Quote from: kiba on October 06, 2010, 01:09:04 AM

Quote from: jgarzik on October 04, 2010, 06:33:55 PM

Quote from: martin on October 04, 2010, 11:50:35 AM

No, it's incompatible if just a few people change their behaviour. To roll out a change to the network you need to get most of the clients understanding both the old and the new protocol, and then when you have a majority you turn on the new protocol.

You just described a whole-network upgrade. I'd call that an incompatible change

The effort to raise the transaction rate limit is the same as the effort to change the fundamental nature of bitcoins: convince the vast majority to upgrade.

If we upgrade now, we don't have to convince as much people later if the bitcoin economy continues to grow.

I agree, especially since generators are both the source of blocks and "votes" in the network. Since a block restriction would allow generators to charge higher transaction fees, they might "vote" against an increase in the max size in the future.

It seems unlikely to be a real problem though.