Received: from sog-mx-2.v43.ch3.sourceforge.com ([172.29.43.192] helo=mx.sourceforge.net) by sfs-ml-3.v29.ch3.sourceforge.com with esmtp (Exim 4.76) (envelope-from ) id 1Uf07u-0006IR-TL for bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net; Wed, 22 May 2013 03:54:10 +0000 X-ACL-Warn: Received: from 216-155-145-223.cinfuserver.com ([216.155.145.223] helo=ssangkiyeok.zooko.com) by sog-mx-2.v43.ch3.sourceforge.com with esmtp (Exim 4.76) id 1Uf07t-00040J-PY for bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net; Wed, 22 May 2013 03:54:10 +0000 Received: by ssangkiyeok.zooko.com (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 265E371E001; Wed, 22 May 2013 07:37:23 +0400 (MSK) Date: Wed, 22 May 2013 07:37:23 +0400 From: zooko To: Peter Vessenes Message-ID: <20130522033720.GE20236@zooko.com> References: <20130519132359.GA12366@netbook.cypherspace.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.21 (2010-09-15) X-Spam-Score: 1.0 (+) X-Spam-Report: Spam Filtering performed by mx.sourceforge.net. See http://spamassassin.org/tag/ for more details. 0.0 TVD_RCVD_IP TVD_RCVD_IP 1.0 RDNS_DYNAMIC Delivered to internal network by host with dynamic-looking rDNS X-Headers-End: 1Uf07t-00040J-PY Cc: Bitcoin-Dev Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] is there a way to do bitcoin-staging? X-BeenThere: bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9 Precedence: list List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 22 May 2013 03:54:11 -0000 Folks: I'm very interested in this idea. I got really excited about it and started trying to write up schemes to implement it. Like much of Bitcoin, it gets my head spinning, but then it turns out I don't really understand it. Because when my write-ups of implementations all turned to dust and ashes, then I reconsidered, and I realized that I don't actually understand how the proposed thing is different than testnet. The proposed difference seems to be about assigning real value to the coins on this "beta bitcoin blockchain", but that's mostly not up to developers, except possibly through some crazy scheme which forces "beta bitcoins" to be exchangeable for real bitcoins... Actually, no, not even then. So I guess what is *really* exciting about this idea has nothing to do with making the "beta" coins valuable nor with novel schemes for linking semi-independent blockchains. What is really exciting about it is a shared codebase that the Bitcoin core developers are (at least nominally) paying attention to, and that you can play with on some public blockchain. So if that's the right goal, then the solution is a branch or a fork on github, and a name such as "bitcoin-next" or "bitcoin-staging" or whatever that confers a certain aura of relevance. And maybe some publicly celebrated list of the testnet blockchain forks which have been inevitably created by this "bitcoin-next" codebase. It would give people with the "better Bitcoin bug" (such as me) a common codebase to aim pull requests at, and to fork on github. Like Peter Vessenes says, this idea sounds like an alternative to "go do it on an alt coin". This feels different to me from the "go do it on an alt coin" idea, because I suspect most bitcoin core devs aren't really paying that much attention to alt coin. I know *I'm* not paying attention to them, because I'm already overloaded with things to learn. Having to learn about alt coins in order to try to communicate with bitcoin core devs that may or may not be really paying attention to the alt coin sounds daunting. Regards, Zooko