[Bitcoin-development] questions about bitcoin-XT code fork & non-consensus hard-fork

[Sean Lynch]

On Mon, Jun 29, 2015, 20:12 coderman <coderman at gmail.com> wrote:

On 6/29/15, Sean Lynch <seanl at literati.org> wrote:
> ...
> Yes. And a failure to accept responsibility for one's own decisions.

this is not about poor user decisions,
 this is about violation of the contract "a bitcoin is forever (and in
the blockchain)"



With a hard fork, the Bitcoins exist in both forks. If one dies, they live
on in the remaining one. If Bitcoin itself is never forked and dies, the
contract is violated. But I have to ask, contract with whom? This is part
of the specification of the protocol, but people are only bound by it
insofar as they choose to implement the protocol. And probably as far as
they choose to participate in the network. But a fork need not require any
interaction with the original network aside from fetching the block chain
prior to the block it forks from.


 you see expediency, and no excuses for those lacking judgment.
 their eyes prescient instead, until one comes to change the rules out
from under their feet...


I see what could be the only viable course. Consensus is not practical in a
large, diverse community with vastly divergent goals.


 to assume old coins can "just be" resolved for all holders in all
circumstances is to lie, and there is nothing else to call
"deprecating old coins unilaterally" other than a hard-fork, and a
non-consensus one at that.


Nobody can deprecate old coins unilaterally. It's up to each individual to
decide what they're worth and whether to participate. As I said, as I
understand your use of the term "consensus", a hard fork is by definition
non-consensus, because if there were consensus everyone would just switch
to the new protocol. Sure, people could consent to allow others to work on
another protocol, but there will always be plenty of people who only want
there to be one chain, so consensus of that form is impossible.



> I doubt there is anything the larger stakeholders (as fraction of their
net
> worth) would accept as due diligence. Nor is any required to start a fork.

sure; these are very different from a "non-consensus hard-fork"
 [deprecate old, force to new]

intentionally trying to divert and betray the contract inherent since
the start - a bitcoin is forever - is more than "just a fork", it's
also a stab in the back.



I am sympathetic to the view that "law" = people's reasonable expectations,
but whether those expectations are reasonable is really what we're
discussing here. I think Bitcoin is both too immature and too decentralized
to be able to say yes. Maturity will eventually trump decentralization for
this purpose.


 i don't know how to solve a transition like this, but i know a forced
hard fork is near the worst way to handle it.



I think "forced" is too strong a word here. Against whom is force being
used? Who is having to do something against their will? Or who was
defrauded and by whom? From a consent standpoint, this is no different than
forking any other open source project.



> Any due diligence is the responsibility of those choosing to operate on
the
> fork.

agreed; thanks for the patient response to my dismissive retort.

best regards,


 And thanks for taking the time to discuss this.
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