My confusion comes from the distinction between Steemit (the website), Steem (the core code which runs the blockchain), and the actual blockchain itself as decided on by the currently elected witnesses who are adding new blocks.
Steemit the website should be pretty clearly fully open source with no problems. I think that's the case, but someone please correct me if I'm wrong. The only concern there might be over protecting the brands controlled by "Steemit, Inc."
The Steemit blockchain is also pretty clearly "a thing." It can't just be changed. The only way to change it would be to git fork the Steem repo, then make hardfork changes within it to rewrite history (as was done when steemit got hacked).
So there's the rub. If git forks of the code which defines what the blockchain actually is are allowed then how are hardforks within that code controlled or not allowed? The witness decide on that. How can Steemit, Inc grant changes to the code which decides what the blockchain actually is without also (by definition) giving over control of the blockchain?
That's just my confusion with what is trying to be clarified here. I'm still on the fence about what the right choice is. I'm not a fan of Ethereum Classic and I think it's an example of dividing people's attention and resources. I could imagine many similar things happening here, so that leads me to think the license is in the best interest of the community for the short term. At the same time, I appreciate the very real and very serious systemic risk involved in putting so much trust in a group of humans to do the right thing when the entire point of cryptographic proofs, from a certain perspective, is to avoid having to trust anyone.
Where it stands right now (with no changes to the text) is that a member of the community cannot create a change that causes the current blockchain to fork, even if it has the support from a majority of the witnesses - unless it has written permission from Steemit, Inc.
What we want to change is allow any hardforks, so long as they are approved by a majority of the witnesses. (Even if Steemit, Inc. doesn't agree with the change - that doesn't matter if the change is adopted by the witnesses.)
What we don't want to allow is for someone to create STEEM2, STEEM_CLASSIC, or some other alternative fork along those lines that basically bypasses the current chain and its stakeholders to create a new chain/coin.
Speak for yourself. We the bloggers actually benefit from Steem2, Steem_Classic, if these technologies have significantly different features. And we are the source of all wealth on Steemit because the blockchain only have the wealth of human capital in the form of the people, the community. Why restrict the community in this way?
Evolution requires an ability to work. Even a government which would say no forks would be scary because it would leave no alternative for people who disagree.
Forks are allowed within the current chain under the proposed license change. The community has the ability to implement any changes they want, so long as they have support from the majority of witnesses, elected by the stakeholders.
following you've made the point nicely and it's time I get done with this thread :D
I personally do want to allow parallel forks. Competition drives innovation. But still my primary concern is the issue of witnesses being able to fork without written permission.
If it's just about changing the currency symbol or preventing a competing blockchain, I think that's covered in items 3 and 4. But thanks for clarifying. Seems to me, removing item 5 completely would accomplish what you want. It would also mean Steemit, Inc would be at the mercy of the witnesses. Steemit, Inc would have the legal power to create their own blockchain with new currency symbols, etc, etc but no one else.
That is basically the goal. The witnesses and the developers (official and unofficial) to push the platform forward based on consensus.
to actually lower the risk of not adopting new hardfork, Steemit would be incentivized to introduce a lot of small changes very often, rather than big ball of them once a quater.
That would cause that actually they will get feedback much quicker, and that is a secret to quick learning process and fast development.
There are social and engineering issues around why this (more frequent releases) doesn't work well.
Imagine you're an exchange. Do you want to be forced to reindex the blockchain and deal with burning time on sysadmin stuff every month for some coin that might not yield you a lot of volume yet?
More than 4-5 hardfork per year would really be pushing it. Also, we coordinate with the community to make sure that we are all headed in the right direction together, and these discussions about specifics don't happen overnight.
Seems slightly off topic, but still a good tip :)
Can't reply to @sneak,
I agree to the whole hardfork less, I think hardforks are always a tough decision so having even 4-5 is too much unless there are major flaws with everything, the transaction, the support, the witnesses, security, yeah 20 problems would require at least 4-5 forks to close.
BUT what @noisy has said is of benefit as a whole to a more engaged community, it works more towards the UI side(and the whole Steemit experience), but it could work for the forks too, imagine putting your hardfork ideas and actually debating them next time.
You have practically changed nothing out of everything you have announced, you proposed the changes and you are about to accept them, by yourselves, not only that but we are talking about licensing, so anybody that doesn't agree with you can just sod off, interesting, again as most laws it hurts the small fry's since the big ones won't care, if they want your code they will just get it, or they just copy it, reverse engineer it whatever. It's simple sure it will take somebody maybe 2-5-6 months to get to where you are so you are giving yourselves the advantage, but you are disregarding a least two-three positives, having a fully open source license puts you out there, on the field with everyone else, so you won't be a corporation, you will be in the rat race and maybe do as good as dash has, in terms of marketing and engagement( just guessing ), sure the tech here is better, but everything else is seriously lacking, no community engagement, no constant updates, no team to look up to, ok that last one is a minor one, you can pick up, but if somebody else quits, it's going to get serious, you just lost an advantage you had with a solid team and a healthy relationship, what else is there, the site gets changed slower than it takes for youtube to improve theirs, can't really connect to everyone, you don't have a nice search, categories are seriously lacking, I know it's beta but you practically have millions and thousands of users you are underutilising, imagine actually giving a paycheck to all the 100-200-300 designers and coders here for just 2-3 months, you will have practically the whole roadmap in the bag by that time, out of what, the inflation the coin has generated, fucking magic, please I hope you step your game up and dan was a problem for you guys or something, but please connect to the community, we need Public Relations, you have already created most of the infrastructure, let people use it and improve it. Sure maybe not now, but when steemit is the hub of link to comment please check :) I'm leaving the comment it's on steem price dropping but it's quite substantial and best reflects my current views.
I'm not a legal officer and the licensing concerns me only as far as how much it prohibits change, or how much it stifles innovation or when it stifles decentralization.
Comment is on steemit in general, the team and the current topic with the current issues surrounding the conversation. @ sneak again :) for the most part mr CTO maybe :D have you been promoted?
Kind of like GOLOS.IO is the Russian version of steemit (pretty cool for english speakers too) but they are not using the STEEM currency. They have their own currency called GOLOS, but if you visit their site it is basically steemit with mostly russian posts, has an #en tag section, and can tell the interface to be displayed in english, etc.
So that is an example of a Steemit, Inc. approved fork.
It might be worth to mention that @ned have supported Golos fork from the beginning, while lot of prominent community members were against it.
I suppose we have top thank him for that, he earned himself some praise for sure and the problems here weren't felt at least to me. Currently I think the best thing would be to develop the platform further and when communities are added, release it to the world after the beta is over, we can have different UI's different languages different coins but one steem :)
Sounds nice on paper, but I'm anxious to see if the team can make it happen, maybe there needs to at least 2-3 more steem fests by that time :D
and their name has to be cleared and spotless, if this is to reach @the.masses :D who were already here btw :D
So forks are impossible so what is the point? You've got another Facebook.
Under the spirit of what is being proposed, anyone in the community is allowed to create a fork for the current chain, and have a majority of witnesses pick it up without Steemit's approval. They are just not allowed to start up an entirely different chain to run in parallel.