You just described the current state of Core. Maintainers have openly admitted that they are for sale. It’s a tumor. Bitcoin Core needs a curative resection or it’s going to die.
It baffles me there are people that want any sizable portion of the bitcoin network running on knots. It isn't just about code review either. Knots has one dev/maintainer. This means you could potentially have one single dev with the ability to push out a code change that people running knots will blindly install upon new release.
Imagine if 50%+ of the bitcoin network were running Knots with one person having the ability to maintain the code of all those nodes. That is a scary proposition and it is insane to me that there are bitcoiners promoting that idea.
Imagine a backdoor in all those nodes or a breaking code change. Yes, many would catch the change and not push said new release to their nodes, but many would. Yes, it would very quickly become breaking news for all to urgently hear in the community. But that's not the point. That's not how you maintain the codebase for a multi-trillion dollar monetary network. You don't have one maintainer for a critical codebase like this.
It isn't one person "standing on the backs of giants." It is one person with control.
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Discussion
Even if your statement were accurate, the solution isn't to move to a fork that has only a single maintainer. If someone holds your opinion of the situation and promotes that as a solution, it outs them as being completely unserious about the problem at hand.
I trust Luke over the current cabal of scumbag shitcoiners. He’s proven his loyalty to the ethos. If more developers join knots your argument evaporates.
Luke had his own bitcoin stolen out from him with some pretty poor security practices and had his servers accessed by unauthorized attackers. Even if you trusted him as an individual, it is a ridiculous proposition to suggest running critical software maintained by this singular individual with this history.
Who stole it?
idk. FBI got involved with the investigation as well...which also got other developers doxxed as a result.
https://cryptonews.com/news/fbi-investigates-bitcoin-developer-event-linked-to-dashjr-hack/