It absolutely does have a “monopoly” of what Bitcoin is. It’s not even a monopoly — it just is. Bitcoin Core is Bitcoin. Knots isn’t Bitcoin, it’s a Bitcoin flavored troll client.

No we really do need to scare people away from bad clients, or at least warn them of the risks. We have the benefit of hindsight. I saw the same with Bcash.

I haven't read the code, but I'm sure that Knots' latest version's code is way more similar to Core's latest version than Core's latest version to Bitcoin's code written during the Satoshi era.

So let's not scare people from running whatever software they deem appropriate. Calling Core "the one" doesn't give it magical properties.

And, again, I am not vouching for Knots. Solely stating that Core doesn't and shouldn't have a monopoly over what bitcoin is.

bitcoin

Other clients are a menace

ZezzebbulTheMysterious

Yes, all true. I don’t think this fundamentally changes that Bitcoin Core, the codebase today, is the codebase started by Satoshi and the one implementation of Bitcoin. If one wants to run a Bitcoin node, one runs the Satoshi client.