Did Vitalik set a Gas limit for transactions? A detailed explanation of Ethereum's new proposal EIP-7983 and reflections on Open Source licenses.

In the context of uneven execution efficiency and resource scheduling pressure faced by the Ethereum Mainnet, the EIP-7983 proposal put forward by Vitalik Buterin and Toni Wahrstaetter has entered the community discussion phase. This proposal advocates for a hard gas limit of 16,777,216 gas for each transaction to enhance network stability and execution efficiency. This idea has already been explored in proposals such as EIP-7825, where developers attempt to introduce resource boundaries to lay the groundwork for modular development and performance optimization of Ethereum.

At the same time, Vitalik Buterin recently stated that he is re-evaluating his long-held preference for permissive software licenses and advocating for a broader adoption of the Copyleft licensing framework. He believes that the open-source ecosystem is entering a more competitive and centralized era. These two developments reflect Ethereum's deep thinking on technological evolution and ecological governance.

1. EIP-7983: Set Gas Limit for Ethereum Transactions

Currently, Ethereum allows a single transaction to theoretically use the entire block's gas. While this design is flexible, it may lead to issues such as resource concentration and uneven node load during transaction execution, affecting overall performance. EIP-7983 aims to limit the maximum gas usage for a single transaction to prevent any single transaction from consuming too many network resources. After setting a hard cap of 16,777,216 gas, transactions exceeding this limit will be rejected during block validation.

The core idea of this proposal is to set a limit that forces some oversized transactions to be split, thereby avoiding a single transaction from occupying too many resources. This restriction will not change the total gas capacity of the block, nor does it involve modifications to the consensus rules; it merely introduces a constraint during the transaction execution process. Based on this, if a transaction exceeds this limit before entering the block, it will be rejected during the verification phase.

For execution environments that rely on parallel computing, such as zero-knowledge virtual machines (zkVM) and future multi-threaded execution models, this limitation helps avoid extreme transactions from slowing down the entire block processing flow. In the logic of the execution layer, this limitation is closer to a "resource usage specification," allowing each transaction to be more evenly divided under the premise of unchanged total volume, facilitating overall scheduling and execution of the network.

The Actual Effects and Potential Issues of EIP-7983:

Setting a gas limit for single transactions, the EIP-7983 proposal aims to reduce the risk of denial of service (DoS) caused by extreme transactions while improving the overall predictability of the execution process. For the operating environment, this limit helps simplify validator execution logic and alleviates the pressure from centralized resource consumption.

The proposal has a certain alignment with the modular architecture that Ethereum is advancing, the integration of zkVM, and the L2 scaling path. As large transactions are forced to be split, this design is expected to enhance the underlying adaptability of Ethereum to parallel processing, further supporting a multi-layer computing architecture. From an implementation perspective, EIP-7983 does not involve changes to consensus rules or protocol layers, and the main impact is that clients, wallets, and development tools will need to update transaction construction and interface display methods to adapt to the new restriction logic.

However, the constraints of this proposal at the execution layer have also sparked some discussions. Certain advanced applications, such as contract deployment and complex DeFi operations, may therefore require additional transaction splits, leading to increased complexity in user interactions. Additionally, the differences in how gas is displayed and handled across different platforms may initially result in understanding costs and inconsistent usage. More critically, the denial of service attacks that this proposal addresses mainly occur during the transaction execution phase and are not directly related to the attack behavior of manipulating sorting using high gas transactions in the memory pool. Therefore, it is more inclined to limit resource overload on the node side rather than targeting all forms of network attacks.

Overall, EIP-7983 has practical significance in enhancing node execution stability and providing support for future parallel architectures; however, its scope is limited, and it still needs to be combined with other mechanisms to address the broader issue of network security.

II. Vitalik Buterin's Reflection on Open Source Licensing: From Permissive to "Attribution"

In a blog post published on July 7, Vitalik Buterin explained that historically he chose permissive licenses like MIT or CC0 because they allow anyone to use, modify, and redistribute the code with minimal restrictions, which is conducive to wider adoption. He believes that permissive licenses are practically the closest way to "no copyright at all," aligning with his belief that "sharing data or ideas should never be considered theft."

However, he now sees three major factors that are changing this consideration, and he is increasingly fond of the "Copyleft" approach:

Open source has become mainstream: Companies like Google, Microsoft, and Huawei not only use open source projects but also release significant projects under open source licenses. In this environment, copyright demands are no longer a major obstacle; instead, they can actively maintain openness by ensuring that large companies contribute improvements back to the community, which is particularly important for blockchain development and Web3 innovation.

Cultural Changes in the Crypto Industry: Buterin describes the crypto space as increasingly "competitive and profit-driven," with fewer projects open-sourcing their code purely out of ideology or good intentions. For cryptocurrency projects and decentralized applications (DApps), merely relying on loose permissions is no longer sufficient to ensure shared progress; there is a need for legally enforceable requirements to maintain it.

The economics argument for a centralized world: The third major factor driving Buterin's transformation is rooted in economic theory. Drawing on the views of radical market economist Glen Weyl, he argues that strict property rights in industries with *superlinear returns to scale (such as AI and cloud computing) lead to a concentration of power. He explains that if one participant's resources are double those of another and can produce more than double the output, this gap will compound over time, ultimately forming a monopoly. Buterin warns that these conditions, combined with rapid technological advancement and geopolitical instability, threaten to create a lasting and self-reinforcing power imbalance between corporations and states. He points out that some governments have enforced technology diffusion through policies, such as the EU's standardization mandates, China's technology transfer regulations, and the recent non-compete clause ban by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Zhuo Zuo Quan: Decentralized Technology Diffusion Solutions

Buterin believes that the implementation of layered rights in a neutral and decentralized manner achieves a similar technological diffusion goal: without favoring a specific party or top-down enforcement. It creates a vast resource pool of code (or other creative products) with the premise that any derivative results built upon this must be open source and shared.

The Way of Balance: Loose Permits Still Have Value

Buterin acknowledged that when maximizing widespread application is the primary goal, permissive licenses (such as MIT / Apache 2.0) still have their significance and are a valuable part of property rights. This may still be the preferred choice for smart contract libraries or blockchain protocol standards that hope to be widely integrated.

Suggestions for Developers and the Open Source Community

He urged developers and the open-source community to recognize that "the benefits of copyright in today's era are much greater than they were 15 years ago." The open-source community should seriously consider copyright as a mechanism to prevent excessive concentration of power (especially in the fields of foundational AI models and blockchain infrastructure), ensuring that the results of technological advancement remain inclusive and are not monopolized by a few giants.

Conclusion:

The EIP-7983 proposal reflects the community's concerns about network stability and execution efficiency, providing a potential solution for the execution and scalability of the Ethereum base layer. Vitalik Buterin's reflections on open-source licensing delve deeper into the core issue of how to ensure the openness and decentralization of technology in the age of AI and blockchain, avoiding excessive concentration of power. These two developments demonstrate Ethereum's ongoing efforts to evolve on both technical and philosophical levels.