If the majority of the network does not like the softfork, followed by the hardfork idea proposed by Vitalik (because they feel like the solution is an assault on immutability of ETH or for some other reason) can it be forced on the network?
"The development community is proposing a soft fork, (with NO ROLLBACK; no transactions or blocks will be “reversed”) which will make any transactions that make any calls/callcodes/delegatecalls that execute code with code hash
0x7278d050619a624f84f51987149ddb439cdaadfba5966f7cfaea7ad44340a4ba
(ie. the DAO and children) lead to the transaction (not just the call, the transaction) being invalid, starting from block 1760000 (precise block number subject to change up until the point the code is released), preventing the ether from being withdrawn by the attacker past the 27-day window. This will later be followed up by a hard fork which will give token holders the ability to recover their ether."