[Bitcoin-development] 0.8.1 plan

[Bitcoin-development] 0.8.1 plan

[Gavin Andresen]

Here's the plan for the 0.8.1 release:

A new CheckBlock() rule, in effect until 15 May, that ensure only
blocks compatible with old releases are accepted into the main chain
(only blocks that touch 4,500 or fewer distinct txids are allowed).

A limit of 500k to blocks created, also in effect until 15 May.

Alerts will be sent to pre-0.8 releases over the next two months,
telling people to either upgrade or create a DB_CONFIG file so they
can handle large blocks.

Code is : https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/2373

I chose May 15 arbitrarily; two months seems like a reasonable 'quick'
amount of time to give people to upgrade/workaround.

The fix was written to be trivial to port to previous versions, and to
be as simple as possible.

Some of the exact details may still change before the 0.8.1 release
(e.g. it might not be exactly 4,500 distinct txids).

Schedule:

0.8.1 binaries late tomorrow or Monday.  An expires-after-24-hours
Alert sent on Tuesday to everybody running pre-0.8, pointing to
http://bitcoin.org/may15.html

Another 24-hour Alert sent on April 15, reminding everybody again they
will need to upgrade or workaround.

A final Alert that never expires sent on May 8th.

After May 15, miners will be free to create blocks up to 1MB, and
anybody running old versions who ignored the alerts may be left
behind.

-- 
--
Gavin Andresen

Re: [Bitcoin-development] 0.8.1 plan

[Alan Reiner]

On 03/16/2013 09:13 PM, Gavin Andresen wrote:
> I chose May 15 arbitrarily; two months seems like a reasonable 'quick'
> amount of time to give people to upgrade/workaround.
>

Maybe you should wait until after the Bitcoin Conference -- if something
goes wacky on May 15th but then everyone is getting on a plane to go to
San Jose two days later, it may create unnecessary stress.  It's
probably not a big deal, but if the date is arbitrary anyway, why not
just push back one more week?

-Alan

Re: [Bitcoin-development] 0.8.1 plan

[Frank F]

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On Sat, Mar 16, 2013 at 9:03 PM, Alan Reiner <etotheipi@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 03/16/2013 09:13 PM, Gavin Andresen wrote:
> > I chose May 15 arbitrarily; two months seems like a reasonable 'quick'
> > amount of time to give people to upgrade/workaround.
> >
>
> Maybe you should wait until after the Bitcoin Conference -- if something
> goes wacky on May 15th but then everyone is getting on a plane to go to
> San Jose two days later, it may create unnecessary stress.  It's
> probably not a big deal, but if the date is arbitrary anyway, why not
> just push back one more week?
>

Well, he did make the bitcoin.org/may15.html page already. It would be
crazy to change that now.

>
> -Alan
>
>
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Re: [Bitcoin-development] 0.8.1 plan

[Gavin Andresen]

> Well, he did make the bitcoin.org/may15.html page already. It would be crazy
> to change that now.

Not crazy, just inconvenient, and possibly confusing.

I'm going to be pretty stubborn about the dates. I'm just not
interested in lots of discussion about what the perfect times/dates
will be, there are much more important things that need to get done
soon.

Like hard-forking to increase the 1MB blocksize limit.  This will be
good practice for that.

-- 
--
Gavin Andresen

Re: [Bitcoin-development] 0.8.1 plan

[Luke-Jr]

On Sunday, March 17, 2013 2:20:14 AM Frank F wrote:
> Well, he did make the bitcoin.org/may15.html page already. It would be
> crazy to change that now.

OTOH, the page's recommended config isn't really too ideal. While the new lock 
limit should be good for up to 2 block deep reorgs, I doubt merchants/miners 
want to get stuck if someone pulls off a 3-block deep reorg. Since we usually 
consider 6 blocks to be "confirmed beyond impossibility of reversal", a limit 
of at least 292692 should probably be recommended. Additionally, I suspect 
set_lg_max may need bumping upward - but I'm not quite sure how to calculate 
the correct value there.

Why does the example config do set_lg_dir? That will screw things up should 
the client be using some other directory for any reason..

Also, please add a note that 0.4.x, 0.5.x, 0.6.x, and 0.7.x will be receiving 
backports in their next stable releases sometime before May 15.

Luke