Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2022 00:05:18 +0000
To: "bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org"
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From: Buck O Perley <buck.perley@protonmail.com>
Reply-To: Buck O Perley <buck.perley@protonmail.com>
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Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] On a new community process to specify covenants
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Hi Antoine,

First just wanted to thank you for taking the initiative to=20
put this together. I think that as the community and=20
ecosystem continue to grow, it's going to be an important=20
part of the process to have groups like this develop. Hopefully
they allow us to resist the "Tyranny of Structurelessness" without=20
resorting to formalized governance processes and systems.=20

> Defining a communication channel is still an open question: IRC, Slack,
Discord, Discourse, ...

I would vote against Slack. IRC is probably the best but maybe too
high a barrier to entry? Publishing logs at least would counter
concerns of it being exclusive. Maybe discord as an alternative.=20

> About the starting point for regular meetings, I think the good timing is
somewhere in November, after the upcoming cycle of Bitcoin conferences,

+1=20

> softfork activation discussions will be considered as
off-topic and discouraged. This is first and foremost a long-term R&D
effort.

I understand the reason for this but I do have some concerns that
it's not as off-topic as most of us would like. It shouldn't
be a priority but how any of these primitives end up getting activated
is part of the proposal itself in my opinion.=20

I think it also became clear in some of the discussions over the past=20
~year that maybe there were more concerns than people realized about
even the taproot activation process, whether the method used or if it=20
was done too quickly. An example of where there might be=20
some intersection with the WG as proposed is the question of how much=20
research, security audits, etc. are "enough" before it should be=20
considered for activation?=20

Maybe as a way to keep these topics separate, it would make sense=20
for activation to have its own WG. As norms develop around this one,=20
they could inform creating a separate space focused on forwarding=20
research and discussion around how to introduce upgrades to bitcoin.=20

In general it would be nice to have multiple of these groups
happening at once, and finding a way that they can operate separate
from centralized companies. To my mind, there's no good reason why
a supposedly decentralized protocol should have to be focusing on only
one set of protocol advancements at a time. The linear way that
discussions post-Taproot activation took shape ("What do you think the
next bitcoin softfork should be?") is a sign of weakness in my opinion.=20
Definitely a big red flag that we should be concerned with.=20

Couple other comments from the proposal/repo:

* it seems like there might be some opportunities to work with=20
bipbounty.org which grew out of the organic bounty donations that
were made towards finding CTV vulnerabilities. For example,=20
if the group develops specific, achievable research goals (building
out use cases, researching vulnerabilities or limitations, etc.),=20
bipbounty.org could help support these efforts in a more decentralized
way by diversifying funding.=20

* Any thoughts on starting to commit to an in-person meetup to happen=20
~6 months - 1 year after the start of the regular online meetings?=20
That should be plenty of time for people to plan and formalize=20
a location and it seems like other IRL dev meetups have been=20
very productive in terms of knowledge sharing and setting priorities.=20
An in-person meetup would give a nice goal to work towards and a way
to measure progress.=20

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