this principle in mind, it's what will make the system work best. 3) Code changes to Core that do change consensus: I think that Wladimir, all the other committers besides Gavin, and almost all of the other developers on Core would defer to #2 above and wait for its outcome to be clear before considering such a code change. I'm sure my description of point 2 is not the most eloquent or clear, but maybe someone else can try to elucidate this principle if they've grasped what I'm trying to say. On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 1:04 PM, justusranv...@riseup.net wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA512 On 2015-06-18 16:28, Jeff Garzik wrote: This is an engineering list. The quote precisely describes how the bitcoin consensus system functions. Users' choice is largely binary: Follow the rules, or bitcoin software ignores you. Software engineers should understand that they have a binary choice: produce the software that your customers want, or the world will ignore your software. There is *no inherent value* to Bitcoin's software rules. The only value that is exists is that produced by the individuals who voluntarily choose to run the software. Failing to account for all design requirements is bad engineering. Nobody cares about the design features of a bridge to nowhere. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v2 iQIcBAEBCgAGBQJVgvoDAAoJECpf2nDq2eYj0h4P/0YaTsS963qpb63zvB6WlIPS 2lhCJ9FtAd3II5Et+5c/cisfJ9YI2OnM0y8nQpyB9NEOeueN1L1sLFcayE5aHASd EgF7F81AhQD2iSIVwQNs2qAzrZNC2/Nx+nBzBDcrgZ6gRiPpQdsNLy2p0OuZdOgX yG4xl6tKADB2kNi6tVPtZqUC300uQHvggtm+pexYilT0ojEbeVHCoDV40MNDZC2h 1kcdTnGU2SHJJqeZN2vChJCOMfhmK4JwKgoz7JRXe/GHkUUJKriE6Kb7SVczii9e 9qfcosbnR3gjATMoHFYuJX/nsUx52Q1LM9eQgvE8Ml+6Mim5bj2KCJFh7YISxSq9 FhDujfZFCRRQLPJCSkEUePxU/LS7lmoTZXYl3Zz1j9zbq4ncpRHpIFy9QX6iIqK6 Dursnge9ELQwB+H6HoosWRzxOZyo+oiGj17OngJvZYcvzrc2wjHbpZfVqSkmZepU SfJZ64O7yjjXjITwhOc4XF2drzvhsjTsHH5BIwdbCn82SoCkJIwXraj7sxIundli LUJBPiAE0csdmsvW/2kkxLsd9JwTw9lJ9Pf8fiqH3itgrkPkO5mf10DPPnay1SNk Wnm1bAJ05WnKXSo0m0SzaFgZkdfFuhWR4fieSzhLpa+s/HHj18NZvJCmCBR6ic9G 0A+51wwSZnAdMIw7lwIb =r4Co -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Concerns Regarding Threats by a Developer to Remove Commit Access from Other Developers
On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 1:42 PM, Alex Morcos mor...@gmail.com wrote: Let me take a pass at explaining how I see this. 1) Code changes to Bitcoin Core that don't change consensus: Wladimir is the decider but he works under a process that is well understood by developers on the project in which he takes under reasonable consideration other technical opinions and prefers to have clear agreement among them. Yes. 2) Changes to the consensus rules: As others have said, this isn't anyone's decision for anyone else. Yes. It's up to each individual user as to what code they run and what rules they enforce. So then why is everyone so up in arms about what Mike and Gavin are proposing if everyone is free to decide for themselves? I believe that each individual user should adhere to the principle that there should be no changes to the consensus rules unless there is near complete agreement among the entire community, users, developers, businesses miners etc. It is not necessary to define complete agreement exactly because every individual person decides for themselves. I believe that this is what gives Bitcoin, or really any money, its value and what makes it work, that we all agree on exactly what it is. So I believe that it is misleading and bad for Bitcoin to tell users and business that you can just choose without concern for everyone else which code you'll run and we'll see which one wins out. No. You should run the old consensus rules (on any codebase you want) until you believe that pretty much everyone has consented to a change in the rules. It is your choice, but I think a lot of people that have spent time thinking about the philosophy of consensus systems believe that when the users of the system have this principle in mind, it's what will make the system work best. I don't think I agree with pretty much everybody, because status-quo bias is a very powerful thing. Any change that disrupts the way they've been doing things will generate significant resistance -- there will be 10 or 20% of any population that will take a position of too busy to think about this, everything seems to be working great, I don't like change, NO to any change. For example, I think some of the resistance for bigger blocks is coming from contributors who are worried they, personally, won't be able to keep up with a bigger blockchain. They might not be able to run full nodes from their home network connections (or might not be able to run a full node AND stream Game of Thrones), on their old raspberry pi machines. The criteria for me is clear super-majority of the people and businesses who are using Bitcoin the most, and I think that criteria is met. 3) Code changes to Core that do change consensus: I think that Wladimir, all the other committers besides Gavin, and almost all of the other developers on Core would defer to #2 above and wait for its outcome to be clear before considering such a code change. Yes, that's the way it has mostly been working. But even before stepping down as Lead I was starting to wonder if there are ANY successful open source projects that didn't have either a Benevolent Dictator or some clear voting process to resolve disputes that cannot be settled with rough consensus. -- -- Gavin Andresen -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Concerns Regarding Threats by a Developer to Remove Commit Access from Other Developers
On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 2:58 PM, Jeff Garzik jgar...@bitpay.com wrote: The whole point is getting out in front of the need, to prevent significant negative impact to users when blocks are consistently full. To do that, you need to (a) plan forward, in order to (b) set a hard fork date in the future. Or alternatively, fix the reasons why users would have negative experiences with full blocks, chiefly: * Get safe forms of replace-by-fee and child-pays-for-parent finished and in 0.12. * Develop cross-platform libraries for managing micropayment channels, and get wallet authors to adopt * Use fidelity bonds, solvency proofs, and other tricks to minimize the risk of already deployed off-chain solutions as an interim measure until: * Deploy soft-fork changes for truly scalable solutions like Lightning Network. Not raising the block size limit does not mean doing nothing to solve the problem. -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Concerns Regarding Threats by a Developer to Remove Commit Access from Other Developers
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Regarding this proposal from Mike Hearn to remove consensus process from the BIP, which I think is unsound philosophy. I will address this briefly below. On 06/18/2015 09:05 AM, Mike Hearn wrote: So then: make a proposal for a better process, post it to this list. Alright. Here is a first cut of my proposal. It can be inserted into an amended BIP 1 after What belongs in a successful BIP?. Let me know what you think. The following section applies to BIPs that affect the block chain consensus rules or the peer to peer protocol and thus require changes to Bitcoin Core. Once a draft BIP has been submitted to bitcoin-development for consideration, the Bitcoin Core maintainer will deliver a preliminary yes/no verdict within three weeks. For many things, that will simply be too fast. It is better to allow the primary maintainer to collaborate with other people who normally work on the code and determine what the schedule will be based on life, volume of work, and so on. This verdict may be informed by the debate that has taken part in the previous three weeks. If more time is required, the maintainer is required to request an extension from the BIP author, who may then elect to force an immediate decision (risking a no), or choosing to allow more time. Again, this three week thing doesn't work. But assume for a moment that there is a certain amount of time that is such and so and it is set by the maintainer. The notion that the maintainer would be required to request an extension from the BIP author is sheer lunacy. There is no need to codify the actions of the project maintainer such that he/she would be needing to be subject to the whims of whatever BIP author. In like manner, a BIP author should not have to be subject to forever delay of a BIP due to inaction of a maintainer, but should have an answer regarding whether it can be assigned a number, published as draft and so forth after a reasonable time. To me, a reasonable time is something that should be discussed amongst the maintainer, those who work regularly on code, and the BIP author. The verdict will meet the following criteria: * It will address the latest version of the BIP at the time the verdict is rendered. * In case of a rejection, it will spell out and describe the technical rationale for this decision. Opinions held by other people are not considered technical rationales: if the maintainer agrees with a technical point made during discussion, he must own that opinion for himself. Therefore no BIP will be rejected on grounds of controversy, disagreement, lack of consensus or otherwise. No, this is ridiculous, because the notion that no BIP will be rejected on grounds of controversy, disagreement, lack of consensus, or otherwise, is clearly an attempt to do away with consensus models of business, and it is also not a very logical statement because controversy and disagreement are a natural part of... coming to what eventually is an agreement. * In case of rejection, the maintainer will provide a clear, specific list of actionable steps the BIP author can take next. For example, a list of what changes would address the technical objections raised. This above section I agree with. In case the maintainer believes no change could ever make the BIP acceptable, the list must consist of instructions for how to create a patch set and, in the case of changes to the consensus rules, how to initiate a hard fork. This above section I do not agree with because of the obvious bias in favor of the hard fork. Everything here seems to be aligned to push for hard fork, hard fork, hard fork. It's like the author can't tear his mind off it. A BIP, even once rejected, may live on in the BIPS repository, though its entry in the index may be sorted below others. The BIP author may update the BIP with a summary of any resulting discussion. As such a summary may be inherently contentious in case of a dispute, the authors wording of that summary is final and may not be subject to meta-debate. This doesn't seem right at all. -- - ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development - -- http://abis.io ~ a protocol concept to enable decentralization and expansion of a giving economy, and a new social good https://keybase.io/odinn -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1 iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJVg0sHAAoJEGxwq/inSG8CuFcH/0tzRWWyy3wmDegNx463xoaq EhG/dNqoIvavMlyJrKfKWPK6Mndgo9BtxkYbvOlO40Y51SW4SaisWGzHRg4HyIbJ 0Orp+C0jXhvnrJ7hRwKhrdZQUIRAI19NLVthSb9W6mHnXWJC8ilhlK9Ei9ILRjGl tM5pZ28SkyJ/b+CnltnYW8t6AvE4zlggC4QsCuUwA2cFoFWjQeESpqjy4kJNv464 yKlsrqoIzs2vNnoLIx1B0aLX9mNTQUwB1yMXtu8IVcAQe/G1LEEnNO56LGf8O0yJ
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Concerns Regarding Threats by a Developer to Remove Commit Access from Other Developers
On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 3:33 PM, Mark Friedenbach m...@friedenbach.org wrote: On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 2:58 PM, Jeff Garzik jgar...@bitpay.com wrote: The whole point is getting out in front of the need, to prevent significant negative impact to users when blocks are consistently full. To do that, you need to (a) plan forward, in order to (b) set a hard fork date in the future. Or alternatively, fix the reasons why users would have negative experiences with full blocks, chiefly: * Get safe forms of replace-by-fee and child-pays-for-parent finished and in 0.12. * Develop cross-platform libraries for managing micropayment channels, and get wallet authors to adopt * Use fidelity bonds, solvency proofs, and other tricks to minimize the risk of already deployed off-chain solutions as an interim measure until: * Deploy soft-fork changes for truly scalable solutions like Lightning Network. Not raising the block size limit does not mean doing nothing to solve the problem. This is a long, unreasonable list of work. None of this exists and it equates to upgrade all wallets and websites everywhere It requires all exchanges, payment processors, merchants, etc. to - basically everybody but miners - to update. It is a far, far larger amount of work to write, test and deploy than simply increasing the block size limit. Think through roll-out of these ambitious suggestions, before suggesting as an alternative! Not a realistic alternative except in an alternate universe where (a) developer work at all companies is cost free, plus (b) we can pause the business universe while we wait for The Perfect Solution. -- Jeff Garzik Bitcoin core developer and open source evangelist BitPay, Inc. https://bitpay.com/ -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Concerns Regarding Threats by a Developer to Remove Commit Access from Other Developers
Matt, I for one do not think that the block size limit should be raised at this time. Matt Corallo also started the public conversation over this issue on the mailing list by stating that he was not in favor of acting now to raise the block size limit. I find it a reasonable position to take that even if you feel the block size limit should be raised at some time in the future, there are reasons why now is not the best time to do it. On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 2:42 PM, Matt Whitlock b...@mattwhitlock.name wrote: On Thursday, 18 June 2015, at 8:31 pm, Ross Nicoll wrote: I may disagree with Mike Gavin on timescale, but I do believe there's a likelihood inaction will kill Bitcoin An honest question: who is proposing inaction? I haven't seen anyone in this whole, agonizing debate arguing that 1MB blocks are adequate. The debate has been about *how* to increase the block-size limit and whether to take action ASAP (at the risk of fracturing Bitcoin) or to delay action for further debate (at the risk of overloading Bitcoin). Even those who are arguing for further debate are not arguing for *inaction*. -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Concerns Regarding Threats by a Developer to Remove Commit Access from Other Developers
There's some actually proposing inaction as an outright decision, but I more meant that at times it has felt like we would end up with inaction through momentum, combined with adoption rate making any hard fork more complex if it continues to be delayed. On 18/06/2015 22:42, Matt Whitlock wrote: On Thursday, 18 June 2015, at 8:31 pm, Ross Nicoll wrote: I may disagree with Mike Gavin on timescale, but I do believe there's a likelihood inaction will kill Bitcoin An honest question: who is proposing inaction? I haven't seen anyone in this whole, agonizing debate arguing that 1MB blocks are adequate. The debate has been about *how* to increase the block-size limit and whether to take action ASAP (at the risk of fracturing Bitcoin) or to delay action for further debate (at the risk of overloading Bitcoin). Even those who are arguing for further debate are not arguing for *inaction*. -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Concerns Regarding Threats by a Developer to Remove Commit Access from Other Developers
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 I maintain that you should apologize to those who traverse this list. What you are saying is digging yourself a deeper hole and is not merely embarrassing but is crossing a threshold in which you have used words, albeit subtly, to attack a community. If you refuse to apologize, I get it. You have not apologized thus far, and pressing for an apology is unlikely to get an (authentic) one. But then, you should voluntarily step back and let others do the hard work of coming to the consensus that you seem to think is impossible to accomplish based on how bitcoin is run. I believe this matter will be resolved, but not with the help of those who make threatening statements (and who are unable to apologize for having made them). - -O On 06/18/2015 03:00 AM, Mike Hearn wrote: Dude, calm down. I don't have commit access to Bitcoin Core and Gavin already said long ago he wouldn't just commit something, even though he has the ability to do so. So why did I say it? Because it's consistent with what I've always said: you cannot run a codebase like Wikipedia. Maintainers have to take part in debates, and then make a decision, and anyone else who was delegated commit access for robustness or convenience must then respect that decision. It's the only way to keep a project making progress at a reasonable pace. This is not a radical position. That's how nearly all coding projects work. I have been involved with open source for 15 years and the 'single maintainer who makes decisions' model is normal, even if in some large codebases subsystems have delegated submaintainers. This is also how all my own projects are run. Bitcoinj has multiple people with commit access. Regardless, if there were to be some design dispute or whatever, I wouldn't tolerate the others with commit access starting some kind of Wiki-style edit war in the code if they disagreed. Nor would I ever expect to get my own way in other people's projects by threatening to revert the maintainers changes. Core is in the weird position where there's no decision making ability at all, because anyone who shows up and shouts enough can generate 'controversy', then Wladimir sees there is disagreement and won't touch the issue in question. So it just runs and runs and /anyone/ with commit access can then block any change. I realise some people think this anti-process leads to better decision making. I disagree. It leads to no decision making, which is not the same thing at all. - -- http://abis.io ~ a protocol concept to enable decentralization and expansion of a giving economy, and a new social good https://keybase.io/odinn -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1 iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJVg0HiAAoJEGxwq/inSG8CXOwIAKSGRJPtSx+untgMERwE7lW7 9p0gWz4jvKhyO+RrGPXlofckvp4Fp/7Yxa+TDLcXbzGi6OesX9yIyN7e06LJW4DP h7V2PwzS49ZyB/krd03HjvWMFnhoGy7zB7M1okq5myIvx+h1htX9TirNbDl7PU9Z SWyNNw+GXPsIV/xuPu81LP5GrR3gIxwwhhopOq2qcm08AUiuIJ8EA31mT2ZgwMWB RxrnktFRzMbW2fD7Z7njTz1gjw1duPyGApJ+xpqtcjjS2idPNuw1nESZTCE3+TwG Dk1AKmYt8TvZzFWyo/0ly7vYFFW27Yh7SC3oeDJBoWkvySuIFrevux7ekfKxPOc= =wc2m -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Concerns Regarding Threats by a Developer to Remove Commit Access from Other Developers
I'm struggling to illustrate how incredibly low 7 transactions per second is, not just for a payment network, but even just for a clearance network (i.e. to balance transactions between institutions and/or chains). As an example, the Clearing House Interbank Payments System (CHIPS) is a US-only, inter-bank only clearance network, which handled about 3.5 transactions per second (average) in 2014 (https://www.theclearinghouse.org/~/media/tch/pay%20co/chips/reports%20and%20guides/chips%20volume%20through%20may%202015.pdf?la=en). While it seems likely the US population of 300 million makes more transactions individually than many other countries, and therefore we can't simply multiply that by 20 to estimate what a global clearance network might require, hopefully it's clear that if Bitcoin is to scale globally, it needs substantially more transaction throughput even if main chain transactions become something for banks and the super rich. I don't know how much more, but I can't look at the 8MB reportedly backed by a number of mining pools and say it's clearly insufficient, at least. I should emphasise that I don't think we need to jump straight to 8MB (or otherwise), if a scaling protocol can be decided upon that would be ideal, but we should be planning ahead while it's still relatively easy to make these changes. Ross On 18/06/2015 23:33, Mark Friedenbach wrote: On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 2:58 PM, Jeff Garzik jgar...@bitpay.com mailto:jgar...@bitpay.com wrote: The whole point is getting out in front of the need, to prevent significant negative impact to users when blocks are consistently full. To do that, you need to (a) plan forward, in order to (b) set a hard fork date in the future. Or alternatively, fix the reasons why users would have negative experiences with full blocks, chiefly: * Get safe forms of replace-by-fee and child-pays-for-parent finished and in 0.12. * Develop cross-platform libraries for managing micropayment channels, and get wallet authors to adopt * Use fidelity bonds, solvency proofs, and other tricks to minimize the risk of already deployed off-chain solutions as an interim measure until: * Deploy soft-fork changes for truly scalable solutions like Lightning Network. Not raising the block size limit does not mean doing nothing to solve the problem. -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Concerns Regarding Threats by a Developer to Remove Commit Access from Other Developers
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Regarding the bit on getting out in front of the need, to prevent significant negative impacts to users I had suggested the following: On 06/18/2015 03:52 PM, Jeff Garzik wrote: On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 3:33 PM, Mark Friedenbach m...@friedenbach.org mailto:m...@friedenbach.org wrote: On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 2:58 PM, Jeff Garzik jgar...@bitpay.com mailto:jgar...@bitpay.com wrote: The whole point is getting out in front of the need, to prevent significant negative impact to users when blocks are consistently full. My thoughts on that: Possible scope narrowing to one of the following concepts (but please, someone tell me if this scope narrowing is unwise, not timely, or if there is some other factors that would make it just stupid right now because other things are in the works or whatever: ~ Jeff Garzik, with respect to his BIP 100 (note Evan Mo, CEO of Huobi's mining project Digcoin, clarified that the big Chinese mining pools consider further adjustments to the protocol beyond the suggested 8 MB block size limit adjustment — such as the Bitcoin core developer Jeff Garzik's BIP-100 draft — to be feasible) ~ Adam Back, with a simplified soft-fork one-way peg ~ Gavin Andresen, developing an 8 MB block size limit adjustment in the context of Core (as an example) with one or more of the above authors rather than focusing on XT. (This is a big assumption but, roll with it) All of this assumes that developer(s) are willing to abandon intentionally contentious proposals such as the hard fork to XT w/ 20 MB, remain within the context of Core and be reasonable. Here I am being aware of the fact that Pushing a hard fork in the face of such controversy is a folly, a danger to the network, and that deserves to be said. - Wladimir J. van der Laan https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin.org/pull/894#issuecomment-112113917 To do that, you need to (a) plan forward, in order to (b) set a hard fork date in the future. Or alternatively, fix the reasons why users would have negative experiences with full blocks, chiefly: * Get safe forms of replace-by-fee and child-pays-for-parent finished and in 0.12. * Develop cross-platform libraries for managing micropayment channels, and get wallet authors to adopt * Use fidelity bonds, solvency proofs, and other tricks to minimize the risk of already deployed off-chain solutions as an interim measure until: * Deploy soft-fork changes for truly scalable solutions like Lightning Network. Not raising the block size limit does not mean doing nothing to solve the problem. This is a long, unreasonable list of work. None of this exists and it equates to upgrade all wallets and websites everywhere It requires all exchanges, payment processors, merchants, etc. to - basically everybody but miners - to update. It is a far, far larger amount of work to write, test and deploy than simply increasing the block size limit. Think through roll-out of these ambitious suggestions, before suggesting as an alternative! Not a realistic alternative except in an alternate universe where (a) developer work at all companies is cost free, plus (b) we can pause the business universe while we wait for The Perfect Solution. Something else I wanted to point out here in this thread is the subject of the problem of developers going off the deep end which is what started this thread: Suppose you have a developer with full commit access who happens to start threatening to revoking the other developers' commit access on the repository, or that person doesn't even threaten, one day it just happens. What do you have then? Peter Todd has stated that all one would achieve by that sabotage is setting a key-value pair in a centralised registry. But is that what we want? The answer, obviously, is no. This leads to other questions. What technical mechanisms exist to keep developers from (in some dubious emotional or psycho state) to just going off the deep and doing exactly what has been described above, if they have full commit access? Is there a process whereby that can't actually happen unless another developer provides a signature (e.g. a multisignature type of process)? What keeps bitcoin safe from The Hearn Threat? If nothing does, then how would you change that? And go ahead and tell me if these are dumb questions and I should just be quiet, but if they are, please do explain why they are such dumb questions. -- Jeff Garzik Bitcoin core developer and open source evangelist BitPay, Inc. https://bitpay.com/ -- - ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development - -- http://abis.io ~ a protocol concept to enable decentralization and
