Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2021 09:04:18 +0000
To: "David A. Harding" <dave@dtrt.org>,
 Bitcoin Protocol Discussion <bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org>
From: "W. J. van der Laan" <laanwj@protonmail.com>
Reply-To: "W. J. van der Laan" <laanwj@protonmail.com>
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In-Reply-To: <20210426194309.2k5exujz23vjrgwc@ganymede>
References: <202104230209.05373.luke@dashjr.org>
 <202104252100.07296.luke@dashjr.org>
 <40214e32-ffb3-9518-7bc8-9c1059f50da7@mattcorallo.com>
 <202104252122.40909.luke@dashjr.org>
 <248f871e-1b83-8c7c-678b-3ed0585a6357@mattcorallo.com>
 <20210426194309.2k5exujz23vjrgwc@ganymede>
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Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Reminder on the Purpose of BIPs
Precedence: list

On Monday, April 26th, 2021 at 9:43 PM, David A. Harding via bitcoin-dev <b=
itcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:

> On Sun, Apr 25, 2021 at 05:31:50PM -0400, Matt Corallo via bitcoin-dev wr=
ote:
>
> > In general, I think its time we all agree the BIP process has simply fa=
iled
> >
> > and move on. Luckily its not really all that critical and proposed prot=
ocol
> >
> > documents can be placed nearly anywhere with the same effect.
>

I like the idea of decentralizing the BIPs process. It is a historical arti=
fact that the bips repository is part of the same organization that bitcoin=
 core is part of. But there shouldn't be the perception that standardizatio=
n is driven by that, or that there is any kind of (non-trivial) gatekeeping=
.

I understand where this perception is coming from, though. There being 111 =
PRs open at https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pulls indicates that there is s=
ome kind of bottleneck. I hope adding more BIP editors can mitigate this so=
mewhat.

Though it also happens that the BIP author simply don't care about changes =
anymore and doesn't respond, in which case the PR lingers without any fault=
 from the BIPs maintainer. So something is to be said of having the BIP rep=
ository mirror/aggregate author's own work trees, and changes needing to be=
 proposed there instead of "upstream".

-W