On 25 May 2013 10:53, Luke-Jr <luke@dashjr.org> wrote:

On Saturday, May 25, 2013 8:25:35 AM Melvin Carvalho wrote:
> It might be an idea to have 'rule change' fixes and 'bug fix' releases go
> out separately

Bitcoin is a consensus system. You can't run clients with different rules on
the same blockchain/network - it just won't work! Maybe we're now talking
about mere client default policies? In which case, you should be able to
configure previous behaviour...

[[ Not wishing to stray too far off topic ]]

I think you are perhaps underestimating the effect of 'mere' default policies.

It would be nice to think that every node was a free thinking individual that is motivated to vote with their feet, but in practice most people dont have time.

There is research showing that 80% of users tend to accept defaults.

Rule changes and changing defaults would seem to be things worth weighing. Bug fixes hopefully should be fairly unanimous. Of course a grey area exists in between.

If you want just bug fixes and rule changes, without policy default changes,
new features, etc, you can use the 0.4.x - 0.7.x backports. But be advised
these are short-term solutions and won't be maintained forever - so you really
should try to get the behaviour you want from the current release. If you
can't for some reason, please do report a bug explaining what it is the older
version was capable of that the new one isn't!

Luke