Re: [bitcoin-dev] BIP process meeting - Tuesday September 14th 23:00 UTC on #bitcoin-dev Libera IRC

[Michael Folkson <michaelfolkson@gmail.com>]

Hey Prayank

Thanks for the suggestions.

> bitcoin-dev mailing list link can be considered a BIP and saved in a BIP directory. Anyone can create such directories. So BIP is nothing but a proposal shared on bitcoin-dev mailing list.

A mailing list post is static and a BIP will go normally go through
multiple edits and revisions so you do need to take advantage of the
Git version control system. It gets quite unwieldy to attempt to do
that via a mailing list with every minor suggested edit getting sent
to all subscribers. Also allowing the entire global population
(billions of people) to be able to create a directory doesn't sound
like a good idea to me :)

> This will avoid the 'bitcoin/bips' repository being considered as some BIP authority that approves BIPs and proposals can improve Bitcoin without using the repository. Repository will only be helpful in documenting BIP correctly.

I can only speak for myself here but I am not particularly concerned
about this perception of authority. We need a central repo that we can
all refer to (rather than BIPs being distributed across a large number
of repos) and that central repo needs to managed and maintained by
somebody (in this case the two BIP editors Kalle and Luke). In the
same way as there are limits on the ability of Core maintainers to
unilaterally merge in contentious code changes there are similar
limits on the ability of BIP editors. Ultimately anyone merging a PR
has to consider process/consensus and concerns can (and have been in
the past) be raised on this mailing list or elsewhere.

> 2. Bot in `bitcoin/bips` repository that notifies about pull requests based on different things. This will help maintainer(s) and contributors.

I'm not sure where you are suggesting a bot should be. On IRC? There
is a BIP merges bot on Mastodon[0] that I'm aware of and obviously you
can subscribe to GitHub repo notification emails.

> 3. BIP Gallery: I tried sharing things in a different way so that newbies can understand importance of BIPs in Bitcoin and relate to it: https://prayank23.github.io/BIPsGallery/ however couldn't complete it with all the BIPs because not many people considered it helpful. There were few suggestions to improve it by adding some text for each BIP and better image gallery. Maybe someone else can create a better project.

This looks cool. I think we can definitely do better in encouraging
more people to engage with the BIP process especially as the ideas
start flowing in post Taproot activation brainstorming what should be
in the "next soft fork" (trademark!). Some of the BIPs (e.g. the
Taproot BIPs 340-342) are quite technically dense so someone on IRC
suggested making greater use of informational BIPs to supplement the
standard BIPs for new implementers or even casual readers.

[0] https://x0f.org/@bipmerges

On Tue, Sep 14, 2021 at 1:17 PM Prayank <prayank@tutanota.de> wrote:
>
> Hi Michael,
>
> Thanks for sharing the details about the meeting.
>
> Wishlist has some interesting points. I would like to suggest few things:
>
> 1.BIP process:
>
> A. Plan and document a proposal
>
> B. Open PR in https://github.com/bitcoin/bips and edit everything properly
>
> C. BIP is assigned a number and merged
>
> D. Share the proposal on bitcoin dev mailing list
>
> bitcoin-dev mailing list link can be considered a BIP and saved in a BIP directory. Anyone can create such directories. So BIP is nothing but a proposal shared on bitcoin-dev mailing list.
>
> Who implements the BIP? When is it implemented? How is it implemented? Opinions on proposal etc. will be different for each BIP. This will avoid the 'bitcoin/bips' repository being considered as some BIP authority that approves BIPs and proposals can improve Bitcoin without using the repository. Repository will only be helpful in documenting BIP correctly.
>
> 2. Bot in `bitcoin/bips` repository that notifies about pull requests based on different things. This will help maintainer(s) and contributors.
>
> 3. BIP Gallery: I tried sharing things in a different way so that newbies can understand importance of BIPs in Bitcoin and relate to it: https://prayank23.github.io/BIPsGallery/ however couldn't complete it with all the BIPs because not many people considered it helpful. There were few suggestions to improve it by adding some text for each BIP and better image gallery. Maybe someone else can create a better project.
>
>
> --
> Prayank
>
> A3B1 E430 2298 178F



-- 
Michael Folkson
Email: michaelfolkson@gmail.com
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