By Ethereum community developers are currently on the hunt for a new specialist to assist in the coordination of significant software upgrades coming to the network.
Following the exit of core developer Afri Schoedan from the open-source project in late February, ethereum devs met on Friday to discuss the issue of who would fill Schoedan’s shoes in coordinating the upcoming hard forks. Schoedan departed last week following an outcry on social media after he made comments which favoured another blockchain project.
Hudson James, the Ethereum Foundation community relations manager stated that the role will consist of “[deciding] on hard dates for submitting [Ethereum Improvement Proposals] for consideration, deciding on those EIPs, implementation and testing and then finally what day the hard fork would be.”
Jameson added:
“Of course, they wouldn’t be a dictator in this regard, but they would be the one to come up with suggestions or different options to bring to the table.”
Instead of delegating this role to one person, core developers at ethereum have agreed that the role of hard fork coordination could be split between two or even three individuals.
Jameson went on to highlight that a number of potential people have already expressed interest and concluded that the task of assessing these applicants will be delegated to a group of ethereum volunteers dubbed the Ethereum Cat Herders.
Founded by developer Lane Rettig, Jameson and Schoedon in early January, it was created “for the broader purpose of coordination and project management” in the ethereum community.
ProgPow Audit Coordination:
Upon successfully completing two hard forks on Thursday, ethereum core devs now prepare for the next system-wide upgrade dubbed Instanbul and a possible new upgrade a new mining algorithm called ProgPow.
James stated in an update explaining that the blockchain testing platform WhiteBlock would oversee and conduct bench marking experiments which will compare the performance of various ethereum mining devices using the ProgPow algorithm. Also in the works is a second audit which will test whether specialized mining hardware can be built an deployed to fully utilize the ProgPow algorithm.
However, at this time, the Cat Herders have not finalized a company to oversee the second audit.
During Friday’s call, Jameson also stated that more than half the miners on the ethereum network which amounts to 55% exactly are in favour of the ProgPow algorithm according to stats from an ongoing “hashvote” from EtherChain, a blockchain analytics site.
Jameson explained that hashvotes are used to specifically target ETH miners on the network, who can use an extra data field during work on the network to vote whether they are in favour of the proposal or not.
However, Alexy Akhunov, a core dev pointed out that these results could depict a somewhat misrepresented interpretation of miner signalling, stating:
“There is another interpretation which could be useful of this 55 percent number…Essentially if those 55 percent who turned out all voted in favour that gives you essentially a lower bound on how many GPUs are currently mining in the network.”
Lastly, the comments divulge that discussions on the implementation of the proposal are currently still ongoing. What are your thoughts on the ethereum networks plan to employ more than one new coordinator in their efforts for system-wide upgrades?
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