[Bitcoin-development] 0.8.1 plan

[Gavin Andresen <gavinandresen@gmail.com>]

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.

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Gavin Andresen