At the beginning of June, Bitcoin Core got a proposal to change an allegedly racist term. This process was approved and also executed in the most recent version of this software client. This Sunday, a developer and contributor to Bitcoin Core made corrections in the modified term to get a more substantial solution of this notable racist connotation of a term in the software.
The social networks exploded. This event led some Bitcoin Core developers to speak out and even motivated one of its most relevant collaborators to consider the possibility of leaving the project. The change occurred this way: The term ‘Blacklist’ now needs to be ‘Blocklist’, it was proposed on June 4 at the main initiative of a user without previous contributions on GitHub under the pseudonym TrentZ, in the Bitcoin Core test section.
The proposal was accepted without any objection and Bitcoin Core inserted the command FILE_CHARS_BLOCKLIST in the public code by the developer Marco Falke on June 9.
This command is an active part of the native Bitcoin Core testing software; it’s a code that can be executed by the user-´programmer and its mission is to verify the correctness in every operation the clients make. It’s a continuous process to check the client closely and continually.
The command does not affect the operation of the client or its nodes. It also creates a system of preventive actions between the interaction of users or wallets and the compatibility with the programming language that is currently running. Falke said that this change is not able to affect the client’s performance, the implementation of this change is very lineal and balanced, and this will avoid any political debate or heat up a reputation over the exchange.
Why politics ara affecting Bitcoin Code Development?
The developer and researcher Ben Verret, created a new change directed to the blocklist. Its current name is Disallowed, arguing that the name blocklist is too dual and might be misinterpreted, this is a very justified action.“We need to create a discussion about how easy can politics invade Bitcoin. The objective of having made this correction (pull request) was to prevent this from happening again in the future,”
The event generated good comments and receptivity among GitHub users; they left tons of arguments about this very hot topic that is invading all social media and professional and non-professional environments and spaces.
The validity of this discussion in different parts of the world also touches on Bitcoin Core, which is one of the foremost Bitcoin software clients.
Bitcoin Core developer could leave the project
In the morning hours today Wladimir Van der Laan, one of the most relevant developers in Bitcoin Core, stated that he would not continue collaborating with the project. “It sucks to see how many people act like a mob on a variable topic and then turn their hatred against Bitcoin Core. Apparently all the work done previously doesn’t count, and I’m definitely not getting paid enough to keep going”.
Until now, it has not been confirmed yet if its exit from Bitcoin Core has been finalized. Throughout this year, Bitcoin Core received the support and financing of various business groups, who brought its developers the juicy opportunity to dedicate themselves full time to this project.
A high-grade example of this is the case of developer Marko Falke which received a grant of $ 500,000 from the OkCoin exchange. On the other hand, developer Peter Wuille moved to Chaincode Labs after retiring from Blockstream, which is the pioneering company he helped found in 2014. Since then, he made major contributions and grateful changes to the Bitcoin Core code.
By: Jenson Nuñez.
