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by cx01 5535 days ago
Did you even read the Paxos Commit paper? There is no single arbitrator. And what is 'unknown state' intended to mean? The system will obviously always be in a known state. It will just block as long as there is no network connectivity.
1 comments

Yes, I did read it... "

In practice, it is not di±cult to construct an algorithm that, except dur- ing rare periods of network instability, selects a suitable unique leader among a majority of nonfaulty acceptors. Transient failure of the leader-selection algorithm is harmless, violating neither safety nor eventual progress. One algorithm for leader selection is presented by Aguilera et al. [1] "

" The algorithm satisfies Stability because once an RM receives a decision from a leader, it never changes its view of what value has been chosen "

Fundamentally, the idea is that the leader is the transactional arbitrator using the RM as the recorder of that transaction.