Nick Szabo  🔑

1/ I feel like we’re mixing things here. “Immutability” in the context of blockchains usually refers to immutability of the ledger, not the protocol.

2/ If you’re talking about ossifying the protocol, that’s a different question. Agreed with @byrongibson that at some point the protocol will get exponentially harder to change, once enough layers & vested interests have been built on top.

3/ This will happen to any blockchain with significant mass adoption.

4/ You can of course ignore the ossified protocol & keep adding your own stuff to it. But likely no one would want to use your custom protocol.

5/ Just look at how hard it is to upgrade the Internet Protocol. Many years ago, I worked for a telecom company & personally witnessed how painfully slow carriers move in terms of adopting IPv6- despite everyone knowing how much better IPv6 is.

6/ RE: Governance, if the protocol gets ossified, there’s less of a need for governance or BIP process. So in some sense, we *want* to ossify quickly, in order to avoid the governance mess. An ossified protocol is like Gold: it has fixed properties. No one can mess with it.

7/ Governance, then, is more important during the development of a protocol. In this regard, we can let different blockchains experiment with different governance processes, and let them duke it out.

8/ I’m of the opinion that BIP/OSS process is already adequate. When it comes to building infrastructure software, you want the most qualified people to make the decisions. It shouldn’t be a democracy.