📅 Original date posted:2016-12-15
📝 Original message:On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 4:38 AM, Juan Garavaglia via bitcoin-dev
<bitcoin-dev at lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
> Older node versions may generate issues because some upgrades will make
> several of the nodes running older protocol versions obsolete and or
> incompatible. There may be other hard to predict behaviors on older versions
> of the client.
Hard to predict or not, you can't force people to run newer software.
> In order to avoid such wide fragmentation of "Bitcoin Core” node versions
> and to help there be a more predictable protocol improvement process, I
> consider it worth it to analyze introducing some planned obsolescence in
> each new version. In the last year we had 4 new versions so if each version
> is valid for about 1 year (52560 blocks) this may be a reasonable time frame
> for node operators to upgrade. If a node does not upgrade it will stop
> working instead of participating in the network with an outdated protocol
> version.
When you introduce anti-features like this in free software they can
be trivially removed and they likely will.
> These changes may also simplify the developer's jobs in some cases by
> avoiding them having to deal with ancient versions of the client.
There's a simpler solution for this which is what is being done now:
stop maintaining and giving support for older versions.
There's limited resources and developers are rarely interested in
fixing bugs for very old versions. Users shouldn't expect things to be
backported to old versions (if developers do it and there's enough
testing, there's no reason not to do more releases of old versions, it
is just rarely the case).
Jorge Timón [ARCHIVE] /
npub1fx…cl2d8
2023-06-07 17:54:58
in reply to nevent1q…8jmp
Author Public Key
npub1fx98zxt3lzspjs5f4msr0fxysx5euucm29ghysryju7vpc9j0jzqtcl2d8Published at
2023-06-07 17:54:58Event JSON
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"content": "📅 Original date posted:2016-12-15\n📝 Original message:On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 4:38 AM, Juan Garavaglia via bitcoin-dev\n\u003cbitcoin-dev at lists.linuxfoundation.org\u003e wrote:\n\u003e Older node versions may generate issues because some upgrades will make\n\u003e several of the nodes running older protocol versions obsolete and or\n\u003e incompatible. There may be other hard to predict behaviors on older versions\n\u003e of the client.\n\nHard to predict or not, you can't force people to run newer software.\n\n\u003e In order to avoid such wide fragmentation of \"Bitcoin Core” node versions\n\u003e and to help there be a more predictable protocol improvement process, I\n\u003e consider it worth it to analyze introducing some planned obsolescence in\n\u003e each new version. In the last year we had 4 new versions so if each version\n\u003e is valid for about 1 year (52560 blocks) this may be a reasonable time frame\n\u003e for node operators to upgrade. If a node does not upgrade it will stop\n\u003e working instead of participating in the network with an outdated protocol\n\u003e version.\n\nWhen you introduce anti-features like this in free software they can\nbe trivially removed and they likely will.\n\n\u003e These changes may also simplify the developer's jobs in some cases by\n\u003e avoiding them having to deal with ancient versions of the client.\n\nThere's a simpler solution for this which is what is being done now:\nstop maintaining and giving support for older versions.\nThere's limited resources and developers are rarely interested in\nfixing bugs for very old versions. Users shouldn't expect things to be\nbackported to old versions (if developers do it and there's enough\ntesting, there's no reason not to do more releases of old versions, it\nis just rarely the case).",
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