Author: Karl-Johan Alm 2019-07-23 15:09:02
Published on: 2019-07-23T15:09:02+00:00
The Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) process has encountered a problem wherein authors leave the project, making it difficult to modify existing BIPs. BIP-2 allows anyone to request a change of a draft/proposed BIP to "rejected" status after 3 years of inactivity, but this does not help when an author leaves after their BIP is accepted. To address this issue, four potential solutions have been proposed: Firstly, allowing anyone to request a change of a draft/proposed BIP to "accepted" at any time as long as they prove that it fulfills the criteria given in BIP-2 without needing approval from the author. Secondly, allowing BIPs to expire after 3 years and allowing the BIP repository maintainer to assign a new champion if one appears. Thirdly, creating new BIPs with new assignations that supercede the old BIP, similar to how BIP 2 supercedes BIP 1, without the author's sign-off on the changes. However, this may not be obvious enough because the original BIP cannot be modified. Lastly, accepting the current process as it is and not making any changes.
Updated on: 2023-05-20T20:44:58.141069+00:00