Re: Reminder on the Purpose of BIPs

Re: Reminder on the Purpose of BIPs
2021-04-23 15:34 ` Antoine Riard

  2021-04-25 21:00     ` Luke Dashjr
  
From: Matt Corallo @ 2021-04-25 20:29 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Antoine Riard, Bitcoin Protocol Discussion, Luke Dashjr, Karl-Johan Alm

There appears to be some severe lack of understanding of the point of the BIP process here.

The BIP process exists to be a place for those in the Bitcoin development community (which includes anyone who wishes to 
participate in it!) to place specifications which may be important for others in the Bitcoin development community to 
see, to ensure interoperability.

It does not, should not, and has never existed to take any positions on...anything. It has always existed to allow those 
who wish to participate in the Bitcoin development community to publish proposed standards or deployed protocols, in 
whatever form the authors of the BIPs seem fit.

If anyone suggests changes with a BIP's proposed form in a way the original author does not agree with, they have always 
been free to, and should simply create a new BIP with their proposed form.

The BIP editor's role has always been, and should continue to be, to encourage BIP authors to respond to (either by 
dismissing or accepting) feedback on their BIPs, and encourage formatting in a standard form. The BIP editor's role has 
never included, and should not include, taking a stance on substantive changes to a BIP's contents - those are up to the 
author(s) of a BIP, and always have been.

If the BIP editor is deliberately refusing to accept changes which the author's approval (which appears to be occurring 
here), the broader development community (us) should either remove the BIP editor and replace them, or simply ignore the 
BIP repository entirely (which seems like the most likely outcome here). There really should be no debate over this 
point, and I'm not entirely sure why anyone would think there should be.

Luckily BIPs aren't really all that critical in this instance - they exist to communicate protocols for 
interoperability, and in this case the protocol changes as proposed have been broadly communicated already.

Still, given the apparent lack of desire to remove the BIP editor in this case, I'd suggest we all move on and simply 
ignore the BIP repository entirely. Simply sending notices of protocol systems to this mailing list is likely sufficient.

Matt

On 4/23/21 11:34, Antoine Riard via bitcoin-dev wrote:
> Hi Luke,
> 
> For the records and the subscribers of this list not following #bitcoin-core-dev, this mail follows a discussion which 
> did happen during yesterday irc meetings.
> Logs here : http://gnusha.org/bitcoin-core-dev/2021-04-22.log <http://gnusha.org/bitcoin-core-dev/2021-04-22.log>
> 
> I'll reiterate my opinion expressed during the meeting. If this proposal to extend the bip editorship membership doesn't 
> satisfy parties involved or anyone in the community, I'm strongly opposed to have the matter sliced by admins of the 
> Bitcoin github org. I believe that defect or uncertainty in the BIP Process shouldn't be solved by GH janitorial roles 
> and I think their roles don't bestow to intervene in case of loopholes. Further, you have far more contributors involved 
> in the BIP Process rather than only Bitcoin Core ones. FWIW, such precedent merits would be quite similar to lobby 
> directly GH staff...
> 
> Unless we harm Bitcoin users by not acting, I think we should always be respectful of procedural forms. And in the lack 
> of such forms, stay patient until a solution satisfy everyone.
> 
> I would recommend the BIP editorship, once extended or not, to move in its own repository in the future.
> 
> Cheers,
> Antoine
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Le jeu. 22 avr. 2021 à 22:09, Luke Dashjr via bitcoin-dev <bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org 
> <mailto:bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org>> a écrit :
> 
>     Unless there are objections, I intend to add Kalle Alm as a BIP editor to
>     assist in merging PRs into the bips git repo.
> 
>     Since there is no explicit process to adding BIP editors, IMO it should be
>     fine to use BIP 2's Process BIP progression:
> 
>      > A process BIP may change status from Draft to Active when it achieves
>      > rough consensus on the mailing list. Such a proposal is said to have
>      > rough consensus if it has been open to discussion on the development
>      > mailing list for at least one month, and no person maintains any
>      > unaddressed substantiated objections to it.
> 
>     A Process BIP could be opened for each new editor, but IMO that is
>     unnecessary. If anyone feels there is a need for a new Process BIP, we can go
>     that route, but there is prior precedent for BIP editors appointing new BIP
>     editors, so I think this should be fine.
> 
>     Please speak up soon if you disagree.
> 
>     Luke
>     _______________________________________________
>     bitcoin-dev mailing list
>     bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org <mailto:bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org>
>     https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
>     <https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev>
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> bitcoin-dev mailing list
> bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org
> https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
> 


 permalink raw reply	[|nested]
2021-04-25 20:29   ` [bitcoin-dev] Reminder on the Purpose of BIPs Matt Corallo

  2021-04-25 21:14       ` Matt Corallo
  2021-04-27 12:16       ` Jorge Timón
  
From: Luke Dashjr @ 2021-04-25 21:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Matt Corallo;  Bitcoin Protocol Discussion

On Sunday 25 April 2021 20:29:44 Matt Corallo wrote:
> If the BIP editor is deliberately refusing to accept changes which the
> author's approval (which appears to be occurring here),

It isn't. I am triaging BIPs PRs the same as I have for years, and will get to 
them all in due time, likely before the end of the month.

Rather, what we have going on is a few bad actors trying to misportray the 
BIPs as an approval process so they can pretend ST is somehow official, or 
that the preexisting Core+Taproot client is "breaking" the spec. And to 
further their agenda, they have been harassing me demanding special 
treatment.

I will not become an accomplice to this deception by giving special treatment, 
and will process the BIP PR neutrally according to the currently-defined BIP 
process.

Despite the continual harassment, I have even made two efforts to try to 
(fairly) make things faster, and have been obstructed both times by ST 
advocates. It appears they intend to paint me as "deliberately refusing" (to 
use your words) in order to try to put Bitcoin and the BIP process under 
their control, and abuse it in the same manner in which they abused Bitcoin 
Core's usual standards (by releasing ST without community consensus).

Luke


 permalink raw reply	[|nested]
2021-04-25 21:00     ` Luke Dashjr

  2021-04-25 21:22         ` Luke Dashjr
  2021-04-27 12:16       ` Jorge Timón
  
From: Matt Corallo @ 2021-04-25 21:14 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Luke Dashjr;  Bitcoin Protocol Discussion

On 4/25/21 17:00, Luke Dashjr wrote:
> On Sunday 25 April 2021 20:29:44 Matt Corallo wrote:
>> If the BIP editor is deliberately refusing to accept changes which the
>> author's approval (which appears to be occurring here),
> 
> It isn't. I am triaging BIPs PRs the same as I have for years, and will get to
> them all in due time, likely before the end of the month.

Please don't play dumb, it isn't a good look.

> Rather, what we have going on is a few bad actors trying to misportray the
> BIPs as an approval process so they can pretend ST is somehow official, or
> that the preexisting Core+Taproot client is "breaking" the spec. And to
> further their agenda, they have been harassing me demanding special
> treatment.

I'd be curious who is doing that, because obviously I'd agree that merging something in a BIP doesn't really have any 
special meaning. This, however, is a completely different topic from following the BIP process that you had a key hand 
in crafting.

> I will not become an accomplice to this deception by giving special treatment,
> and will process the BIP PR neutrally according to the currently-defined BIP
> process.

Again, please don't play dumb, no one watching believes this - you've been active on the BIP repo on numerous PRs and 
this has never in the past been the case.

> Despite the continual harassment, I have even made two efforts to try to
> (fairly) make things faster, and have been obstructed both times by ST
> advocates. It appears they intend to paint me as "deliberately refusing" (to
> use your words) in order to try to put Bitcoin and the BIP process under
> their control, and abuse it in the same manner in which they abused Bitcoin
> Core's usual standards (by releasing ST without community consensus).
> 
> Luke
> 


 permalink raw reply	[|nested]
2021-04-25 21:14       ` Matt Corallo

  2021-04-25 21:31           ` Matt Corallo
  
From: Luke Dashjr @ 2021-04-25 21:22 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Matt Corallo;  Bitcoin Protocol Discussion

On Sunday 25 April 2021 21:14:08 Matt Corallo wrote:
> On 4/25/21 17:00, Luke Dashjr wrote:
> > I will not become an accomplice to this deception by giving special
> > treatment, and will process the BIP PR neutrally according to the
> > currently-defined BIP process.
>
> Again, please don't play dumb, no one watching believes this - you've been
> active on the BIP repo on numerous PRs and this has never in the past been
> the case.

I started going through PRs a few days ago, in order of "Recently updated" on 
GitHub, starting with the least-recent following the last one I triaged a 
month ago that hasn't seen activity.. the same as I have been doing month 
after month prior to this.

If you don't believe me, feel free to look through the repo history.

Luke


 permalink raw reply	[|nested]
2021-04-25 21:22         ` Luke Dashjr

  2021-04-26 19:43             ` David A. Harding
  
From: Matt Corallo @ 2021-04-25 21:31 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Luke Dashjr;  Bitcoin Protocol Discussion

Alright, let's see...

Sorting by most recently updated...
https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pulls?page=1&q=is%3Apr+is%3Aopen+sort%3Aupdated-asc+updated%3A%3E2021-01-01

#1104 has been updated nearly daily for the past many weeks. You commented 12 days ago saying "Concept NACK" (which 
isn't a thing on BIPs - huh? they're author documents, as you're well aware), and nothing further.

#1105 which is less recently updated by one on the above list has a comment from you 19 hours ago.

I'm really not sure what playing dumb gets you, here. Its really transparent and isn't helpful in any way to anything.

In general, I think its time we all agree the BIP process has simply failed and move on. Luckily its not really all that 
critical and proposed protocol documents can be placed nearly anywhere with the same effect.

Matt

On 4/25/21 17:22, Luke Dashjr wrote:
> On Sunday 25 April 2021 21:14:08 Matt Corallo wrote:
>> On 4/25/21 17:00, Luke Dashjr wrote:
>>> I will not become an accomplice to this deception by giving special
>>> treatment, and will process the BIP PR neutrally according to the
>>> currently-defined BIP process.
>>
>> Again, please don't play dumb, no one watching believes this - you've been
>> active on the BIP repo on numerous PRs and this has never in the past been
>> the case.
> 
> I started going through PRs a few days ago, in order of "Recently updated" on
> GitHub, starting with the least-recent following the last one I triaged a
> month ago that hasn't seen activity.. the same as I have been doing month
> after month prior to this.
> 
> If you don't believe me, feel free to look through the repo history.
> 
> Luke
> 


 permalink raw reply	[|nested]
2021-04-25 21:31           ` Matt Corallo

  2021-04-26 20:04               ` Greg Maxwell
                                 ` (2 more replies)
  
From: David A. Harding @ 2021-04-26 19:43 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Matt Corallo, Bitcoin Protocol Discussion

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On Sun, Apr 25, 2021 at 05:31:50PM -0400, Matt Corallo via bitcoin-dev wrote:
> In general, I think its time we all agree the BIP process has simply failed
> and move on. Luckily its not really all that critical and proposed protocol
> documents can be placed nearly anywhere with the same effect.

I recommend:

1. We add additional BIP editors, starting with Kalle Alm (if there are
   no continuing significant objections).

2. We seek Luke Dashjr's resignation as BIPs editor.

3. We begin treating protocol documents outside the BIPs repository as
   first-class BIP documentation.

The first recommendation permits continued maintenance of existing BIPs
plus gives the additional maintainers an opportunity to rebuild the
credibility of the repository.

The second recommendation addresses the dissatisfaction of many BIP
authors and potential authors with the current editor, which I think
will discourage many of them from making additional significant
contributions to the repository.  It also seems to me to be a better use
of Luke's talents and interests for him to focus on protocol research
and review rather than procedurally checking whether a bunch of
documents are well formed.

The third recommendation provides an escape hatch for anyone, such as
Matt, who currently thinks the process has failed, or for anyone who
comes to that same conclusion in the future under a different editing
team.  My specific recommendations there are:

a. Anyone writing protocol documentation in the spirit of the BIP
   process can post their idea to this mailing list like we've always
   done and, when they've finished collecting initial feedback, they can
   assign themselves a unique decentralized identifier starting with
   "bip-".  They may also define a shorter alias that they encourage
   people to use in cases where the correct document can be inferred
   from context.  E.g.,

      bip-wuille-taproot (bip-taproot)
      bip-towns-versionbits-min-activation-height (bip-vbmah)
      bip-todd-harding-opt-in-replace-by-fee (bip-opt-in-rbf)

b. The author then publishes the document to any place they'd like, although
   they are strongly encouraged to make any document source available
   under an open license to ensure others can create their own
   modifications.

c. Implementations of BIPs, whether original repository BIPs or
   decentralized BIPs, link to the BIPs they implement to ensure
   researchers and developers can find the relevant protocol
   documentation.  E.g.,
   https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/fe5e495c31de47b0ec732b943db11fe345d874af/doc/bips.md

     (It may also be advisable for implementations to mirror copies of
     the BIPs they implement so later modifications to the document
     don't confuse anyone.  For this reason, extremely liberal
     licensing of BIP documents is encouraged.)

d. To help maintain quality and consistency between documentation, the
   BIP editors provide a BIP document template, guidelines similar to
   the existing BIP2, and an easy-to-run format linter.

I think this decentralized BIPs alternative also helps address some
longstanding problems with the BIPs system: that many casual Bitcoin
users and developers think of documents in the BIPs repo as
authoritative and that there are some development teams (such as for LN)
that have already abandoned the BIPs process because, in part, they want
complete control over their own documentation.  

The recommendations above were developed based on conversations I had
with a few stakeholders in the BIPs process, but I did not attempt a
comprehensive survey and I certainly don't claim to speak for anyone
else.  I hope the recommendations are satisfactory and I look forward to
your feedback.

Thanks,

-Dave

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 permalink raw reply	[|nested]
2021-04-26 19:43             ` David A. Harding

  2021-04-27 19:43                 ` Melvin Carvalho
  2021-04-27  9:04               ` W. J. van der Laan
  2021-04-27 11:33               ` John Newbery
  
From: Greg Maxwell @ 2021-04-26 20:04 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: David A. Harding, Bitcoin Protocol Discussion

I endorse Harding's recommendations.  On the point about mirroring,
one thing to keep in mind is that the other repositories may go
offline.

Modification confusion could be avoided by recording what revision
(commit hash) was current at the time of inclusion, but the document
going offline can only be protected against by maintaining a copy
somewhere.


On Mon, Apr 26, 2021 at 7:44 PM David A. Harding via bitcoin-dev
<bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
>
> On Sun, Apr 25, 2021 at 05:31:50PM -0400, Matt Corallo via bitcoin-dev wrote:
> > In general, I think its time we all agree the BIP process has simply failed
> > and move on. Luckily its not really all that critical and proposed protocol
> > documents can be placed nearly anywhere with the same effect.
>
> I recommend:
>
> 1. We add additional BIP editors, starting with Kalle Alm (if there are
>    no continuing significant objections).
>
> 2. We seek Luke Dashjr's resignation as BIPs editor.
>
> 3. We begin treating protocol documents outside the BIPs repository as
>    first-class BIP documentation.
>
> The first recommendation permits continued maintenance of existing BIPs
> plus gives the additional maintainers an opportunity to rebuild the
> credibility of the repository.
>
> The second recommendation addresses the dissatisfaction of many BIP
> authors and potential authors with the current editor, which I think
> will discourage many of them from making additional significant
> contributions to the repository.  It also seems to me to be a better use
> of Luke's talents and interests for him to focus on protocol research
> and review rather than procedurally checking whether a bunch of
> documents are well formed.
>
> The third recommendation provides an escape hatch for anyone, such as
> Matt, who currently thinks the process has failed, or for anyone who
> comes to that same conclusion in the future under a different editing
> team.  My specific recommendations there are:
>
> a. Anyone writing protocol documentation in the spirit of the BIP
>    process can post their idea to this mailing list like we've always
>    done and, when they've finished collecting initial feedback, they can
>    assign themselves a unique decentralized identifier starting with
>    "bip-".  They may also define a shorter alias that they encourage
>    people to use in cases where the correct document can be inferred
>    from context.  E.g.,
>
>       bip-wuille-taproot (bip-taproot)
>       bip-towns-versionbits-min-activation-height (bip-vbmah)
>       bip-todd-harding-opt-in-replace-by-fee (bip-opt-in-rbf)
>
> b. The author then publishes the document to any place they'd like, although
>    they are strongly encouraged to make any document source available
>    under an open license to ensure others can create their own
>    modifications.
>
> c. Implementations of BIPs, whether original repository BIPs or
>    decentralized BIPs, link to the BIPs they implement to ensure
>    researchers and developers can find the relevant protocol
>    documentation.  E.g.,
>    https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/fe5e495c31de47b0ec732b943db11fe345d874af/doc/bips.md
>
>      (It may also be advisable for implementations to mirror copies of
>      the BIPs they implement so later modifications to the document
>      don't confuse anyone.  For this reason, extremely liberal
>      licensing of BIP documents is encouraged.)
>
> d. To help maintain quality and consistency between documentation, the
>    BIP editors provide a BIP document template, guidelines similar to
>    the existing BIP2, and an easy-to-run format linter.
>
> I think this decentralized BIPs alternative also helps address some
> longstanding problems with the BIPs system: that many casual Bitcoin
> users and developers think of documents in the BIPs repo as
> authoritative and that there are some development teams (such as for LN)
> that have already abandoned the BIPs process because, in part, they want
> complete control over their own documentation.
>
> The recommendations above were developed based on conversations I had
> with a few stakeholders in the BIPs process, but I did not attempt a
> comprehensive survey and I certainly don't claim to speak for anyone
> else.  I hope the recommendations are satisfactory and I look forward to
> your feedback.
>
> Thanks,
>
> -Dave
> _______________________________________________
> bitcoin-dev mailing list
> bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org
> https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev


 permalink raw reply	[|nested]
2021-04-26 19:43             ` David A. Harding
  2021-04-26 20:04               ` Greg Maxwell

  2021-04-27 11:49                 ` Erik Aronesty
  2021-04-27 11:33               ` John Newbery
  
From: W. J. van der Laan @ 2021-04-27  9:04 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: David A. Harding, Bitcoin Protocol Discussion

On Monday, April 26th, 2021 at 9:43 PM, David A. Harding via bitcoin-dev <bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org> wrote:

> On Sun, Apr 25, 2021 at 05:31:50PM -0400, Matt Corallo via bitcoin-dev wrote:
>
> > In general, I think its time we all agree the BIP process has simply failed
> >
> > and move on. Luckily its not really all that critical and proposed protocol
> >
> > documents can be placed nearly anywhere with the same effect.
>

I like the idea of decentralizing the BIPs process. It is a historical artifact that the bips repository is part of the same organization that bitcoin core is part of. But there shouldn't be the perception that standardization is driven by that, or that there is any kind of (non-trivial) gatekeeping.

I understand where this perception is coming from, though. There being 111 PRs open at https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pulls indicates that there is some kind of bottleneck. I hope adding more BIP editors can mitigate this somewhat.

Though it also happens that the BIP author simply don't care about changes anymore and doesn't respond, in which case the PR lingers without any fault from the BIPs maintainer. So something is to be said of having the BIP repository mirror/aggregate author's own work trees, and changes needing to be proposed there instead of "upstream".

-W


 permalink raw reply	[|nested]
2021-04-26 19:43             ` David A. Harding
  2021-04-26 20:04               ` Greg Maxwell
  2021-04-27  9:04               ` W. J. van der Laan

  
From: John Newbery @ 2021-04-27 11:33 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Bitcoin Protocol Discussion

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ACK. These seem like very reasonable next steps.

On Mon, Apr 26, 2021 at 8:43 PM David A. Harding via bitcoin-dev <
bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org> wrote:

> On Sun, Apr 25, 2021 at 05:31:50PM -0400, Matt Corallo via bitcoin-dev
> wrote:
> > In general, I think its time we all agree the BIP process has simply
> failed
> > and move on. Luckily its not really all that critical and proposed
> protocol
> > documents can be placed nearly anywhere with the same effect.
>
> I recommend:
>
> 1. We add additional BIP editors, starting with Kalle Alm (if there are
>    no continuing significant objections).
>
> 2. We seek Luke Dashjr's resignation as BIPs editor.
>
> 3. We begin treating protocol documents outside the BIPs repository as
>    first-class BIP documentation.
>
> The first recommendation permits continued maintenance of existing BIPs
> plus gives the additional maintainers an opportunity to rebuild the
> credibility of the repository.
>
> The second recommendation addresses the dissatisfaction of many BIP
> authors and potential authors with the current editor, which I think
> will discourage many of them from making additional significant
> contributions to the repository.  It also seems to me to be a better use
> of Luke's talents and interests for him to focus on protocol research
> and review rather than procedurally checking whether a bunch of
> documents are well formed.
>
> The third recommendation provides an escape hatch for anyone, such as
> Matt, who currently thinks the process has failed, or for anyone who
> comes to that same conclusion in the future under a different editing
> team.  My specific recommendations there are:
>
> a. Anyone writing protocol documentation in the spirit of the BIP
>    process can post their idea to this mailing list like we've always
>    done and, when they've finished collecting initial feedback, they can
>    assign themselves a unique decentralized identifier starting with
>    "bip-".  They may also define a shorter alias that they encourage
>    people to use in cases where the correct document can be inferred
>    from context.  E.g.,
>
>       bip-wuille-taproot (bip-taproot)
>       bip-towns-versionbits-min-activation-height (bip-vbmah)
>       bip-todd-harding-opt-in-replace-by-fee (bip-opt-in-rbf)
>
> b. The author then publishes the document to any place they'd like,
> although
>    they are strongly encouraged to make any document source available
>    under an open license to ensure others can create their own
>    modifications.
>
> c. Implementations of BIPs, whether original repository BIPs or
>    decentralized BIPs, link to the BIPs they implement to ensure
>    researchers and developers can find the relevant protocol
>    documentation.  E.g.,
>
> https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/fe5e495c31de47b0ec732b943db11fe345d874af/doc/bips.md
>
>      (It may also be advisable for implementations to mirror copies of
>      the BIPs they implement so later modifications to the document
>      don't confuse anyone.  For this reason, extremely liberal
>      licensing of BIP documents is encouraged.)
>
> d. To help maintain quality and consistency between documentation, the
>    BIP editors provide a BIP document template, guidelines similar to
>    the existing BIP2, and an easy-to-run format linter.
>
> I think this decentralized BIPs alternative also helps address some
> longstanding problems with the BIPs system: that many casual Bitcoin
> users and developers think of documents in the BIPs repo as
> authoritative and that there are some development teams (such as for LN)
> that have already abandoned the BIPs process because, in part, they want
> complete control over their own documentation.
>
> The recommendations above were developed based on conversations I had
> with a few stakeholders in the BIPs process, but I did not attempt a
> comprehensive survey and I certainly don't claim to speak for anyone
> else.  I hope the recommendations are satisfactory and I look forward to
> your feedback.
>
> Thanks,
>
> -Dave
> _______________________________________________
> bitcoin-dev mailing list
> bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org
> https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
>

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 permalink raw reply	[|nested]
2021-04-27  9:04               ` W. J. van der Laan

  
From: Erik Aronesty @ 2021-04-27 11:49 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: W. J. van der Laan, Bitcoin Protocol Discussion

seems like this is solved by a workflow where a maintainer who
requests changes clearly tags every entry as "changes needed" or
"review requested",, and then the author can resolve/remove the tag
after the changes are made.

not sure PR's are the right tech here.

On Tue, Apr 27, 2021 at 6:28 AM W. J. van der Laan via bitcoin-dev
<bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
>
> On Monday, April 26th, 2021 at 9:43 PM, David A. Harding via bitcoin-dev <bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
>
> > On Sun, Apr 25, 2021 at 05:31:50PM -0400, Matt Corallo via bitcoin-dev wrote:
> >
> > > In general, I think its time we all agree the BIP process has simply failed
> > >
> > > and move on. Luckily its not really all that critical and proposed protocol
> > >
> > > documents can be placed nearly anywhere with the same effect.
> >
>
> I like the idea of decentralizing the BIPs process. It is a historical artifact that the bips repository is part of the same organization that bitcoin core is part of. But there shouldn't be the perception that standardization is driven by that, or that there is any kind of (non-trivial) gatekeeping.
>
> I understand where this perception is coming from, though. There being 111 PRs open at https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pulls indicates that there is some kind of bottleneck. I hope adding more BIP editors can mitigate this somewhat.
>
> Though it also happens that the BIP author simply don't care about changes anymore and doesn't respond, in which case the PR lingers without any fault from the BIPs maintainer. So something is to be said of having the BIP repository mirror/aggregate author's own work trees, and changes needing to be proposed there instead of "upstream".
>
> -W
> _______________________________________________
> bitcoin-dev mailing list
> bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org
> https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev


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2021-04-25 21:00     ` Luke Dashjr
  2021-04-25 21:14       ` Matt Corallo

  
From: Jorge Timón @ 2021-04-27 12:16 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Luke Dashjr, Bitcoin Protocol Discussion

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> Despite the continual harassment, I have even made two efforts to try to
> (fairly) make things faster, and have been obstructed both times by ST
> advocates. It appears they intend to paint me as "deliberately refusing"
> (to
> use your words) in order to try to put Bitcoin and the BIP process under
> their control, and abuse it in the same manner in which they abused
> Bitcoin
> Core's usual standards (by releasing ST without community consensus).
>

I haven'tpaying attention to the BIPs.
But I just want to say I agree it is the case that speed trial didn't have
consensus and had many good and logical arguments against it.
Sadly discussions around taproot activation I've been lacking logic and
having too many irrational arguments appealing to emotions.

I'm really disapointed at the community right now.
I'm sorry for luke and others defending lot=true (the whole point of bip8
anyway), but I feel ignored and frustrated when I try to participate in
these irrational debates.
I miss the rational debates here.

But if we're gping to turn this list into an irrational place, with ad
hominem fallacies and insults, I guess I can say my subjective personal
opinion about other people too.
I think it is you, Matt, who is playing dumb, not Luke.

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2021-04-26 20:04               ` Greg Maxwell

  
From: Melvin Carvalho @ 2021-04-27 19:43 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Greg Maxwell, Bitcoin Protocol Discussion

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On Mon, 26 Apr 2021 at 22:08, Greg Maxwell via bitcoin-dev <
bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org> wrote:

> I endorse Harding's recommendations.  On the point about mirroring,
> one thing to keep in mind is that the other repositories may go
> offline.
>
> Modification confusion could be avoided by recording what revision
> (commit hash) was current at the time of inclusion, but the document
> going offline can only be protected against by maintaining a copy
> somewhere.
>

One could partially solve the mirroring issue by giving each decentralized
BIP (optionally) a genesis transaction ID, that moved in time on the block
chain

This can be made to mirror / witness the evolution in git of the BIP using
git commit hashes (in time), and then matching those commit hashes in the
block chain by tweaking the public key address by the same amount (with no
change address)

What would occur then would be a genesis and current definitive HEAD of a
BIP, and the history it's gone through.  The whole history can be
reconstructed from any one transaction.  This is quite similar to Peter
Todd's single use seals, and the work done on RGB

Regarding commit trees going offline, they can be mirrored, hosted on
popular sites (github/gitlab) and it's natural that popular repos in git
are cloned

This also provides a little skin in the game and prevents some sybil
attacks, because you need to spend money on a TX

In this way whole BIPs can have a life cycle outside of any official body,
but also be assigned BIP numbers in the bitcoin repo

This mainly an informational idea, however, I have been working on some
code and early prototypes to do this, so feel free to message me off-list
if there's additional interest


>
>
> On Mon, Apr 26, 2021 at 7:44 PM David A. Harding via bitcoin-dev
> <bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
> >
> > On Sun, Apr 25, 2021 at 05:31:50PM -0400, Matt Corallo via bitcoin-dev
> wrote:
> > > In general, I think its time we all agree the BIP process has simply
> failed
> > > and move on. Luckily its not really all that critical and proposed
> protocol
> > > documents can be placed nearly anywhere with the same effect.
> >
> > I recommend:
> >
> > 1. We add additional BIP editors, starting with Kalle Alm (if there are
> >    no continuing significant objections).
> >
> > 2. We seek Luke Dashjr's resignation as BIPs editor.
> >
> > 3. We begin treating protocol documents outside the BIPs repository as
> >    first-class BIP documentation.
> >
> > The first recommendation permits continued maintenance of existing BIPs
> > plus gives the additional maintainers an opportunity to rebuild the
> > credibility of the repository.
> >
> > The second recommendation addresses the dissatisfaction of many BIP
> > authors and potential authors with the current editor, which I think
> > will discourage many of them from making additional significant
> > contributions to the repository.  It also seems to me to be a better use
> > of Luke's talents and interests for him to focus on protocol research
> > and review rather than procedurally checking whether a bunch of
> > documents are well formed.
> >
> > The third recommendation provides an escape hatch for anyone, such as
> > Matt, who currently thinks the process has failed, or for anyone who
> > comes to that same conclusion in the future under a different editing
> > team.  My specific recommendations there are:
> >
> > a. Anyone writing protocol documentation in the spirit of the BIP
> >    process can post their idea to this mailing list like we've always
> >    done and, when they've finished collecting initial feedback, they can
> >    assign themselves a unique decentralized identifier starting with
> >    "bip-".  They may also define a shorter alias that they encourage
> >    people to use in cases where the correct document can be inferred
> >    from context.  E.g.,
> >
> >       bip-wuille-taproot (bip-taproot)
> >       bip-towns-versionbits-min-activation-height (bip-vbmah)
> >       bip-todd-harding-opt-in-replace-by-fee (bip-opt-in-rbf)
> >
> > b. The author then publishes the document to any place they'd like,
> although
> >    they are strongly encouraged to make any document source available
> >    under an open license to ensure others can create their own
> >    modifications.
> >
> > c. Implementations of BIPs, whether original repository BIPs or
> >    decentralized BIPs, link to the BIPs they implement to ensure
> >    researchers and developers can find the relevant protocol
> >    documentation.  E.g.,
> >
> https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/fe5e495c31de47b0ec732b943db11fe345d874af/doc/bips.md
> >
> >      (It may also be advisable for implementations to mirror copies of
> >      the BIPs they implement so later modifications to the document
> >      don't confuse anyone.  For this reason, extremely liberal
> >      licensing of BIP documents is encouraged.)
> >
> > d. To help maintain quality and consistency between documentation, the
> >    BIP editors provide a BIP document template, guidelines similar to
> >    the existing BIP2, and an easy-to-run format linter.
> >
> > I think this decentralized BIPs alternative also helps address some
> > longstanding problems with the BIPs system: that many casual Bitcoin
> > users and developers think of documents in the BIPs repo as
> > authoritative and that there are some development teams (such as for LN)
> > that have already abandoned the BIPs process because, in part, they want
> > complete control over their own documentation.
> >
> > The recommendations above were developed based on conversations I had
> > with a few stakeholders in the BIPs process, but I did not attempt a
> > comprehensive survey and I certainly don't claim to speak for anyone
> > else.  I hope the recommendations are satisfactory and I look forward to
> > your feedback.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > -Dave
> > _______________________________________________
> > bitcoin-dev mailing list
> > bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org
> > https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
> _______________________________________________
> bitcoin-dev mailing list
> bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org
> https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
>

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From: Prayank @ 2021-09-15  9:50 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: laanwj;  Bitcoin Dev

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> I like the idea of decentralizing the BIPs process. It is a historical artifact that the bips repository is part of the same organization that bitcoin core is part of. But there shouldn't be the perception that standardization is driven by that, or that there is any kind of (non-trivial) gatekeeping.

I had suggested few changes in BIP process and repository yesterday. Meeting was disappointing because of few reasons: 

1.Its been 12 years since Bitcoin came in to existence and I am surprised that during such important conversations I still see only 4 people out of which 2 are maintainers.

2.None of the people who participated in meeting agree that we need to create multiple BIP directories and let people decide what works best for them. Reduce dependency on one repository or few people. At the end of the day these are just proposals, implementations are more important and there are so many ways to document things online, archive etc.

Playing ACK/NACK game in 'bitcoin/bips' repository will be a waste of time so I created this as an example:

https://github.com/prayank23/bips/blob/master/README.md

https://prayank23.github.io/bips/

I respect everyone involved in Bitcoin development however neither I trust anyone nor I expect anyone to trust me. Bitcoin is not just another open source software. Its a protocol for decentralized network which can be used to settle payments. We are trying to redefine MONEY, many cypherpunks, activists, hacktivists, privacy advocates etc. are involved and trying to separate money from state. The same money that is needed for almost everything you do in this world from birth to death, love to war and same money that makes some people more powerful. So, I won't be surprised with anything in future and will be prepared for everything.

-- 
Prayank

A3B1 E430 2298 178F

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