š
Original date posted:2015-06-18
š Original message:On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 6:31 AM, Mike Hearn <mike at plan99.net> wrote:
> The first issue is how are decisions made in Bitcoin Core? I struggle to
> explain this to others because I don't understand it myself. Is it a vote
> of people with commit access? Is it a 100% agreement of "core developers"
> and if so, who are these people? Is it "whoever reverts the change last"?
> Could I write down in a document a precise description of how decisions are
> made? No, and that's been a fairly frustrating problem for a long time.
>
There is a quote from United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart to
describe his threshold test for obscenity which is relevant here: "I know
it when I see it."
It is hard certainly, and perhaps even impossible to write down a system of
rules that is used to resolve every dispute among core developers. But that
doesn't mean it isn't obvious to all the participants what is going on. If
a contentious change is proposed, and if after sufficient debate there are
still members of the technical community with reasoned, comprehensible
objections who are not merely being obstinate in the views -- a neutral
observer would agree that their concerns have not been met -- then there is
a lack of consensus.
If there was some sort of formal process however, the system wouldn't work.
Rules can be gamed, and if you add rules to a process then that process can
be gamed. Instead we all have a reasonable understanding of what "technical
consensus" is, and we all know it when we see it. Where we do not see it,
we do not proceed.
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Mark Friedenbach [ARCHIVE] /
npub1r3ā¦48d0u
2023-06-07 15:38:41
in reply to nevent1qā¦s27y
Author Public Key
npub1r3san9v5njl6798hvauyu9ntm6r9c7u8s0t65wls58gpfdcvqp5sa48d0uPublished at
2023-06-07 15:38:41Event JSON
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Original date posted:2015-06-18\nš Original message:On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 6:31 AM, Mike Hearn \u003cmike at plan99.net\u003e wrote:\n\n\u003e The first issue is how are decisions made in Bitcoin Core? I struggle to\n\u003e explain this to others because I don't understand it myself. Is it a vote\n\u003e of people with commit access? Is it a 100% agreement of \"core developers\"\n\u003e and if so, who are these people? Is it \"whoever reverts the change last\"?\n\u003e Could I write down in a document a precise description of how decisions are\n\u003e made? No, and that's been a fairly frustrating problem for a long time.\n\u003e\n\nThere is a quote from United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart to\ndescribe his threshold test for obscenity which is relevant here: \"I know\nit when I see it.\"\n\nIt is hard certainly, and perhaps even impossible to write down a system of\nrules that is used to resolve every dispute among core developers. But that\ndoesn't mean it isn't obvious to all the participants what is going on. If\na contentious change is proposed, and if after sufficient debate there are\nstill members of the technical community with reasoned, comprehensible\nobjections who are not merely being obstinate in the views -- a neutral\nobserver would agree that their concerns have not been met -- then there is\na lack of consensus.\n\nIf there was some sort of formal process however, the system wouldn't work.\nRules can be gamed, and if you add rules to a process then that process can\nbe gamed. Instead we all have a reasonable understanding of what \"technical\nconsensus\" is, and we all know it when we see it. Where we do not see it,\nwe do not proceed.\n-------------- next part --------------\nAn HTML attachment was scrubbed...\nURL: \u003chttp://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/attachments/20150618/1adcf256/attachment.html\u003e",
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