https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1020292 --- Comment #5 from Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@xxxxxxxxx> --- Bitcoin is part of a new category of software that relies on distributed consensus. The integrity of the entire system, the ability to secure money itself, relies on all nodes coming to a consensus on a timeline of transactions (block chain). Any part of the system which causes a deviation, however slight, in a hash-secured system will partition nodes away from the main network. In bitcoin's history, the database library has **already** played a role in causing the network consensus to fail: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BIP_50 To be specific, if Fedora's system leveldb is upgraded, that could partition nodes receiving the upgrade away from other nodes on the network, if a network-exposed database detail is present. It may seem counterintuitive, but for the sake of distributed consensus, we may even elect to _not_ upgrade a piece of code, thereby maintaining bug-for-bug compatibility with existing network nodes. Bitcoin is quite literally a new form of database, similar to Amazon Dynamo's "eventually consistent" distributed database. We need a special Fedora policy exception WRT system libraries, for this reason. It is standard distro policy to remove embedded libs, for very good reasons: an embedded zlib, for example, would not receive a bug fix that the system zlib will receive. Bitcoin is the opposite. We MUST be bug-for-bug compatible, and an upgrade of a system lib has the potential to break consensus. -- You are receiving this mail because: You are on the CC list for the bug. _______________________________________________ package-review mailing list package-review@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/package-review