"Cultish" means making claims without any supporting facts. Labeling
Open Source software as being "decentralized" just because people can
choose which version to run is a "cultish" claim. Just because Bitcoin
uses the mining process to come to consensus over the state of the
ledger that does not mean the software versions have the same level of
decentralization because users can decide which version to run. I am in
the USA and I can vote in elections but I would not call the US
government "decentralized." It is a very complicated issue and cannot
be explained in one or two sentences of hand-waiving arguments like you
often see here.
Russ
On 6/25/2015 3:51 AM, cipher anthem wrote:
+1 on this!
I have come across Milly a couple of times on reddit and disqus and
she basically dismisses anyone who doesn't agree with her opinions.
always labeling them "cultish". Please ignore her so you can stay
productive.
*Sent:* Thursday, June 25, 2015 at 5:07 AM
*From:* "Jeff Garzik" <jgar...@gmail.com>
*To:* bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org
*Subject:* Re: [bitcoin-dev] BIP Process and Votes
Ladies & gents, please do not feed the troll. This has been explained
to Milly multiple times in the past, on previous mailing list & github
with no impact.
On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 7:34 PM, Milly Bitcoin <mi...@bitcoins.info>
wrote:
I'm sorry but that is the kind of defensive, cultish response
everyone gets when they ask that question. If you had a well
constructed documented process then you would be able to point to
it ... but you can't. While there are a few bits and pieces
scattered about in different places there is no coherent plan or
process.
It is easy to make statements like "consensus must be unanimous"
but the issue is that you never have true 100% consensus yet you
have to move forward in some fashion and everyone has to run
software with the same consensus rules. The issue is how you move
forward is the question that nobody wants to answer because (a) it
is a hard question to answer and (b) developers see it as a threat
to their authority/position. If people just keep shutting down
the discussion with a bunch of cultish stock answers then you are
never going to move forward with developing some kind of process.
>From what I can see much of the discussion is personality-driven
and not based on Computer Science or and defined process. The
issue is that a personality has changed so the process is
perceived to be different and some people want to hard fork.
Previously, the cultish answer is that Bitcoin development is
decentralized because people can fork the code. Now that some
developers want to fork the code suddenly it is a big problem.
Is forking the code part of the consensus process or is it the
work of the devil? The fact that there is so much diverse
opinion on this shows a defined process has never been fully
vetted or understood.
I have worked on these processes for many years for projects
orders of magnitudes larger than Bitcoin. I can absolutely assure
you the current mishmash does not scale and huge amounts of time
are wasted. That should be readily apparent from the recent
discussions and the recent concern it has caused from people
outside the developer's inner circle.
Lack of defined process = high risk and wasted effort.
Russ
On 6/24/2015 9:50 PM, Mark Friedenbach wrote:
I'm sorry but this is absolutely not the case, Milly. The
reason that people get defensive is that we have a carefully
constructed process that does work (thank you very much!) and
is well documented. We talk about it quite often in fact as it
is a defining characteristic of how bitcoin is developed which
differs in some ways from how other open source software is
developed -- although it remains the same in most other ways.
Changes to the non-consensus sections of Bitcoin Core tend to
get merged when there are a few reviews, tests, and ACKs from
recognized developers, there are no outstanding objections,
and the maintainer doing the merge makes a subjective
judgement that the code is ready.
Consensus-changes, on the other hand, get merged into Bitcoin
Core only after the above criteria are met AND an extremely
long discussion period that has given all the relevant
stakeholders a chance to comment, and no significant
objections remain. Consensus-code changes are unanimous. They
must be.
The sort of process that exists in standards bodies for
example, with working groups and formal voting procedures, has
no place where changes define the nature and validity of other
people's money. Who has the right to reach into your pocket
and define how you can or cannot spend your coins? The premise
of bitcoin is that no one has that right, yet that is very
much what we do when consensus code changes are made. That is
why when we make a change to the rules governing the nature of
bitcoin, we must make sure that everyone is made aware of the
change and consents to it.
Everyone. Does this work? Does this scale? So far, it does.
Uncontroversial changes, such as BIP 66, are deployed without
issue. Every indication is that BIP 66 will complete
deployment in the very near future, and we intend to repeat
this process for more interesting changes such as BIP65:
CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY.
This isn't about no one stepping forward to be the "decider."
This is about no one having the right to decide these things
on the behalf of others. If a contentious change is proposed
and not accepted by the process of consensus, that is because
the process is doing its job at rejecting controversial
changes. It has nothing to do with personality, and everything
to do with the nature of bitcoin itself.
On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 5:07 PM, Milly Bitcoin
<mi...@bitcoins.info> wrote:
I have seen this question asked many times. Most
developers become defensive and they usually give a very
vague 1-sentence answer when this question is asked. It
seems to be it is based on personalities rather than any
kind of definable process. To have that discussion the
personalities must be separated out and answers like
"such-and-such wouldn't do that" don't really do much to
advance the discussion. Also, the incentive for new
developers to come in is that they will be paid by
companies who want to influence the code and this should
be considered (some developers take this statement as an
insult when it is just a statement of the incentive process).
The other problem you are having is the lead developer
does not want to be a "decider" when, in fact, he is a
very significant decider. While the users have the
ultimate choice in a practical sense the chief developer
is the "decider." Now people don't want to get him upset
so nobody wants to push the issue or fully define the
process. Now you are left with a broken,
unwritten/unspoken process. While this type of thing may
work with a small group of developers businesses/investors
looking in from the outside will see this as a risk.
Until you get passed all the personality-based arguments
you are going to have a tough time defining a real process.
Russ
On 6/24/2015 7:41 PM, Raystonn wrote:
I would like to start a civil discussion on an
undefined, or at least unwritten, portion of the BIP
process. Who should get to vote on approval to commit
a BIP implementation into Bitcoin Core? Is a simple
majority of these voters sufficient for approval? If
not, then what is?
Raystonn
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