Author: Aymeric Vitte 2023-04-20 10:54:53
Published on: 2023-04-20T10:54:53+00:00
The communication process within the Bitcoin Core project has been a challenge, according to Michael Folkson via bitcoin-dev. Maintainers merge pull requests (PRs) without providing any commentary on why they've done so. Andrew Chow via bitcoin-dev argues that this is because it's self-evident that the code is ready for merging and has enough ACKs from contributors. The maintainers' opinions are their own, but they believe that requiring explanations for every single merge would increase the burden on them and lead to burnout and resignations. There are currently 320 open PRs and 366 open issues, and sometimes PRs are not merged simply because the maintainers weren't aware that they were ready to be merged. Maintainers may also not merge PRs if they think they haven't had enough review, or if there are questions or comments that haven't been resolved yet. It's up to the maintainer's judgement call whether something has been sufficiently reviewed, and they consider the quality and competence of the reviewers as well. Other frequent contributors may have commented or asked questions that haven't been resolved yet, and PRs will often not be merged until a maintainer deems that those comments and questions have been sufficiently resolved. With several long-time maintainers stepping away, this may be a factor in PRs taking longer to get merged as the remaining maintainers may be less familiar with the parts of the codebase that were previously maintained by someone else.Aymeric Vitte via bitcoin-dev points out that while some simple changes could allow Bitcoin to surpass Ethereum, such as allowing several OP_RETURN in one tx and no limited size, how long it will take remains mysterious. Andrew Chow via bitcoin-dev notes that no one is obligated to implement any feature request, and an unimplemented feature may be due to the fact that the people who do open PRs are either not interested in implementing the feature or are working on other things that they believe to be higher priority. If there is a feature that one wants, then they will often need to either do it themselves or pay someone to do it for them. Additionally, a feature may seem like a good idea, but there are often interactions with other things that may result in it being rejected or needing significant revision, especially for something that affects transaction relay.Overall, the Bitcoin Core project faces challenges with communication and maintainers stepping down. The maintainers merge PRs without providing commentary because they believe it's self-evident when the code is ready to be merged, and requiring explanations for every single merge would increase the burden on them. With several long-time maintainers stepping away, this may be a factor in PRs taking longer to get merged as the remaining maintainers may be less familiar with the parts of the codebase previously maintained by someone else. Unimplemented feature requests may be due to the fact that those who open PRs are not interested in implementing the feature or are working on other things they believe to be higher priority.
Updated on: 2023-06-16T17:36:08.885677+00:00