Bitcoin Core maintainers and communication on merge decisions

Summary:

The email thread discusses communication issues within Bitcoin Core, specifically regarding pull requests and maintainer decisions. Michael Folkson expresses frustration with maintainers not providing commentary on merge decisions, leaving pull requests unresolved for extended periods of time, and being unresponsive on IRC. He cites examples such as the contentious pull request to add Vasil Dimov as a maintainer and the CTV pull request that led to a soft fork activation attempt.A response from alicexbt argues that commentary is not necessary for every merged pull request, and that it is unfair to expect all maintainers to behave similarly. They suggest creating a nonprofit to fund bitcoin developers and increasing the number of reviewers. The discussion concludes with a reminder to respect all contributors and avoid harassment. Additionally, Michael Folkson highlights the issue of weak communication around merges and non-merges within Core. This lack of transparency and accountability has been highlighted by the recent soft fork activation attempt, where many casual observers inflated the numbers on the utxos.org site signalling support. Folkson believes that bitcoin-inquisition/default signet, perceived by some as "the one and only" staging ground for consensus changes, could be dangerous if the maintainer(s) have the same inclinations as a subset of the Core maintainers. While there is an element of adverse reaction to outright malicious actors external to any of these projects, the lack of transparency and accountability isn't going away. Folkson suggests a straight choice of taking transparency and accountability much more seriously or investing more heavily in consensus-compatible forks of Core and treating Core like a proprietary "open-source" project where merge decisions are not explained or justified in the open.

Updated on: 2023-06-16T17:36:59.382838+00:00