IMHO Gavin has been pressurized by (private) business' interests such as Bitpay, Coinbase et al to push this (NYSE, CIA, and USgov too?!), but i am glad there is still some space to argue and not despotically rush into it.
I hear this thrown around a lot, but never seen any evidence for it. How has Bitpay/Coinbase pressured Gavin?
It's not unlikely that Gavin actually thinks this is a good idea and that's why he's working on it.
Im not saying this is what is happening, nor would i find any evidence about what is going on in one's head.
Just extrapolating that they may be a lot of forces driving or attempting to highjack bitcoin's development.
Capitalistic and private interest are likely playing their card on top of that, considering all the VC cash that has been thrown at bitcoin over the last couple years.
Besides it is proven that Bitpay, Coinbase and other exchanges are favoring the forking.
Anyhow, it also seems Gavin is on the edge here with this whole thing, putting his legitimacy and authority as Bitcoin lead dev at risk if people in the end refuses to cope with the forked software.
Interesting times..
But you have to look at the totality of the situatio.
Imo, Gavin is working from a much higher level of moral authority than gmax. He's employed by a non profit. Sure, he may be in the coinbase advisory board or something like that but unlike gmax he isn't CEO of a for profit company funded by a bunch of late comers who previously shunned Bitcoin.
I've got $21M that says I'm right.
Ah i missed the point about gmax being involved in blockstream..
What about Peter Todd?
Although affiliated to viacoin now, he seemed pretty foreseeing regarding that issue too: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=208200.0
https://twitter.com/petertoddbtc/status/557719826748440579