Earlier today, Mike Hearn swung by r/Bitcoin to comment on the latest Blocksize debate thread and announce that they won’t be forcing XT users to incoporate additional features aside from bigger blocks:
Once XT 0.11A is launched (which will include the biggerblocks patchset by Gavin and myself), there will be a separate git branch that is Core 0.11 + only those patches and nothing else.
Neither Hearn nor Gavin Andresen will be providing binaries for said branch, it will be available for anyone to compile if they so desire. This compromise will allow anyone to opt out of additional features without forcing the developers to invest additional time in rebranding and signing downloads for multiple platforms, a process that would have to be repeated of multiple patches in the future.
As mentioned above XT includes a multitude of other changes aside from Blockside that could also be considered controversial, which is why the developers are working on a manifesto that will launch alongside the new version and will lay out the principles they deem important going forward into further development.
Hearn took the opportunity to voice his concern that Core is being slowly “killed” by a lack of interest towards some principles voiced by Satoshi that aren’t considered important by its developers such as: lack of concern for lightweight wallets and unconfirmed transactions and building a polite and professional community (he holds Core’s community has impeded its advance due to their attitude). Another problem in his opinion is Core’s reluctance to tackle any fixes that could be deemed controversial by the community in part due to the mantainer’s personal stances.
Earlier, Gavin Andresen was proposed as mantainer for XT but was reluctant to take the position after stepping down from the equal role on Core. For the moment it’s been agreed that Hearn will continue to fill the position but will acquiesce to the implementations of other developers due to personal time constraints and Andresen will retain commit access to the XT repository in order to avoid bottlenecks.
