Re: [bitcoin-dev] BIP process friction

[Michael Folkson via bitcoin-dev]

Thanks for this Peter, really helpful. 

> It is a much more fundamental
standard than Ordinals or Taproot Assets, in the sense that transaction
replacement is expected to be used by essentially all wallets as all wallets
have to deal with fee-rate fluctuations; I do not think that Ordinals or
Taproot assets are appropriate BIP material due to their niche use-case.

Yes I'd personally lean towards this view too. Certainly when you go into 
alternative asset territory (e.g. Counterparty, Liquid (Network) assets, 
Taproot assets) it is moving away from what you can do with the Bitcoin 
asset/currency and into building a new ecosystem with a different 
asset/currency. I would agree that that should probably be out of scope for 
*Bitcoin* Improvement Proposals without having any particular opinion on the 
utility of any of those ecosystems.

> just the other day I ran into someone
that didn't know RBF Rule #6 existed, which Core added on top of BIP-125, and
had made a mistake in their safety analysis of a protocol due to that.

I suspected this might be the case but to actually have a data point to back 
that up (beyond I personally find it unnecessarily confusing and hard to 
follow) is helpful, thanks.

> Finally, I think the lesson to be learned here is that mempool policy is 
> better
served by *living* documentation that gets updated to reflect the real world.
There's no easy way for someone to get up to speed on what mempool policy is
actually implemented, and more importantly, *why* it is implemented and what
trade-offs were made to get there. It's quite possible that this "living
documentation" requirement rules out the BIP process.

I get the "living", evolving point. Policy proposals are definitely different 
to say consensus proposals where assuming they are ever activated you'd expect 
them to stay static for the rest of Bitcoin's existence barring minor cleanups, 
clarifications etc. However, one possible addition in a new BIP 3 process would 
be the introduction of versioning for a particular BIP e.g. BIP 789 version 2 
which would be more conducive to these evolving proposals such as policy 
proposals. You could then update a BIP without needing a new BIP number for 
every material update.

I'll wait to hear what Luke thinks on this. Beyond the friction concern I think 
improving the BIP process for consensus and policy proposals would be the 
biggest potential win for a BIP 3 update.

Thanks also to Kalle too for his 18 month stint as a BIP editor :)

--
Michael Folkson
Email: michaelfolkson at protonmail.com
GPG: A2CF5D71603C92010659818D2A75D601B23FEE0F


Learn about Bitcoin: https://www.youtube.com/@portofbitcoin


On Thursday, 18 January 2024 at 18:00, Peter Todd  wrote:


> On Wed, Jan 17, 2024 at 05:29:48PM +, Michael Folkson via bitcoin-dev 
> wrote:
> 
> > Hey Luke
> > 
> > I'd be happy to pick up working on BIP 3 again ([0], [1]) in light of this 
> > issue and others that are repeatedly cropping up (e.g. confusion on the 
> > recommended flow for working on proposed consensus changes, when to open a 
> > pull request to bitcoin-inquisition, when to open a pull request to Core, 
> > when to include/exclude activation params etc).
> > 
> > I don't think there is much I personally disagree with you on with regards 
> > to BIPs but one issue where I do think there is disagreement is on whether 
> > proposed default policy changes can/should be BIPed.
> > 
> > I previously drafted this on proposed default policy changes [2]:
> > 
> > "To address problems such as pinning attacks on Lightning and multiparty 
> > protocols (e.g. vaults) there are and will continue to be draft proposals 
> > on changing the default policy rules in Bitcoin Core and/or alternative 
> > implementations. As these proposals are for default policy rules and not 
> > consensus rules there is absolutely no obligation for Bitcoin Core and/or 
> > alternative implementations to change their default policy rules nor users 
> > to run any particular policy rules (default or otherwise). The authors of 
> > these draft proposals are clearly recommending what they think the default 
> > policy rules should be and what policy rules users should run but it is 
> > merely a recommendation. There are a lot of moving parts, subtleties and 
> > complexities involved in designing default policy rules so any 
> > recommendation(s) to significantly upgrade default policy rules would 
> > benefit from being subject to a spec process. This would also aid the 
> > review of any policy related pull requests in Bitcoin Co
 re and/or alternative implementations. An interesting recent case study 
washttps://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/22665and Bitcoin Core not 
implementing the exact wording of BIP 125 RBF. In this case (for various 
reasons) as a response Bitcoin Core just removed references to BIP 125 and 
started documenting the replacement to BIP 125 rules in the Bitcoin Core repo 
instead. However, it is my view that 

Re: [bitcoin-dev] BIP process friction

[Karl-Johan Alm via bitcoin-dev]

Hello,

First off, apologies about my lack of participation. I am working on
mostly unrelated things and I'm afraid I have failed the community in
terms of what I can do on my end to keep the BIP process functional.

As such I am hereby resigning as BIP editor effective immediately.
Please remove my access privileges to the repository when possible.

-Kalle.

On Fri, 19 Jan 2024 at 09:46, Anthony Towns via bitcoin-dev
 wrote:
>
> On Thu, Jan 18, 2024 at 05:41:14AM -1000, David A. Harding via bitcoin-dev 
> wrote:
> > Question: is there a recommended way to produce a shorter identifier for
> > inline use in reading material?  For example, for proposal
> > BIN-2024-0001-000, I'm thinking:
> >
> > - BIN24-1 (references whatever the current version of the proposal is)
> > - BIN24-1.0 (references revision 0)
> >
> > I think that doesn't look too bad even if there are over 100 proposals a
> > year, with some of them getting into over a hundred revisions:
> >
> > - BIN24-123
> > - BIN24-123.123
>
> Having lived through y2k, two-digit years give me the ick, but otherwise
> sure.
>
> Cheers,
> aj, that's how the kids who didn't live through y2k say it, right?
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Re: [bitcoin-dev] BIP process friction

[Anthony Towns via bitcoin-dev]

On Thu, Jan 18, 2024 at 05:41:14AM -1000, David A. Harding via bitcoin-dev 
wrote:
> Question: is there a recommended way to produce a shorter identifier for
> inline use in reading material?  For example, for proposal
> BIN-2024-0001-000, I'm thinking:
> 
> - BIN24-1 (references whatever the current version of the proposal is)
> - BIN24-1.0 (references revision 0)
> 
> I think that doesn't look too bad even if there are over 100 proposals a
> year, with some of them getting into over a hundred revisions:
> 
> - BIN24-123
> - BIN24-123.123

Having lived through y2k, two-digit years give me the ick, but otherwise
sure.

Cheers,
aj, that's how the kids who didn't live through y2k say it, right?
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Re: [bitcoin-dev] BIP process friction

[Peter Todd via bitcoin-dev]

On Wed, Jan 17, 2024 at 05:29:48PM +, Michael Folkson via bitcoin-dev wrote:
> Hey Luke
> 
> I'd be happy to pick up working on BIP 3 again ([0], [1]) in light of this 
> issue and others that are repeatedly cropping up (e.g. confusion on the 
> recommended flow for working on proposed consensus changes, when to open a 
> pull request to bitcoin-inquisition, when to open a pull request to Core, 
> when to include/exclude activation params etc).
> 
> I don't think there is much I personally disagree with you on with regards to 
> BIPs but one issue where I do think there is disagreement is on whether 
> proposed default policy changes can/should be BIPed.
> 
> I previously drafted this on proposed default policy changes [2]:
> 
> "To address problems such as pinning attacks on Lightning and multiparty 
> protocols (e.g. vaults) there are and will continue to be draft proposals on 
> changing the default policy rules in Bitcoin Core and/or alternative 
> implementations. As these proposals are for default policy rules and **not** 
> consensus rules there is absolutely no obligation for Bitcoin Core and/or 
> alternative implementations to change their default policy rules nor users to 
> run any particular policy rules (default or otherwise). The authors of these 
> draft proposals are clearly recommending what they think the default policy 
> rules should be and what policy rules users should run but it is merely a 
> recommendation. There are a lot of moving parts, subtleties and complexities 
> involved in designing default policy rules so any recommendation(s) to 
> significantly upgrade default policy rules would benefit from being subject 
> to a spec process. This would also aid the review of any policy related pull 
> requests in Bitcoin Core and/or alternative implementations. An interesting 
> recent case study washttps://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/22665and Bitcoin 
> Core not implementing the exact wording of BIP 125 RBF. In this case (for 
> various reasons) as a response Bitcoin Core just removed references to BIP 
> 125 and started documenting the replacement to BIP 125 rules in the Bitcoin 
> Core repo instead. However, it is my view that recommendations for default 
> policy rules should be recommendations to all implementations, reviewed by 
> Lightning and multiparty protocol developers (not just Bitcoin Core) and 
> hence they would benefit from being standardized and being subject to a 
> specification process. I will reiterate once again though that policy rules 
> are **not** consensus rules. Consensus rules are much closer to an obligation 
> as divergences from consensus rules risk the user being forked off the 
> blockchain and could ultimately end up in network splits. This does not apply 
> to policy rules."
> 
> Are you open to adjusting your stance on proposed policy changes being BIPed? 
> I do think it really stunts work on proposed default policy changes and 
> people's ability to follow work on these proposals when the specifications 
> for them are littered all over the place. I've certainly struggled to follow 
> the latest state of V3 policy proposals without clear reference points for 
> the latest state of these proposals e.g. [3]. In addition some proposed 
> consensus change BIPs are starting to want to include sections on policy 
> (e.g. BIP345, OP_VAULT [4]) where it would be much better if they could just 
> refer to a separate policy BIP rather than including proposals for both 
> policy and consensus in the same BIP.

BIP-125 is I think an interesting case study. It is a much more fundamental
standard than Ordinals or Taproot Assets, in the sense that transaction
replacement is expected to be used by essentially all wallets as all wallets
have to deal with fee-rate fluctuations; I do not think that Ordinals or
Taproot assets are appropriate BIP material due to their niche use-case.

The V3 proposal, and ephemeral anchors, would be expected to be used by a wide
range of contracting protocols, most notably lightning. This isn't quite as
broad usage as BIP-124 RBF. But it is close. And yes, Core making changes to
what is essentially BIP125 has an impact: just the other day I ran into someone
that didn't know RBF Rule #6 existed, which Core added on top of BIP-125, and
had made a mistake in their safety analysis of a protocol due to that.

Meanwhile, engineering documentation on V3 is extremely lacking, with basics
like worked through use-case examples not being available. We don't even have
solid agreement let alone documentation on how Lightning channels are meant to
use V3 transactions and what the trade-offs are. And that has lead to mistaken
claims, such as overstating(1) the benefit V3 transactions in their current
form have for transaction pinning.

I don't think V3 necessarily needs a formal BIP. But it would benefit from a
proper engineering process where use-cases are actually worked out and analyzed
properly.

Finally, I think the lesson to be 

Re: [bitcoin-dev] BIP process friction

[Peter Todd via bitcoin-dev]

On Thu, Jan 18, 2024 at 04:47:33PM +, alicexbt via bitcoin-dev wrote:
> Hi AJ,
> 
> I like the idea and agree with everything you shared in the email except one 
> thing:
> 
> > So I'm switching inquisition over to having a dedicated "IANA"-ish
> > thing that's independent of BIP process nonsense. It's at:
> > 
> > * https://github.com/bitcoin-inquisition/binana
> 
> I think "authority" is a strong word especially in bitcoin and this process 
> could even work with BINN (Bitcoin Inquisition Numbers And Names). IANA (a 
> function of ICANN) is different thing altogether which was founded by US 
> government.

Bitcoin Inquisition is based on signet, which is a centralized blockchain for
testing run by a central authority whose consensus is based on signatures from
that authority. Using the term "authority" in this context is fine.

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


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Re: [bitcoin-dev] BIP process friction

[alicexbt via bitcoin-dev]

Hi AJ,

I like the idea and agree with everything you shared in the email except one 
thing:

> So I'm switching inquisition over to having a dedicated "IANA"-ish
> thing that's independent of BIP process nonsense. It's at:
> 
> * https://github.com/bitcoin-inquisition/binana

I think "authority" is a strong word especially in bitcoin and this process 
could even work with BINN (Bitcoin Inquisition Numbers And Names). IANA (a 
function of ICANN) is different thing altogether which was founded by US 
government.

/dev/fd0
floppy disk guy

Sent with Proton Mail secure email.

On Wednesday, January 17th, 2024 at 2:42 AM, Anthony Towns via bitcoin-dev 
 wrote:


> Hi all,
> 
> Just under three years ago there was some discussion about the BIPs repo,
> with the result that Kalle became a BIPs editor in addition to Luke, eg:
> 
> * https://gnusha.org/bitcoin-core-dev/2021-04-22.log
> * 
> https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2021-April/018859.html
> 
> It remains, however, quite hard to get BIPs merged into the repo, eg
> the following PRs have been open for quite some time:
> 
> * #1408: Ordinal Numbers; opened 2023-01-21, editors comments:
> Kalle:
> https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/1408#issuecomment-1421641390
> https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/1408#issuecomment-1435389476
> 
> Luke:
> https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/1408#issuecomment-1429146796
> https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/1408#issuecomment-1438831607
> https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/1408#issuecomment-1465016571
> 
> * #1489: Taproot Assets Protocol; opened 2023-09-07, editors comments:
> Kalle: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/1489#issuecomment-1855079626
> Luke: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/1489#issuecomment-1869721535j
> 
> * #1500: OP_TXHASH; opened 2023-09-30, editors comments:
> Luke:
> https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/1500#pullrequestreview-1796550166
> https://twitter.com/LukeDashjr/status/1735701932520382839
> 
> The range of acceptable BIPs seems to also be becoming more limited,
> such that mempool/relay policy is out of scope:
> 
> * https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/1524#issuecomment-1869734387
> 
> Despite having two editors, only Luke seems to be able to assign new
> numbers to BIPs, eg:
> 
> * https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/1458#issuecomment-1597917780
> 
> There's also been some not very productive delays due to the editors
> wanting backwards compatibility sections even if authors don't think
> that's necessary, eg:
> 
> * https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/1372#issuecomment-1439132867
> 
> Even working out whether to go back to allowing markdown as a text format
> is a multi-month slog due to process confusion:
> 
> * https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/1504
> 
> Anyway, while it's not totally dysfunctional, it's very high friction.
> 
> There are a variety of recent proposals that have PRs open against
> inquisition; up until now I've been suggesting people write a BIP, and
> have been keying off the BIP number to signal activation. But that just
> seems to be introducing friction, when all I need is a way of linking
> an arbitrary number to a spec.
> 
> So I'm switching inquisition over to having a dedicated "IANA"-ish
> thing that's independent of BIP process nonsense. It's at:
> 
> * https://github.com/bitcoin-inquisition/binana
> 
> If people want to use it for bitcoin-related proposals that don't have
> anything to do with inquisition, that's fine; I'm intending to apply the
> policies I think the BIPs repo should be using, so feel free to open a PR,
> even if you already know I think your idea is BS on its merits. If someone
> wants to write an automatic-merge-bot for me, that'd also be great.
> 
> If someone wants to reform the BIPs repo itself so it works better,
> that'd be even better, but I'm not volunteering for that fight.
> 
> Cheers,
> aj
> 
> (It's called "numbers and names" primarily because that way the acronym
> amuses me, but also in case inquisition eventually needs an authoritative
> dictionary for what "cat" or "txhash" or similar terms refer to)
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Re: [bitcoin-dev] BIP process friction

[David A. Harding via bitcoin-dev]

On 2024-01-16 16:42, Anthony Towns via bitcoin-dev wrote:

I'm switching inquisition over to having a dedicated "IANA"-ish
thing that's independent of BIP process nonsense. It's at:

 * https://github.com/bitcoin-inquisition/binana

If people want to use it for bitcoin-related proposals that don't have
anything to do with inquisition, that's fine


Thank you for doing this!

Question: is there a recommended way to produce a shorter identifier for 
inline use in reading material?  For example, for proposal 
BIN-2024-0001-000, I'm thinking:


- BIN24-1 (references whatever the current version of the proposal is)
- BIN24-1.0 (references revision 0)

I think that doesn't look too bad even if there are over 100 proposals a 
year, with some of them getting into over a hundred revisions:


- BIN24-123
- BIN24-123.123

Rationale:

- Using "BIN" for both full-length and shortened versions makes it 
explicit which document set we're talking about


- Eliminating the first dash losslessly saves space and reduces visual 
clutter


- Shortening a four-digit year to two digits works for the next 75 
years.  Adding more digits as necessary after that won't produce any 
ambiguity


- Although I'd like to eliminate the second dash, and it wouldn't 
introduce any ambiguity in machine parsing for the next 175 years, I 
think it would lead to people interpreting numbers incorrectly.  E.g., 
"BIN241" would be read "BIN two-hundred fourty-one" instead of a more 
desirable "BIN twenty-four dash one"


- Eliminating prefix zeroes in the proposal and revision numbers 
losslessly saves space and reduces visual clutter


- A decimal point between the proposal number and revision number 
creates less visual clutter than the third dash and still conveys the 
intended meaning


- Overall, for the typical case I'd expect---BIN proposals numbered 1-99 
with no mention of revision---this produces strings only one or two or 
characters longer than a typical modern BIP number in shortened format, 
e.g. BIN24-12 versus BIP123.


Thoughts?

-Dave
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Re: [bitcoin-dev] BIP process friction

[Michael Folkson via bitcoin-dev]

Hey Luke

I'd be happy to pick up working on BIP 3 again ([0], [1]) in light of this 
issue and others that are repeatedly cropping up (e.g. confusion on the 
recommended flow for working on proposed consensus changes, when to open a pull 
request to bitcoin-inquisition, when to open a pull request to Core, when to 
include/exclude activation params etc).

I don't think there is much I personally disagree with you on with regards to 
BIPs but one issue where I do think there is disagreement is on whether 
proposed default policy changes can/should be BIPed.

I previously drafted this on proposed default policy changes [2]:

"To address problems such as pinning attacks on Lightning and multiparty 
protocols (e.g. vaults) there are and will continue to be draft proposals on 
changing the default policy rules in Bitcoin Core and/or alternative 
implementations. As these proposals are for default policy rules and **not** 
consensus rules there is absolutely no obligation for Bitcoin Core and/or 
alternative implementations to change their default policy rules nor users to 
run any particular policy rules (default or otherwise). The authors of these 
draft proposals are clearly recommending what they think the default policy 
rules should be and what policy rules users should run but it is merely a 
recommendation. There are a lot of moving parts, subtleties and complexities 
involved in designing default policy rules so any recommendation(s) to 
significantly upgrade default policy rules would benefit from being subject to 
a spec process. This would also aid the review of any policy related pull 
requests in Bitcoin Core and/or alternative implementations. An interesting 
recent case study washttps://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/22665and Bitcoin 
Core not implementing the exact wording of BIP 125 RBF. In this case (for 
various reasons) as a response Bitcoin Core just removed references to BIP 125 
and started documenting the replacement to BIP 125 rules in the Bitcoin Core 
repo instead. However, it is my view that recommendations for default policy 
rules should be recommendations to all implementations, reviewed by Lightning 
and multiparty protocol developers (not just Bitcoin Core) and hence they would 
benefit from being standardized and being subject to a specification process. I 
will reiterate once again though that policy rules are **not** consensus rules. 
Consensus rules are much closer to an obligation as divergences from consensus 
rules risk the user being forked off the blockchain and could ultimately end up 
in network splits. This does not apply to policy rules."

Are you open to adjusting your stance on proposed policy changes being BIPed? I 
do think it really stunts work on proposed default policy changes and people's 
ability to follow work on these proposals when the specifications for them are 
littered all over the place. I've certainly struggled to follow the latest 
state of V3 policy proposals without clear reference points for the latest 
state of these proposals e.g. [3]. In addition some proposed consensus change 
BIPs are starting to want to include sections on policy (e.g. BIP345, OP_VAULT 
[4]) where it would be much better if they could just refer to a separate 
policy BIP rather than including proposals for both policy and consensus in the 
same BIP.

Thanks for your long and continued work on the BIP process. It is thankless 
work and we don't see the alternative futures where all sorts of garbage was 
merged and given BIP numbers because the BIP editors just merged everything 
without looking at it and not caring about quality standards.

Thanks
Michael

[0]: 
https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2021-September/019412.html
[1]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/wiki/BIP-Process-wishlist
[2]: 
https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/wiki/BIP-Process-wishlist#default-policy-changes-eg-v3-a-recommendation-but-not-an-obligation-for-bitcoin-implementations
[3]: 
https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/117315/what-and-where-are-the-current-status-of-the-bip-125-replacement-the-v3-policy
[4]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/1421

--
Michael Folkson
Email: michaelfolkson at [protonmail.com](http://protonmail.com/)
GPG: A2CF5D71603C92010659818D2A75D601B23FEE0F

Learn about Bitcoin: https://www.youtube.com/@portofbitcoin

On Wednesday, 17 January 2024 at 16:45, Luke Dashjr via bitcoin-dev 
 wrote:

> Perhaps a BIP 3 is in order, but most of the real issue is simply a matter of 
> volunteer time.
>
> AJ's attempt to conflate that with his own personal disagreements with how 
> BIPs have always worked, is unrelated.
>
> Luke
>
> On 1/17/24 01:55, Christopher Allen via bitcoin-dev wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Jan 16, 2024 at 6:43 PM Anthony Towns via bitcoin-dev 
>>  wrote:
>>
>>> If people want to use it for bitcoin-related proposals that don't have
>>> anything to do with inquisition, that's fine; I'm intending to apply the
>>> policies I think the BIPs repo should be 

Re: [bitcoin-dev] BIP process friction

[Luke Dashjr via bitcoin-dev]

Perhaps a BIP 3 is in order, but most of the real issue is simply a 
matter of volunteer time.


AJ's attempt to conflate that with his own personal disagreements with 
how BIPs have always worked, is unrelated.


Luke


On 1/17/24 01:55, Christopher Allen via bitcoin-dev wrote:



On Tue, Jan 16, 2024 at 6:43 PM Anthony Towns via bitcoin-dev 
 wrote:


If people want to use it for bitcoin-related proposals that don't have
anything to do with inquisition, that's fine; I'm intending to
apply the
policies I think the BIPs repo should be using, so feel free to
open a PR,
even if you already know I think your idea is BS on its merits. If
someone
wants to write an automatic-merge-bot for me, that'd also be great.

If someone wants to reform the BIPs repo itself so it works better,
that'd be even better, but I'm not volunteering for that fight.


I've no idea how to reform BIPs, but we have a similar problem with 
the Blockchain Commons Research (BCR) vs Proposals (BCP), vs. 
specifications that are emerging in various other standards groups 
(IETF, W3C, and we have desire to submit some of these as BIPs as well).


We do a few things differently, one of which in particular might be 
useful for the future of BIPs: we reset the numbers every year. So the 
first new BCR (research proposal) for 2024 would be 2024-01. Also, 
when there is a major change in an old BCR, we create a new number for 
it in the new year it is update.


We also have a concept called "Status", which is a progression that 
only moves forward if BCRs are actually implemented with a reference 
implementation, and advances further when they have multiple 
implementations (and thus are qualified moved over to BCP repo as it 
is somewhat stable and no longer "research".). A last form is when a 
specification has moved to be controlled by another standards group 
(such as a BIP). If only one organization implements a BCR, it will 
never advance to BCP.


Some form of Status for BIPs inspired by this concept could track if a 
BIP was ever actually implemented by someone, or more ideally, 
implemented by multiple people in multiple organizations, ideally in 
multiple languages.


Here is how we currently do status, and the status of our current 
specifications: 
https://github.com/BlockchainCommons/Research/blob/master/README.md#status


Each BCR has a status which is indicated by a symbol.

Symbol  Title   Description
❌❌ 	Withdrawn 	Of historic interest only. Withdrawn either because 
never came into use or proved sufficiently problematic that we do not 
recommend its usage in any way.
❌ 	Superseded 	Superseded by a newer BCR. We do not suggest 
implementing as an output format, but you may still wish to implement 
as an input format to maintain backward compatibility.
 	Research 	Contains original research or proposes specifications 
that have not yet been implemented by us. Offered to the community for 
consideration.
⭐️ 	Reference Implementation 	At least one reference implementation 
has been released, usually as a library, and may include demos or 
other supporting tools. This specification still remains very open to 
change because it has not yet (to our knowledge) been implemented by 
additional parties.
⭐️⭐️ 	Multiple Implementations 	At least two (known) implementations 
exist, at least one not by the owner of the reference implementation. 
Has demonstrable community support. May still change due to the needs 
of the community, but community feedback will be sought.
⭐️⭐️⭐️ 	Standards Track 	Typically at least two implementations, and 
is considered stable and ready for standardization. Being proposed as 
a BIP, IETF Internet Draft, or some other standardization draft 
format. Will typically be moved to theBCP repo 
. Though changes may still 
be made to the specification, these changes will exclusively be to 
allow for standardization, and will be conducted with community feedback.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 	Standardized 	A specification has been standardized as a an 
IETF RFC, BIP, or approved by some other standards body.


❌❌ after another status symbol is read, "...but withdrawn" and ❌ is 
read, "...but superseded".


-- Christopher Allen


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Re: [bitcoin-dev] BIP process friction

[Christopher Allen via bitcoin-dev]

On Tue, Jan 16, 2024 at 6:43 PM Anthony Towns via bitcoin-dev <
bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:

> If people want to use it for bitcoin-related proposals that don't have
> anything to do with inquisition, that's fine; I'm intending to apply the
> policies I think the BIPs repo should be using, so feel free to open a PR,
> even if you already know I think your idea is BS on its merits. If someone
> wants to write an automatic-merge-bot for me, that'd also be great.
>
> If someone wants to reform the BIPs repo itself so it works better,
> that'd be even better, but I'm not volunteering for that fight.
>

I've no idea how to reform BIPs, but we have a similar problem with the
Blockchain Commons Research (BCR) vs Proposals (BCP), vs. specifications
that are emerging in various other standards groups (IETF, W3C, and we have
desire to submit some of these as BIPs as well).

We do a few things differently, one of which in particular might be useful
for the future of BIPs: we reset the numbers every year. So the first new
BCR (research proposal) for 2024 would be 2024-01. Also, when there is a
major change in an old BCR, we create a new number for it in the new year
it is update.

We also have a concept called "Status", which is a progression that only
moves forward if BCRs are actually implemented with a reference
implementation, and advances further when they have multiple
implementations (and thus are qualified moved over to BCP repo as it is
somewhat stable and no longer "research".). A last form is when a
specification has moved to be controlled by another standards group (such
as a BIP). If only one organization implements a BCR, it will never advance
to BCP.

Some form of Status for BIPs inspired by this concept could track if a BIP
was ever actually implemented by someone, or more ideally, implemented by
multiple people in multiple organizations, ideally in multiple languages.

Here is how we currently do status, and the status of our current
specifications:
https://github.com/BlockchainCommons/Research/blob/master/README.md#status

Each BCR has a status which is indicated by a symbol.
SymbolTitleDescription
❌❌ Withdrawn Of historic interest only. Withdrawn either because never came
into use or proved sufficiently problematic that we do not recommend its
usage in any way.
❌ Superseded Superseded by a newer BCR. We do not suggest implementing as
an output format, but you may still wish to implement as an input format to
maintain backward compatibility.
 Research Contains original research or proposes specifications that have
not yet been implemented by us. Offered to the community for consideration.
⭐️ Reference Implementation At least one reference implementation has been
released, usually as a library, and may include demos or other supporting
tools. This specification still remains very open to change because it has
not yet (to our knowledge) been implemented by additional parties.
⭐️⭐️ Multiple Implementations At least two (known) implementations exist,
at least one not by the owner of the reference implementation. Has
demonstrable community support. May still change due to the needs of the
community, but community feedback will be sought.
⭐️⭐️⭐️ Standards Track Typically at least two implementations, and is
considered stable and ready for standardization. Being proposed as a BIP,
IETF Internet Draft, or some other standardization draft format. Will
typically be moved to the BCP repo
. Though changes may still be
made to the specification, these changes will exclusively be to allow for
standardization, and will be conducted with community feedback.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Standardized A specification has been standardized as a an IETF
RFC, BIP, or approved by some other standards body.

❌❌ after another status symbol is read, "...but withdrawn" and ❌ is read,
"...but superseded".

-- Christopher Allen
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[bitcoin-dev] BIP process friction

[Anthony Towns via bitcoin-dev]

Hi all,

Just under three years ago there was some discussion about the BIPs repo,
with the result that Kalle became a BIPs editor in addition to Luke, eg:

 * https://gnusha.org/bitcoin-core-dev/2021-04-22.log
 * 
https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2021-April/018859.html

It remains, however, quite hard to get BIPs merged into the repo, eg
the following PRs have been open for quite some time:

 * #1408: Ordinal Numbers; opened 2023-01-21, editors comments:
 Kalle:
   https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/1408#issuecomment-1421641390
   https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/1408#issuecomment-1435389476

 Luke:
   https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/1408#issuecomment-1429146796
   https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/1408#issuecomment-1438831607
   https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/1408#issuecomment-1465016571

 * #1489: Taproot Assets Protocol; opened 2023-09-07, editors comments:
 Kalle: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/1489#issuecomment-1855079626
 Luke: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/1489#issuecomment-1869721535j

 * #1500: OP_TXHASH; opened 2023-09-30, editors comments:
 Luke:
   https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/1500#pullrequestreview-1796550166
   https://twitter.com/LukeDashjr/status/1735701932520382839

The range of acceptable BIPs seems to also be becoming more limited,
such that mempool/relay policy is out of scope:

 * https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/1524#issuecomment-1869734387

Despite having two editors, only Luke seems to be able to assign new
numbers to BIPs, eg:

 * https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/1458#issuecomment-1597917780

There's also been some not very productive delays due to the editors
wanting backwards compatibility sections even if authors don't think
that's necessary, eg:

 * https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/1372#issuecomment-1439132867

Even working out whether to go back to allowing markdown as a text format
is a multi-month slog due to process confusion:

 * https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/1504

Anyway, while it's not totally dysfunctional, it's very high friction.

There are a variety of recent proposals that have PRs open against
inquisition; up until now I've been suggesting people write a BIP, and
have been keying off the BIP number to signal activation. But that just
seems to be introducing friction, when all I need is a way of linking
an arbitrary number to a spec.

So I'm switching inquisition over to having a dedicated "IANA"-ish
thing that's independent of BIP process nonsense. It's at:

 * https://github.com/bitcoin-inquisition/binana

If people want to use it for bitcoin-related proposals that don't have
anything to do with inquisition, that's fine; I'm intending to apply the
policies I think the BIPs repo should be using, so feel free to open a PR,
even if you already know I think your idea is BS on its merits. If someone
wants to write an automatic-merge-bot for me, that'd also be great.

If someone wants to reform the BIPs repo itself so it works better,
that'd be even better, but I'm not volunteering for that fight.

Cheers,
aj

(It's called "numbers and names" primarily because that way the acronym
amuses me, but also in case inquisition eventually needs an authoritative
dictionary for what "cat" or "txhash" or similar terms refer to)
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