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4/4/2011: Gavin: "Satoshi and I might just unilaterally decide...So, we will be benevolent dictators." [audio] (BTC Price: 69 Cents) (econtalk.org)

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[–]Bidofthis[S] 11ポイント12ポイント  (0子コメント)

I found this old podcast doing research on a historical article I am writing. Looking forward to publishing this piece! -Brian P.S. Venue TBD. Was thinking CoinTelegraph or Bitcoin Magazine. Open to other venues I haven't published in (Brave New Coin?).

[–]Gallus 31ポイント32ポイント  (9子コメント)

Found this interesting as well (sorry for quoting something so old /u/gavinandresen), but remember this from 2011:

No, it's completely distributed at the moment. That will begin to change as we scale up. I don't want to oversell BitCoin. As we scale up there will be bumps along the way. I'm confident of it. Why? For example, as the volume of transactions come up--right now, I can run BitCoin on my personal computer and communicate over my DSL line; and I get every single transaction that's happening everywhere in the world. As we scale up, that won't be possible any more. If there are millions of bitcoin transactions happening every second, that will be a great problem for BitCoin to have--means it is very popular, very trusted--but obviously I won't be able to run it on my own personal computer. It will take dedicated fleets of computers with high-speed network interfaces, and that kind of big iron to actually do all that transaction processing. I'm confident that will happen and that will evolve. But right now all the people trying to generate bitcoins on their own computers and who like the fact that they can be a self-contained unit, I think they may not be so happy if BitCoin gets really big and they can no longer do that.

[–]AnonobreadII 4ポイント5ポイント  (2子コメント)

Salesman in TV ad: "... So, Sherri, that's what Bitcoin is: controlled by friendly, neighborhood Corporations in datacenters controlled by other Corporations you can trust to hold your best interests in mind."

Sherri the Shill: "So borderless. Wow."

[–]saddit42 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

it is about accessiblity.. shill..

the money burden alone is not enough to keep a controlled little circle of secret interests among data center operators..

[–]btcdrak 6ポイント7ポイント  (5子コメント)

Interesting find. It means Gavin has revised his opinion from then because these days he states bigger blocks wont affect decentralisation: http://gavinandresen.ninja/does-more-transactions-necessarily-mean-more-centralized

[–]mike_hearnMike Hearn - Bitcoin Expert 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

Since 2011 the software got a lot more optimised. The capacity one machine can handle went up a lot. Also, it became clear that Bitcoin isn't going to handle millions of transactions per second (most likely, ever). Even VISA doesn't do that much. So people started using more realistic targets. I remember in 2011 Bitcoin was growing so fast Gavin was worried that we'd need specially optimised proxies for SPV/mobile clients, because there'd be so many. Well, in the end Bitcoin didn't grow anywhere near as fast as that.

[–]twfry 4ポイント5ポイント  (2子コメント)

Gavin's position is entirely consistent here and the reasons why have been posted again and again. Too bad those explanations keep getting deleted. Maybe people in this reddit would learn something if it wasn't censored so heavily.

[–]anti-censorship 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

bitco.in/forum is not..

[–]cypherdoc2 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

That's the only way they can win: cheat.

[–]Diapolis -2ポイント-1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Would love to see /u/gavinandresen address this change of thinking.

[–]pluribusblanks 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

Question: What's the check on your benevolence?

Gavin: Everybody can see the code that changed; people could simply refuse to download the new version of the software. If not everybody downloads and uses the new software then the change doesn't happen because what people are actually running defines the rules.

This is such a great description of the 'power' that the developers actually have.

[–]muyuu 9ポイント10ポイント  (2子コメント)

He moved out of this in the build up to stepping down as lead Core dev, then seems to be back to this idea in the context of XT.

[–]randy-lawnmole 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Bet he wishes he'd fixed this block scaling problem, before handing over the reigns.

[–]b_coin 2ポイント3ポイント  (5子コメント)

Can anyone provide a soundcloud bite of the part where Gavin says this?

[–]Bidofthis[S] 5ポイント6ポイント  (1子コメント)

Q: What other ways are there for making decisions about what to add or not to the code? A: If there are kind of critical high-risk security things, on those kinds of things Satoshi and I might just unilaterally decide this is an important enough fix that we just need to do it. No discussion. So, we will be benevolent dictators. Q: What's the check on your benevolence? A: Everybody can see the code that changed; people could simply refuse to download the new version of the software. If not everybody downloads and uses the new software then the change doesn't happen because what people are actually running defines the rules.

[–]luke-jrLuke Dashjr - Bitcoin Expert 10ポイント11ポイント  (0子コメント)

For high-risk security things, this seems a lot more reasonable. I suggest not quoting this without that context...

[–]Bidofthis[S] 1ポイント2ポイント  (2子コメント)

there is a transcript on the website --- just do a search on benev

[–]b_coin 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

I just don't want to pay the paywall since they don't accept changetip. If someone posted a soundcloud or the link to the mp3 here I would give them a tip

[–]Bidofthis[S] 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

I didn't get paywall. Maybe there is a firewall based on IP/geographic location. You mind if I ask you are outside of states?

[–]BitcoinOdyssey 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Satoshi got things going as the inventor and dictator........and Gavin joined in.....and things have broadened even more since.

[–]seweso 10ポイント11ポイント  (9子コメント)

I have no problem if one person is some kind of dictator over one implementation of Bitcoin. I have a problem with people who think that Bitcoin IS that one implementation. That somehow dictatorship over one, is dictatorship over everything. Its asinine.

Do people really think everyone runs plain Bitcoin core? XT isn't some pandoras box which just now has been opened.

[–]stcalvert 6ポイント7ポイント  (3子コメント)

To be fair, XT represents something different than merely being a different Bitcoin client. It implements different consensus rules, which, when activated, will create a new chain.

[–]muyuu 1ポイント2ポイント  (2子コメント)

You cannot build a complete economic system upon a person or two. If something happens to them then you are fucked.

There is no problem with different implementations. In fact, there are several now, and BitcoinXT is not really one of them since it's based 99% on the same code. The problem is when different implementations (or forks with a few changes pushing vested interests) introduce real differences in the protocol with security repercussions, and even with possible fork-of-the-blockchain repercussions.

[–]mike_hearnMike Hearn - Bitcoin Expert 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

You can't have open source software and then claim that modifying certain functions is a problem. Either Bitcoin is open source and people can run whatever software they like, or it's not and everyone has to run the One True Implementation. Pick.

[–]muyuu 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

You keep on mixing up the software with the protocol and the blockchain. There STILL is no protocol foundation independent of the reference software, but as you know work is being done in this direction.

As things stand, yes it's a problem if a number of miners (or even enough nodes) start misbehaving. Misbehaving having many degrees from the downright malicious to simply ignoring or modifying implicit consensus.

Currently, Bitcoin still depends on coordinated development not to break down. We are not past that stage, and we've had many examples of this being undeniably the case.

I don't think I'm telling you something you don't know, so I wonder why do you keep banging that drum.

[–]optimists 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

I for one run btcsuite/btcd, a completely different implementation in a completely different language.

I agree with you that having one of the currently few but potentially many implentations acting as a reference implementation is a very bad situation but I come to the opposite conclusion of that. Imagine we have 100 implementations with 1% market share each. Imagine one implementation would change consensus rules. What would happen? The client would fail to sync and people would switch to another implementation.

A plethora of implementations is needed to prevent consensus change (or require a true 95+% consensus for it) not lobbying between 2 implementations to reach it.

[–]seweso 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Exactly! The protocol is what is shared. And without consensus you have nothing. So this isn't something where one can differ at all. But hard to predict how that will turn out. But at least its more decentralised, fits the spirit of bitcoin way better.

[–]i8e 6ポイント7ポイント  (0子コメント)

Gavin is free to "just decide", and he can release code without anyone permission that has some security fix not effecting consensus (as implied in the article). But anything he releases effecting consensus will be problematic if he doesn't have either miner support in the case of a soft fork or consensus in the case of a hard fork. Anyone running his code will be vulnerable to fake conf attacks.

[–]andyrowe 2ポイント3ポイント  (4子コメント)

A lot of decisions were benevolently dictated in the early years.

[–]luke-jrLuke Dashjr - Bitcoin Expert 10ポイント11ポイント  (3子コメント)

And Satoshi made a clear effort to put an end to that by giving over the reigns to multiple people (Gavin, Theymos, and Sirius).

[–]ciphera 1ポイント2ポイント  (2子コメント)

I wonder why Satoshi never gave part of that power to Mike. Perhaps he also thought Mike was obnoxious :P

[–]mike_hearnMike Hearn - Bitcoin Expert 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

He handed the Bitcoin Core code off to Gavin. I started doing development around the time Satoshi was starting to step back. I didn't release any open source code until a few months later. So it wouldn't have made sense for him to do that. Regardless we did communicate, and he said he hoped I'd continue with bitcoinj. He said people would switch to it when it was faster to download the block chain than the regular client, which is indeed what happened.

[–]smartfbrankings 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

We'll have to get a copy of Satoshi's magic emails that Mike has to find out.