From: <eric@voskuil.org>
To: "'Anthony Towns'" <aj@erisian.com.au>,
 "'Bitcoin Protocol Discussion'" <bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org>
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 <Y0JhqlNxUqVXQfpB@erisian.com.au>
In-Reply-To: <Y0JhqlNxUqVXQfpB@erisian.com.au>
Date: Sun, 9 Oct 2022 00:00:04 -0700
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Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Packaged Transaction Relay
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On Sat, Oct 08, 2022, Anthony Towns via bitcoin-dev wrote:
> > > > Protocol cannot be defined on an ad-hoc basis as a "courtesy"
> > > BIPs are a courtesy in the first place.
> > I suppose if you felt that you were the authority then this would be
> > your perspective.
> 
> You seem to think that I'm arguing courtesy is not a good thing, or that
we
> couldn't use more of it?

That is neither what I said nor implied. You were clearly dismissing the
public process, not advocating for politeness.

> > The BIP process was created by Amir specifically because Bitcoin
> > standards were being discussed and developed behind closed doors.
> 
> It definitely bothers me that Bitcoin development is not being discussed
out
> in the open as much as I would like, and to counter that, I try to
encourage
> people to post their ideas to this list, and write them up as a BIP; and
likewise
> try to do both myself as well.
> 
> But how much value do you think anyone's actually getting from posting
their
> development ideas to this list these days? Do you really think people
reading
> your mail will be more inspired to discuss their ideas in the open, or
that
> they'll prefer to get in a room with their friends and allies, and close
the
> doors so they can work in peace?

My comments have nothing to do with posting to this list.

> > > There's no central authority to enforce some particular way of doing
> > > things.
> > As if reaching consensus with other people implies a singular authority.
> 
> Reaching consensus with other people doesn't require putting a document in
> some particular github repo, either. Which is a good thing, or the people
in
> control of that repo would become that singular authority.

It is the public process that the community has clearly established. It has
been challenged at times, which anyone is free to do - creating their own if
they feel it becomes necessary. There is certainly no such issue in this
case, so it is not at all clear what you mean to imply here. Is this just a
blanket rejection of community standards development, or is it that you feel
this community is limited to "friends and allies"?

Developers of Bitcoin Core have stated countless times that they consider
Bitcoin Core to be the protocol documentation, implying that their internal
process is the process of arriving at community consensus. What was that you
said about "some particular github repo" becoming the "singular authority"?

> > > If you think that the version restriction should be part of the BIP,
> > > why not do a pull request? The BIP is still marked as "Draft".
> > I did not implement and ship a deviation from the posted proposal.
> 
> You think BIP 155 is suboptimal, and would rather see it changed, no?

The Bitcoin Core developers who deployed the deviation apparently also
thought the BIP was suboptimal. Whether I agree with the change isn't
relevant.

> But if you won't put any effort into changing it (and how much effort do
you
> think a PR to change it document it as being gated by version 70016 would
> be?), why do you imagine the people who are happy with the BIP as it is
> would put any effort in?

Yes, that's it. I'm lazy. It's all about effort, not about the process
which, by your own measure, the owners of a single repo aim to be the
"singular authority".

> > > > I doubt that anyone who's worked with it is terribly fond of
> > > > Bitcoin's P2P  protocol versioning. I've spent some time on a
> > > > proposal to update it, though it hasn't been a priority. If anyone
> > > > is interested in collaborating on it please contact me directly.
> 
> "contact me directly" and wanting something other than standards "being
> discussed and developed behind closed doors" seems quite contradictory to
> me.

It's the public process that is at issue, and you of course know that -
hence your varied attempts here to make it about something else.

> > Your contributions notwithstanding, you are in no place to exhibit
> > such arrogance.
> 
> I don't understand what you think is arrogant about posting a public
proposal
> about how I think things should work, even if I had only put
> 10 minutes thought into it. If that *is* arrogance, I guess I think we
could use
> more of it, as well as more courtesy...

As if I was referring to this.

"BIPs are a courtesy in the first place" says it all.

Best,
e