I said it. You don't have to ask "people", you can ask me.

What I'm saying is that I think that Bitcoin needs at least one other fully validating, mining and wallet capable implementation of the Bitcoin Protocol per current consensus rules. I will be of that opinion unless the repository bitcoin/bitcoin recovers from its current transition towards being a "place of work" from previously being "the staging area for the reference implementation".

I don't say this lightly because I have great respect for the people that have contributed there, and I have closely followed the work (as in line-by-line often) of many of them, some for over a decade. But the problem is that these people also included some that are now treated as undesirable, and even though I don't agree with much of what many of them say or do, I still think that moderating those people out (or calling them trolls, even if they call you worse names) is not something you'd do on the staging area, or outside of it, if you're the steward of that.

Inherently, Bitcoin Core downgrades from being the reference implementation to being an implementation. And although that sounds like semantics, the difference is huge from a protocol development point of view. In lieu of a full consensus spec, there needs to be a reference implementation, and this needs to be free of politics. It needs to be much more about the code and less about the people. And honestly, I've felt it used to be that way ever since Gavin's exit. But it's changing in the wrong direction and that sucks, even though I understand the motivation (see earlier discussion with Murch #966323.)

So if that development doesn't correct, there's imho a need for a repository that can host both Core and Knots devs and that can function as a place where the protocol is staged, for everyone; even the retards, trolls, elitists and sociopaths.