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From: Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail.com>
To: Mike Hearn <mike@plan99.net>
Cc: Bitcoin Dev <bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net>
Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Concerns Regarding Threats by a Developer to Remove Commit Access from Other Developers
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2015 20:09:18 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAKaEYh+FyDmN0aXNJY18yhiwRPtSVGiZiO+cMS1fRs1VnyTc2A@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CANEZrP3M7+BsZKLFZV-0A_fC7NmMGbTDxsx3ywru3dSW78ZskQ@mail.gmail.com>

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On 18 June 2015 at 12:00, Mike Hearn <mike@plan99.net> wrote:

> Dude, calm down. I don't have commit access to Bitcoin Core and Gavin
> already said long ago he wouldn't just commit something, even though he has
> the ability to do so.
>
> So why did I say it? Because it's consistent with what I've always said:
>  you cannot run a codebase like Wikipedia. Maintainers have to take part in
> debates, and then make a decision, and anyone else who was delegated commit
> access for robustness or convenience must then respect that decision. It's
> the only way to keep a project making progress at a reasonable pace.
>
> This is not a radical position. That's how nearly all coding projects
> work. I have been involved with open source for 15 years and the 'single
> maintainer who makes decisions' model is normal, even if in some large
> codebases  subsystems have delegated submaintainers.
>
> This is also how all my own projects are run. Bitcoinj has multiple people
> with commit access. Regardless, if there were to be some design dispute or
> whatever, I wouldn't tolerate the others with commit access starting some
> kind of Wiki-style edit war in the code if they disagreed. Nor would I ever
> expect to get my own way in other people's projects by threatening to
> revert the maintainers changes.
>
> Core is in the weird position where there's no decision making ability at
> all, because anyone who shows up and shouts enough can generate
> 'controversy', then Wladimir sees there is disagreement and won't touch the
> issue in question. So it just runs and runs and *anyone* with commit
> access can then block any change.
>
> I realise some people think this anti-process leads to better decision
> making. I disagree. It leads to no decision making, which is not the same
> thing at all.
>

Bicoin is not like other projects.  There are large financial stakes
involved.  I was at a standards convention once and the head of standards
at a large company joked to me:

"We know there are 6 people in the standards world that we can never buy.
So we just buy everyone else".

You have to luck out in a huge way to get a person like that running your
project.  Linux has done.  Id say bitcoin has been lucky there too.  But
have a look at other projects, have a look at the alts, the *last* thing
you want is a dictator in may cases.

Ultimately bitcoin is a ledger based on consensus.  There are 3 branches,
the miners, the protocol and the market.  They all play a role in
regulating bitcoin and generally on the conservative side (which I think is
a good thing).  Whatever your view on the 20MB change, it's not a
*conservative* approach, which is the approach that has served bitcoin very
well so far.

So bitcoin is not like other open source projects, and that's probably
quite a good thing.


>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Bitcoin-development mailing list
> Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
>
>

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  parent reply	other threads:[~2015-06-18 18:09 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 60+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2015-06-18  8:54 [Bitcoin-development] Concerns Regarding Threats by a Developer to Remove Commit Access from Other Developers odinn
2015-06-18 10:00 ` Mike Hearn
2015-06-18 11:14   ` Wladimir J. van der Laan
2015-06-18 11:47     ` Wladimir J. van der Laan
2015-06-18 13:36       ` Mike Hearn
2015-06-18 15:58         ` Gregory Maxwell
2015-06-18 12:29     ` Pieter Wuille
2015-06-18 12:50       ` Wladimir J. van der Laan
2015-06-18 12:56         ` Benjamin
2015-06-18 13:49       ` Mike Hearn
2015-06-18 14:05         ` Wladimir J. van der Laan
2015-06-18 14:16           ` Mike Hearn
2015-06-18 14:53           ` Milly Bitcoin
2015-06-18 14:56             ` Jeff Garzik
2015-06-18 15:13               ` Milly Bitcoin
2015-06-18 14:53       ` Jeff Garzik
2015-06-18 16:07         ` justusranvier
2015-06-18 16:28           ` Jeff Garzik
2015-06-18 17:04             ` justusranvier
2015-06-18 17:42               ` Alex Morcos
2015-06-18 18:01                 ` Milly Bitcoin
2015-06-18 18:23                 ` Gavin Andresen
2015-06-18 18:44                   ` Alex Morcos
2015-06-18 18:49                   ` Jorge Timón
2015-06-18 19:31                     ` Ross Nicoll
2015-06-18 21:42                       ` Matt Whitlock
2015-06-18 21:49                         ` Mark Friedenbach
2015-06-18 21:58                           ` Jeff Garzik
2015-06-18 22:33                             ` Mark Friedenbach
2015-06-18 22:52                               ` Jeff Garzik
2015-06-18 23:25                                 ` odinn
2015-06-18 23:16                               ` Ross Nicoll
2015-06-19  0:57                               ` Chris Pacia
2015-06-19  5:59                                 ` Eric Lombrozo
2015-06-19  9:37                               ` Mike Hearn
2015-06-19  9:53                                 ` Benjamin
2015-06-19 10:08                                   ` GC
2015-06-19 10:19                                   ` Mike Hearn
2015-06-19 10:52                                 ` Eric Lombrozo
2015-06-19 11:31                                 ` Jorge Timón
2015-06-19 12:26                                   ` GC
2015-06-19 11:48                                 ` Brooks Boyd
2015-06-21 14:45                                   ` Owen Gunden
2015-06-18 21:55                         ` Ross Nicoll
2015-06-18 19:24                   ` Matt Corallo
2015-06-18 19:32                     ` Gregory Maxwell
2015-06-18 12:38     ` Milly Bitcoin
2015-06-18 13:31     ` Mike Hearn
2015-06-18 13:50       ` Pieter Wuille
2015-06-18 15:03       ` Mark Friedenbach
2015-06-18 15:30         ` Milly Bitcoin
2015-06-18 15:46           ` Wladimir J. van der Laan
2015-06-18 16:05             ` Mike Hearn
2015-06-18 16:20               ` Wladimir J. van der Laan
2015-06-18 22:49               ` odinn
2015-06-18 16:11             ` Milly Bitcoin
2015-06-18 11:41   ` Lawrence Nahum
2015-06-18 14:33   ` Bryan Bishop
2015-06-18 18:09   ` Melvin Carvalho [this message]
2015-06-18 22:10   ` odinn

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