On Tue, Apr 8, 2014 at 4:49 PM, Andreas Schildbach <andreas@schildbach.de> wrote:

While there is an agreement that a standard would be useful for sharing
wallets, we certainly didn't agree on every aspect of a standard. At
least not on this thread, and also not at the Berlin meeting.

We're going to write down BIP describing such structure. If any wallet want to be BIP XX compatible, then it has chance to. Of course if any wallet want to use another format, then it cannot call itself BIP XX compatible, thus nobody will expect that such software will see/recover all keys generated by BIP XX wallet.

I understand each client will implement things a little bit different,
for example the current plan is bitcoinj will hold all keys in memory
and start reusing keys on low resources. Electrum uses a chain for their
private purpose. Etc.

It still doesn't mean that bitcoinj or Electrum cannot share the bare minimum of BIP XX. Of course if somebody will use Electrum for 2to3 transactions and then move wallet to client which does not offer such feature, it won't work. But I don't see that as a problem.

If we cannot 100% agree on a standard and also agree it will not be
extended in future, I think we should not even try. It's dangerous for
the money of users.

If some developers agree on some specific BIP, then it should be cross compatible. Of course if somebody implements BIP XX in different way, then it isn't BIP XX compatible.

I propose we keep our chains deliberately separate and only try
standardizing after each of us has a feel for the specific requirements.

Of course, if somebody don't want to generate compatible bip32 paths, no problem. It will be the same situation as now.

Marek