Luke Dashjr Promotes Rival BIP Repository as 'Official'

Bitcoin developer Luke Dashjr announced on Nov. 10 that Bitcoin-specs/BIPs was the “official” home of Bitcoin Improvement Proposals, promoting a rival repository three months after his removal as a BIP editor.

GitHub identifies the repository as a fork of bitcoin/bips, rather than a transfer of that repository. The existing bitcoin/bips archive remains active, with merges recorded on Nov. 9, and its process document still directs contributors there.

Dashjr said August's changes were unauthorized. “These unauthorized changes have been corrected, while preserving the repository's history and legitimate editorial work,” he wrote. He added: “Bitcoin Core has no authority over the BIP process, which remains independent of any particular Bitcoin implementation.”

The competing archives concern how Bitcoin proposals are published and administered. BIP 3, the proposal-process document, describes the repository as a publication medium and archive, and says individual BIPs do not represent community consensus or a general recommendation for implementation.

Dashjr Restores His Listing and BIP-110

The existing repository's BIP 3 lists five editors: Bryan Bishop, Jon Atack, Mark “Murch” Erhardt, Olaoluwa Osuntokun and Ruben Somsen. The fork's version lists those five plus Dashjr.

Commits made by Dashjr's luke-jr account restore his editor listing and reverse BIP-110's status from “Closed” to “Complete.” A separate merge records the disputed changes in the fork's history without accepting their effects, according to its commit message.

BIP-110, a proposal to impose temporary limits on arbitrary data in Bitcoin transactions, remains marked “Closed” in bitcoin/bips. Dashjr's reversal also removes the changelog entry explaining its closure as “following a chain split with stalled mining.” In the August discussion, Atack said the BIP-110 chain split and stalled when its mandatory signaling period began rejecting non-signaling blocks.

Bitcoin's editors removed Dashjr on Aug. 10, as The Defiant previously reported. In the merged removal request, Atack wrote that he had verified Dashjr no longer had editor or administrator privileges in that repository. Reinstating his name in the fork changes its editor list, not the existing repository's list.

Dashjr is also proposing a switch to a new development mailing list, with the amendment still open in the fork. He said messages to the new list would be held for moderation until Nov. 13 to give developers time to subscribe.