Re: [bitcoin-dev] [bitcoin-core-dev] Bitcoin Core update notice

[Gregory Maxwell <greg@xiph.org>]

On Sat, Sep 22, 2018 at 4:25 AM gb via bitcoin-dev
<bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
>
> If the bugfix can be backported to earlier versions why is the

Have been backported, not merely can be.

> hype/hysteria about "everybody" must immediately upgrade to 0.16.3
> currently being spread on the forums/reddit?

For instructions to be effective they need to be concise.  Presenting
people with a complex decision tree is not a way to maximize wellfare.

The few parties that would be better off on some other version already
know that they have some reason to not run the latest stable, and can
do more research to find out their other options.   The announcement
posted on the bitcoin core site, I think is adequately clear but if
you see an opportunity to improve it, please make suggestions.

> I don't see any effort to correct this misinformation either.

It's decent advice, not misinformation.  You can run the fixed earlier
versions but they have other issues, I wouldn't recommend anyone run
older versions generally.

Reasoning about risk is complicated. For example, when people were
talking about only the crash component of the issue there were some
people stating "I don't care if I go down, an unlikely delay in
processing payments would not be a problem."  But, in fact, a network
exploitable crash is pretty dangerous: an attacker can carve up the
network into partitions that will produce long valid forks and reorg
against each other, enabling double-spends.   The best one sentence
advice available is to upgrade to the latest version. You'd probably
have to get up to two page explanations discussing trade-offs before
it makes sense to talk about running a fixed 0.14 or what not.

Theymos' language is stronger than I would have chosen, but I think
it's language that errors on the side of protecting people from harm.