This is excellent:
The EIP repo is seen as a place where EIPs are drafted and kept as records. The hard-fork coordination process now is a separate process that passes EIPs “into law.”
Excellent job @EthCatHerders!
The EIP repo is seen as a place where EIPs are drafted and kept as records. The hard-fork coordination process now is a separate process that passes EIPs “into law.”
Excellent job @EthCatHerders!
https://twitter.com/EthCatHerders/status/1341459084990660610
Some background: past EIP-related "governance blowups" (such as ProgPoW) stemmed from a mis-use/mis-consideration of the EIP process by most. An EIP being moved to Accepted signaled to some that it was "official", where the reality is anything but.
By making this change to streamline the EIP process to Standardization-only, we remove the space for politics to derail important technical work in Ethereum. With this change, an EIP can move all the way to Final if it meets the technical requirements of the EIP process.
This means that an EIP in "Final" no longer means that's what "Ethereum" *is*, it simply means that's what it *could be* if the relevant (and purposely under-defined) political process of Ethereum bears fruit (i.e. client teams implement it, and it goes live in a network upgrade)
What most people care about who caused such heated arguments in the past is the *political* status quo is maintained, basically avoiding changes to certain "intangible qualities" the Ethereum community considers important.
An EIP is a record, meant to aid that discussion.
An EIP is a record, meant to aid that discussion.
The "political process" of Ethereum is much more difficult to follow, because there's no on-chain governance procedures (X% of tokens vote with Y% quorum by Z date). It's left purposely open-ended, to ensure that "governance capture" remains a difficult and time-consuming process
In my opinion, Ethereum acts as a sort of "representative democracy", with various "delegates" (e.g. node runners) of heterogeneous power in the ecosystem (e.g. miners, exchanges, API providers, etc.), belonging to a particular "political party" (e.g. Geth, OE, Nethereum, etc.)
That complex mish-mash of forces comes together to ultimately determine what "Ethereum politics" is.
Don't like what a client team is doing? Migrate from them, and ask others to do the same.
Don't like an exchange or mining pool is doing? Move your miners/funds to another locale
Don't like what a client team is doing? Migrate from them, and ask others to do the same.
Don't like an exchange or mining pool is doing? Move your miners/funds to another locale
Ethereum is an open network, an unlike on-chain governance systems, the ultimate political power isn't in how many tokens you own, it's in the "political energy" of various entities and personalities, earned from years of consistently growing a reputation in a difficult ecosystem
This might sound like it's very much replicating the systems we see as broken now, and to some degree it is, but relying on "political energy" is a much more robust solution to the problem than any token voting scheme one can devise.
Just look up "shareholder governance"
Just look up "shareholder governance"
It is still possible to build a reputation in Ethereum the old fashioned way: by building relationships and community, by doing important technical work that needs to get done, by educating and solving problems for others
It's hard, but worthwhile if you want to earn your place
It's hard, but worthwhile if you want to earn your place
Anyways, to tie it all back together, this is a major improvement to a process that many have called "fundamentally broken" over the years (it's not), and should lead to better outcomes by actually *reducing* the space for political conversation and forcing it to the right forums
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