Developers of Ethereum (ETH), the world’s largest blockchain-based platform for building and deploying decentralized applications (dApps), are currently looking for technical specialists that would help them coordinate the next system-wide hard fork upgrades for Ethereum.
Last month, Ethereum core developer Afri Schoedon parted ways with the open-source project due to internal communication problems. Schoedon had been responsible for managing Ethereum’s hard fork updates, in addition to various other tasks related to the smart contract platform’s ongoing development.
In a March 2 meeting, Hudson Jameson, the Ethereum Foundation community relations manager, explained that the the role of Ethereum’s hard fork coordinator would involve “[determining] hard dates for submitting [ethereum improvement proposals] EIPs for consideration, deciding on those EIPs, implementation and testing and then finally what day the hard fork would be.”
Role Of “Ethereum Cat Herders”
Hudson also noted during the meeting call that the new coordinators “wouldn’t be a dictator in this regard, but they would be the one to come up with suggestions or different options to bring to the table.” According to discussions held during the meeting, Ethereum’s developers are planning to appoint between two to three specialists who would be tasked with managing internal communication and ensuring that future hard fork updates to Ethereum are handled effectively.
Jameson revealed that several individuals had already expressed an interest in providing support and that he was looking to appoint a select group of volunteers, called “Ethereum cat herders”, that would be tasked with interviewing and hiring hard fork (backwards incompatible) managers for the Ethereum blockchain.
Looking For Coordinators And Project Managers
Ethereum developers Lane Rettig, Schoedon, and Jameson had initially proposed the idea to create the Ethereum cat herders group (in January 2019). As noted by the developers, the group would be appointed to handle “the broader purpose of coordination and project management” within the Ethereum ecosystem.
Notably, the Ethereum blockchain went through two separate, near-simultaneous hard fork upgrades on February 28. This, after an attempt to update Ethereum failed in mid-January 2019 as Zurich, Switzerland-based cybersecurity firm, ChainSecurity found a critical smart contract vulnerability in Ethereum’s new code for the hard fork.
Currently, Ethereum’s developers are planning to make further changes to the Ethereum network through another upgrade called Istanbul, in addition to exploring possibilities of switching to a new type of ETH mining algorithm called Prog proof-of-work (PoW).
