How about not forking Bitcoin at all since this is not an imminent issue.
That's your opinion and you're welcome to it, but that doesn't mean you can stop people from proposing a fork. How about calling off the next general election because I disagree with a policy of one of the candidates? How about closing a restaurant because I don't like one of the dishes on their menu? How about we shut down the internet because I don't like a particular website? Your opinion doesn't trump everyone else's. It just doesn't work that way. At the end of the day, you have to allow people to make their own choices and that's what's going to happen whether you like it or not.
The majority of Bitcoin developers agree with this statement, the developer of XT decided to make his own version of Bitcoin so he could control Bitcoin's code without needing consent from anyone else.
Anyone can modify Bitcoin's code without needing permission from the core devs. It's called Open Source and it's one of the fundamental principles behind Bitcoin. Consent comes from the users securing the network, not the developers. If you want a closed source coin where a small number of developers make all the decisions and everyone is forced to use that code and only that code, what the hell are you even doing here?
The question is who decides which version gets published. So far i read bitcoin xt has by far not the protection that bitcoin core has. And it only makes sense that gavin is switching there when he thinks he cant get his will on bitcoin core. The only reason he would switch would be because he would know he would get his will with bitcoin xt. So all the theoretical security about bitcoin xt are only theoretical as long as the project can be decided by 2 developers. All the fans download the client and thats it.
Im still not sure what will happen when gaving and hearn would implement tainting in their client and many newbs got aware that some coins might be worth less than others. Or if bitcoin xt would really become THE chain. Would a bad thing implemented be possibly made rolled back in any circumstances without leaving bitcoin behind hurt?
If Bitcoin XT gets a majority, rest assured that there will be more than 2 developers contributing and reviewing code. Even if it's solely Hearn or Gavin that get commit access, every submission will get reviewed. If something controversial is committed, rest assured there will be a migration away from Bitcoin XT.
It doesn't matter if it's Bitcoin Core or XT or some other version - you're getting the same level of review unless developers leave the project and go work on Doge or something.
I see what you mean. Review
after the release might happen. Though that might mean that already alot of people downloaded the client and made transactions on, maybe a fork. Surely they could switch away but a potential harm might be done already.
You dont fear something like that happening at all?
On top of that, what do you think if a reasonable high amount of users think the bitcoin xt bitcoins are the one with value and the rest thinks it the unforked bitcoin core? When they are not compatible then you have copied a currency and both chains fans believe their coin is the real deal. Maybe even exchanges are undecided. You simply dont copy a currency and have double the value. So what do you think will happen?
Miners take months or more to upgrade and they are really the only ones who can fork the network - aka, create blocks that are rejected by other legitimate nodes. No, I'm not really concerned about the evil software upgrade that gets pushed out overnight and perhaps a few hundred users run. Hell, for a new user it takes nearly a day on modern hardware to get caught up with the full blockchain. There's very little damage that can be done short of a "steal your private keys and send them to FTP site" type of hack - and there's no fixing that. Put a gun to any of the core devs head and they'll push out a hacked version of Bitcoin Core - it's the other devs that review it, warn others and in the case of Core, roll back changes.
We're going to know long before we have a forked chain whether or not XT nodes have a clear majority. If they do, I don't imagine that the core devs are going to sit on their hands - they'll capitulate and this larger block controversy will go away. Alternatively, XT could fail to gain attraction and then it's not much of a concern.
This is a lot of handwringing over something important but that will ultimately be resolved smoothly.