Revising BIP 2 to expand editorial authority

Revising BIP 2 to expand editorial authority
2017-09-27 19:01 ` Bryan Bishop
  
From: Luke Dashjr @ 2017-09-27 18:56 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: bitcoin-dev

Many pull requests to the BIPs repository are spelling corrections or similar, 
which are obvious to merge. Currently, the BIP process requires the Author of 
the affected BIPs to ACK any changes, which seems inefficient and unnecessary 
for these kind of editorial fixes.

What do people think about modifying BIP 2 to allow editors to merge these 
kinds of changes without involving the Authors? Strictly speaking, BIP 2 
shouldn't be changed now that it is Active, but for such a minor revision, I 
think an exception is reasonable.

I've prepared a draft PR for BIP 2 here:
    https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/596

If you oppose this change, please say so within the next month.

Luke


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2017-09-27 18:56 [bitcoin-dev] Revising BIP 2 to expand editorial authority Luke Dashjr

  2017-09-27 20:20   ` Sjors Provoost
                     ` (2 more replies)
  
From: Bryan Bishop @ 2017-09-27 19:01 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Luke Dashjr, Bitcoin Protocol Discussion, Bryan Bishop

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On Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 1:56 PM, Luke Dashjr via bitcoin-dev <
bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org> wrote:

> What do people think about modifying BIP 2 to allow editors to merge these
> kinds of changes without involving the Authors? Strictly speaking, BIP 2
> shouldn't be changed now that it is Active, but for such a minor revision,
> I
> think an exception is reasonable.
>

Even minor revisions can not change the meaning of text. Changing a single
word can often have a strange impact on the meaning of the text. There
should be some amount of care exercised here. Maybe it would be okay as
long as edits are mentioned in the changelog at the bottom of each
document, or mention that the primary authors have not reviewed suggested
changes, or something as much; otherwise the reader might not be aware to
check revision history to see what's going on.

- Bryan
http://heybryan.org/
1 512 203 0507

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2017-09-27 18:56 [bitcoin-dev] Revising BIP 2 to expand editorial authority Luke Dashjr

  2017-09-27 20:20   ` 
                     ` 
  
From: Bryan Bishop @ 2017-09-27 19:01 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Luke Dashjr, Bitcoin Protocol Discussion, Bryan Bishop

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On Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 1:56 PM, Luke Dashjr via bitcoin-dev <
bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org> wrote:

> What do people think about modifying BIP 2 to allow editors to merge these
> kinds of changes without involving the Authors? Strictly speaking, BIP 2
> shouldn't be changed now that it is Active, but for such a minor revision,
> I
> think an exception is reasonable.
>

Even minor revisions can not change the meaning of text. Changing a single
word can often have a strange impact on the meaning of the text. There
should be some amount of care exercised here. Maybe it would be okay as
long as edits are mentioned in the changelog at the bottom of each
document, or mention that the primary authors have not reviewed suggested
changes, or something as much; otherwise the reader might not be aware to
check revision history to see what's going on.

- Bryan
http://heybryan.org/
1 512 203 0507

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2017-09-27 20:20   ` Sjors Provoost

  
From: Jean-Paul Kogelman @ 2017-09-27 21:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Sjors Provoost, Bitcoin Protocol Discussion

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Perhaps having authors consent to certain types of changes when they submit their BIP?


> On Sep 27, 2017, at 1:20 PM, Sjors Provoost via bitcoin-dev <bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
> 
> 
>> Op 27 sep. 2017, om 22:01 heeft Bryan Bishop via bitcoin-dev <bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org> het volgende geschreven:
>> 
>>> On Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 1:56 PM, Luke Dashjr via bitcoin-dev <bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
>>> What do people think about modifying BIP 2 to allow editors to merge these
>>> kinds of changes without involving the Authors? Strictly speaking, BIP 2
>>> shouldn't be changed now that it is Active, but for such a minor revision, I
>>> think an exception is reasonable.
>> 
>> Even minor revisions can not change the meaning of text. Changing a single word can often have a strange impact on the meaning of the text. There should be some amount of care exercised here. Maybe it would be okay as long as edits are mentioned in the changelog at the bottom of each document, or mention that the primary authors have not reviewed suggested changes, or something as much; otherwise the reader might not be aware to check revision history to see what's going on.
> 
> Perhaps it's enough to @mention authors in the PR and give them a week to object before merging?
> 
> Sjors
> _______________________________________________
> bitcoin-dev mailing list
> bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org
> https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev

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2017-09-27 19:01 ` Bryan Bishop
  2017-09-27 20:20   ` Sjors Provoost

  2017-09-29  1:52   ` Peter Todd
  
From: Christian Decker @ 2017-09-28 12:43 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Bryan Bishop, Bitcoin Protocol Discussion, Luke Dashjr

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Agreed, I think a sign-off mechanism might be desirable. Currently it must
be the original author(s) signing off, but we can probably widen that to be
any 2-3 community members. They'd basically be attesting that the meaning
did not change.

- cdecker

On Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 9:02 PM Bryan Bishop via bitcoin-dev <
bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org> wrote:

> On Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 1:56 PM, Luke Dashjr via bitcoin-dev <
> bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
>
>> What do people think about modifying BIP 2 to allow editors to merge these
>> kinds of changes without involving the Authors? Strictly speaking, BIP 2
>> shouldn't be changed now that it is Active, but for such a minor
>> revision, I
>> think an exception is reasonable.
>>
>
> Even minor revisions can not change the meaning of text. Changing a single
> word can often have a strange impact on the meaning of the text. There
> should be some amount of care exercised here. Maybe it would be okay as
> long as edits are mentioned in the changelog at the bottom of each
> document, or mention that the primary authors have not reviewed suggested
> changes, or something as much; otherwise the reader might not be aware to
> check revision history to see what's going on.
>
> - Bryan
> http://heybryan.org/
> 1 512 203 0507
> _______________________________________________
> bitcoin-dev mailing list
> bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org
> https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
>

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2017-09-27 19:01 ` Bryan Bishop
  2017-09-27 20:20   ` Sjors Provoost
  2017-09-28 12:43   ` Christian Decker

  
From: Peter Todd @ 2017-09-29  1:52 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Bryan Bishop, Bitcoin Protocol Discussion

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On Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 02:01:40PM -0500, Bryan Bishop via bitcoin-dev wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 1:56 PM, Luke Dashjr via bitcoin-dev <
> bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
> 
> > What do people think about modifying BIP 2 to allow editors to merge these
> > kinds of changes without involving the Authors? Strictly speaking, BIP 2
> > shouldn't be changed now that it is Active, but for such a minor revision,
> > I
> > think an exception is reasonable.
> >
> 
> Even minor revisions can not change the meaning of text. Changing a single
> word can often have a strange impact on the meaning of the text. There
> should be some amount of care exercised here. Maybe it would be okay as
> long as edits are mentioned in the changelog at the bottom of each
> document, or mention that the primary authors have not reviewed suggested
> changes, or something as much; otherwise the reader might not be aware to
> check revision history to see what's going on.

As part of this, we may want to say that the BIP editor should
cryptographically sign (and ideally timestamp) all their changes as a secondary
measure to make it clear who actually made the change.

-- 
https://petertodd.org 'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org

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