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September 02, 2015, 05:36:36 AM

Someone many pages back linked the Gavin interview, https://youtu.be/B8l11q9hsJM

Pay special attention at roughly 1:14:40 , the first and maybe only interesting question, let me paraphrase:

Brian: "so, if this fork succeeds, how will decisions be made in the future?"

Gavin: "Mike Hearn will be the benevolent dictator, he will be the ultimate decision maker."

...

He goes on to explain how he does not want to be in complete control, nor do any of the devs that currently have commit ability, but he is completely happy and ok with Mike as the sole controller and decider. He even goes in to mention that future changes will be much easier and will happen much more quickly once this change is made.

I know XT is already dead, but I just wanted to point out to anyone that was still unconvinced that Gavin has been compromised... He is either completely brain dead, or he is deliberately trying to end bitcoin's function as a permissionless, censorship-proof means of storing and transmitting value.

This is silly. What makes you think that people couldn't just as easily fork away from Hearn's XT?

The Core/XT devs are not the Federal Reserve Board, they serve at the behest of the miners and the community. Forking or threatening to fork is the only relief valve on their power.

BTW I agree that 75% of the network moving to BIP101 seems very unlikely now, but my above point remains.

"The path of lost freedom is a gradual, slippery slope; whilst the recovery of such is a brutal hill to climb."



Software stagnates without strong leadership to force a decision.  However, the freedom to fork cannot and will not be eroded.  Just go to the githhub page and click fork.  Make the  change Hearn has rejected and rally the community behind it.

A code base needs a maintainer but that maintainer's position is only secure for as long as they have the backing of the community.  This is how open source works.