>Regarding this last point I was under the impression that if Segwit did not activate by November then core was going to move on, is that no longer the case, does the core team plan on trying to activate Segwit in some other way?

Since block size seems to be the controversial issue, AFAIK we *could* remove the block size increase (by removing the discount on signature data). This discount was put in place for two reasons

1.) It allows for a block size increase
2.) It makes it more expensive to create UTXOs. UTXO bloat is a problem on the bitcoin network and segwit was an elegant way to make the network appreciate their real cost in terms of hardware/RAM.

We would still get the benefits of:
1.) Tx malleability elimination
2.) Script versioning

-Chris

On Fri, Apr 14, 2017 at 9:01 PM, Steven Pine via bitcoin-dev <bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
> Segwit is a good improvement
and we should respect it by knowing that it's good enough to wait for,
and for however its activated to be done the best way we know how.

Regarding this last point I was under the impression that if Segwit did not activate by November then core was going to move on, is that no longer the case, does the core team plan on trying to activate Segwit in some other way?

I am also curious, but has there been a softfork, hardfork, or other major census change that was not rolled out and done by the core team? I only mention this because BIP148, if it goes ahead (and is successful), would be the first time a consensus change occurs outside of the core developers -- but again I am not an expert on the history of changes and could be wrong, I only bring this up because core developers have in the past stressed they are a part of the bitcoin ecosystem and not the drivers of it (at least that is the ideal it seems).

My impression is that the community is ready for this and wants it, and if that impression is correct it will go ahead. No one knows the future, and simply assuming it's better to be slow and methodical isn't especially convincing. Technology is in someways the history of failure, we like to celebrate the seemingly sudden breakthroughs and successes but it's rare that the original innovator retains a monopoly on their invention, more often it becomes quickly refined and iterated upon as market forces take hold to bring costs down and other external political issues take precedence, all this is say that in ten years everyone could be chuckling over the 3 year bitcoin scaling debate, or they could be using litecoin, or ethereum or some other crypto coin, or something entirely different, no one knows.

On Fri, Apr 14, 2017 at 3:56 AM, Gregory Maxwell via bitcoin-dev <bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
I do not support the BIP148 UASF for some of the same reasons that I
do support segwit:  Bitcoin is valuable in part because it has high
security and stability, segwit was carefully designed to support and
amplify that engineering integrity that people can count on now and
into the future.

I do not feel the the approach proposed in BIP148 really measures up
to the standard set by segwit itself, or the existing best practices
in protocol development in this community.

The primary flaw in BIP148 is that by forcing the activation of the
existing (non-UASF segwit) nodes it almost guarantees at a minor level
of disruption.

Segwit was carefully engineered so that older unmodified miners could
continue operating _completely_ without interruption after segwit
activates.

Older nodes will not include segwit spends, and so their blocks will
not be invalid even if they do not have segwit support. They can
upgrade to it on their own schedule. The only risk non-participating
miners take after segwit activation is that if someone else mines an
invalid block they would extend it, a risk many miners already
frequently take with spy-mining.

I do not think it is a horrible proposal: it is better engineered than
many things that many altcoins do, but just not up to our normal
standards. I respect the motivations of the authors of BIP 148.  If
your goal is the fastest possible segwit activation then it is very
useful to exploit the >80% of existing nodes that already support the
original version of segwit.

But the fastest support should not be our goal, as a community-- there
is always some reckless altcoin or centralized system that can support
something faster than we can-- trying to match that would only erode
our distinguishing value in being well engineered and stable.

"First do no harm." We should use the least disruptive mechanisms
available, and the BIP148 proposal does not meet that test.  To hear
some people-- non-developers on reddit and such-- a few even see the
forced orphaning of 148 as a virtue, that it's punitive for
misbehaving miners. I could not not disagree with that perspective any
more strongly.

Of course, I do not oppose the general concept of a UASF but
_generally_ a soft-fork (of any kind) does not need to risk disruption
of mining, just as segwit's activation does not.  UASF are the
original kind of soft-fork and were the only kind of fork practiced by
Satoshi. P2SH was activated based on a date, and all prior ones were
based on times or heights.  We introduced miner based activation as
part of a process of making Bitcoin more stable in the common case
where the ecosystem is all in harmony.  It's kind of weird to see UASF
portrayed as something new.

It's important the users not be at the mercy of any one part of the
ecosystem to the extent that we can avoid it-- be it developers,
exchanges, chat forums, or mining hardware makers.  Ultimately the
rules of Bitcoin work because they're enforced by the users
collectively-- that is what makes Bitcoin Bitcoin, it's what makes it
something people can count on: the rules aren't easy to just change.

There have been some other UASF proposals that avoid the forced
disruption-- by just defining a new witness bit and allowing
non-upgraded-to-uasf miners and nodes to continue as non-upgraded, I
think they are vastly superior. They would be slower to deploy, but I
do not think that is a flaw.

We should have patience. Bitcoin is a system that should last for all
ages and power mankind for a long time-- ten years from now a couple
years of dispute will seem like nothing. But the reputation we earn
for stability and integrity, for being a system of money people can
count on will mean everything.

If these discussions come up, they'll come up in the form of reminding
people that Bitcoin isn't easily changed at a whim, even when the
whims are obviously good, and how that protects it from being managed
like all the competing systems of money that the world used to use
were managed. :)

So have patience, don't take short cuts.  Segwit is a good improvement
and we should respect it by knowing that it's good enough to wait for,
and for however its activated to be done the best way we know how.
_______________________________________________
bitcoin-dev mailing list
bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org
https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev



--
Steven Pine

_______________________________________________
bitcoin-dev mailing list
bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org
https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev