Ethereum developers discussed the possibility of holding hard forks every three months

A group of leading developers Ethereum held on Friday, April 12, a traditional video conference, during which the question was raised about the possibility of carrying out system updates of the platform every three months. This writes CoinDesk .

Such an idea emerged after one of the developers noted that some future proposals for updating Ethereum (EIP), for example, the implementation of storage rental fees, require numerous successive upgrades to achieve the full effect.

However, three months, according to some participants of the meeting, would be too short a period. About this, in particular, said the senior engineer of Consensys Joseph Delong, agreed with him and the head of the development department of the Ethereum Foundation Peter Siladi.

“If the task of the developer of software clients was only to implement hard forks, then three months would be fine, but clients usually need constant technical support. Therefore, if you start doing hard forks every three months, it will take all the time needed for technical support and increase productivity, ”he said.

Martin Holst Svend, head of security at the Ethereum Foundation, also agreed that it would be a bad idea to conduct hard forks every three months, but noted that certain simple changes that have unanimous support could be implemented faster.

“The idea is to see that function X is ready, there are test examples and it is implemented in all clients. If so, hardfork can be produced very quickly, ”he said.

CTO Parity Technologies, Fredrik Harrison, however, noted that even the six-month period set aside for the planned hard forks was never met. To speed up the implementation of updates, he said, it makes sense to automate some related processes.

Advisor Ethereum Foundation Greg Colvin also noted that the majority of teams at the moment simply do not have the right people who would deal with issues related to hard forks and first of all code testing. Fredrik Harrison commented on this, stating that the problem lies financially.

“We simply do not have enough money for it, ” said a spokesman for Parity.

Recall the last hardfork in the Ethereum network called Constantinople was carried out on February 28 . Shortly thereafter, the leading developers of Ethereum began to discuss the question of who will coordinate further hard forks of the platform. In all likelihood, this task will be assigned to several people at once.

The discussion about the need to coordinate further actions regarding upgrades was triggered by the decision of the release manager of Parity Technologies, Afri Schoedon, about leaving the community.

The next major network update called Istanbul is due to take place before the end of this year.

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