RE: I submitted my first hardfork pull request to the Steem blockchain! (Updates to the SBD print rate.)
I'm so very excited to see development coming from outside of Steemit, inc. Well done, Tim! I'm really looking forward to reading about the details of your experience through this process. Though the code changes seem straightforward, I imagine the amount of time and effort that went into figuring out which nobs to tweak (and why) took quite some time.
I was wondering what your thoughts are about someday having a community or foundation owned "official" repo for STEEM? Something I've seen block.one do for EOS that impressed me was require the block producer candidates to figure something out on their own as the official repo. A whole group was formed with a token, voting, and everything to create governance around who can control that repo. Eventually, I'd like to see STEEM move in that direction so we could move forward with some changes without Steemit, inc being concerned about the liability while still being free to take upstream changes from them as needed.
Thanks for putting in the work on this.
Eventually it might be the right step to take, but definitely not now. We need a lot more people (outside of Steemit, Inc.) who know the code, understand how to work with it, and are in a position where they can determine what changes are good/bad before we could do something like that. (Baby steps.) It would be a great place to eventually end up though.
I'd be in favor of something like what @lukestokes suggested even now. Bear in mind nothing about creating governance for the repo means that the bulk of the work and decisions wouldn't continue to be made by Steemit employees. Any sensible governance system would vest those authorities and responsibilities with people having the necessary skill, experience, and expertise, and for now that is Steemit employees.
Of course, setting up something like that is a big project, couldn't happen instantly, and would require one or more people to take it on as a significant effort.
We have a model we can follow with what the EOS community is doing. It is a big undertaking, but a worthwhile one as well. Ideally, it should be done by non-witnesses to be as neutral as possible. The EOS example is done by those who have committed to not being block producers. I don't they'll be auditors either. For it to work well, it should be as independent as possible. Like anything in this space, if it doesn't provide value, it will ultimately be forked/ignored.
Agreed. We'd definitely don't want code changes being made to the official repo (regardless of who controls it) unless they are experts with the best interests of the whole ecosystem in mind.