This is a factor which has lead to
Ethereum software forks in the past.
Not exact matches
As Ryan suggests, the change will not be compatible with existing
ethereum software, meaning that the network will have to undergo a hard
fork to be implemented.
As
Ethereum's core developers and the majority of its community went ahead with the hard
fork, the minority that stayed behind and didn't upgrade their
software continued to mine what is now known as
Ethereum Classic (ETC).
The correction followed the widely anticipated release of the
Ethereum's new
software Homestead which brought some significant changes to the network, including the hard
fork protocol EIP - 2.
It is important to understand that in order for a successful hard
fork to occur on
Ethereum, all nodes must update their
software with a release that contains the block number as well as any agreed protocols.
A successful
ethereum hard
fork involves the entire community to work together to arrive at a consensus and then move to the new version of the
software.
Last year saw the launch of Masterchain, a
software built using a
fork of the
Ethereum blockchain.
A DAO is
software designed in certain way.The DAO hack was a result of a bug that left the door open for someone to exploit and as a result the
Ethereum community decided to hard
fork.
To add new features to
ethereum,
software changes are executed in the form of platform - wide upgrades (sometimes called hard
forks), but to get to this stage, proposals are subject to a rigorous acceptance process, consisting of roughly four steps: