Re: [Bitcoin-development] BIP 38

[Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell@gmail.com>]

On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 11:50 AM, Mike Caldwell
<mcaldwell@swipeclock.com> wrote:
> I have noticed that there was a recent change to BIP 0038
> (Password-Protected Private Key) on the Wiki, which is a proposal I wrote in
> late 2012.  Gregory, it looks to me as though you have made this change, and
> I’m hoping for your help here.  The change suggests that the number was
> never assigned, and that there has been no discussion regarding the proposal
> on this list.

Greetings, (repeating from our discussion on IRC)

No prior messages about your proposal have made it to the list, and no
mention of the assignment had been made in the wiki.

The first I ever heard of this scheme was long after you'd written the
document when I attempted to assign the number to something else then
noticed something existed at that name.

Since you had previously created BIP documents without public
discussion (e.g. "BIP 22"
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/OP_CHECKSIGEX_DRAFT_BIP [...] Or, I wonder
did your emails just get eaten that time too?), I'd just assumed
something similar had happened here.

I didn't take any action at the time I first noticed it, but after
someone complained about bitcoin-qt "not confirming with BIP38" to me
today it was clear to me that people were confusing this with
something that was "officially" (as much as anything is) supported, so
I moved the document out.  (I've since moved it back, having heard
from you that you thought that it had actually been
assigned/announced).

With respect to moving it forward: Having a wallet which can only a
single address is poor form. Jean-Paul Kogelman has a draft proposal
which is based on your BIP38 work though the encoding scheme is
different, having been revised in response to public discussion.

Perhaps efforts here can be combined?