Have we had too many Bitcoin forks as of late? Did Bitcoin Cash show that forking bitcoin is surprisingly easy?
Taking a look at the Lightning Bitcoin landing page HERE. You'll find some decent information including the intended DPoS consensus mechanism, and smart contracts. Among other protocol changes.
What sticks out the most for me is the faceless development team. Perhaps this is only a proof of concept at this stage? If no, where is the code? They intend to fork approximately the 23rd of December 2017. That's not far away. I'd assume there has to be a solid amount of development that has gone into the project to get this far.
To find out more about this announcement see news.bitcoin.com