Author: Btc Drak 2016-01-29 07:21:10
Published on: 2016-01-29T07:21:10+00:00
Eric Lombrozo, a Bitcoin developer, suggested that the problem related to forks could have been avoided if a process could distinguish between different layers for bitcoin modification proposals. He gave an example of BIP64 proposed by Mike Hearn, which did not affect the consensus layer at all. Although many Core developers disliked the proposal, having nodes that support BIP64 would not fundamentally break the Bitcoin network. The pushback from Core developers led Mike to break off from Core and create XT as the applications he was developing required BIP64 to work. Eric suggested that we need to have a process that clearly distinguishes these different layers and allows much more freedom in the upper layers while requiring agreement at the consensus layer. Eric had submitted a BIP - BIP123 - that addresses this issue earlier. He had updated it to include all the currently proposed and accepted BIPs and had submitted a PR. Eric urged everyone to seriously consider getting this BIP accepted as a top priority before we get more projects all trying their hand at stuff and not understanding these critical distinctions. However, someone pointed out that Eric's proposal doesn't solve the issue related to Mike creating his own fork. He created his own fork because he had a non-consensus feature set that Bitcoin Core disagreed with and he wanted. That is to be encouraged. The classification of BIPs is fine, but Eric's proposition would have stopped Mike from creating his own distribution, which was down to a strong differing of technical opinions between Mike and a dozen other developers as well as node security concerns (which were proved correct).
Updated on: 2023-06-11T03:25:52.724500+00:00