I understand that the Bitcoin network decentralized, however the code is maintained on Github, and therefore write-access to the codebase is very centralized. In what sense then is Bitcoin's development not centralized? Why does Bitcoin not have something like a DAO instead? #bitcoin #dao #asknostr
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In away I agree, but...
The code is open source. You can fork the repo and make any changes you like and host it anywhere you like. The on prerequisite is that the consensus rules are not broken and you're good to go. Build it and run it.
Sure, but that doesn't really address the issue. If the developers themselves are too centralized, they would be susceptible to capture and coercion, and this could undermine the integrity of the future code.
They can change the code on github but no one can change the code on my node except me.
The Bitcoin network relies on common rules; not common code. While you could argue that in all practicality, Bitcoin Core is *the* codebase with *the* developers that are *too centralized*, it doesn't have to stay that way. There are other forks of the codebase that comply with the same rules that have their own developers. Any code change that introduces an incompatibility with the existing network rules effectively forms a separate forked network. As such, a code change to the rules (captured, coerced, or otherwise) is only effective to the extent that network participants choose to accept it.