But polls show that Gavin has a clear majority... its just certain core devs who object and not on technical grounds. And most of them are working for a single organization. How is that "hectoring a community"?
It isn't. Who said that?
There is a difference between "we need a hard fork to increase the block size" and "Gavin's plan is the way to do it, (which ever plan he settles upon)"
Most all the devs want a hard fork to increase block size. Very few are on board with Gavin's plan.
Anyhow, it looks like the Bitcoin Core hard fork will be more likely to progress from gmaxwell's BIP, and the XT fork from Gavins perhaps.
They may remain compatible until there is a block that one would process and the other wouldn't.
You can include me in that contingent: we do need a hard fork to increase the block size (and only for what that will achieve, buying time). Very few people are debating that now, and I myself have been aware of the scalability issue for almost as long as I've been interested in bitcoin.
Re: which designs will be implemented on which fork; I thought Gavin had decided against the hostile fork?