Author: Christian Decker 2011-06-15 12:46:24
Published on: 2011-06-15T12:46:24+00:00
In this email exchange from 2011, Jeff Garzik and Chris Moore propose several mini-proposals to better prepare the Bitcoin protocol for the long term. They agree that alternative implementations of a protocol are beneficial to the ecosystem and that tying together protocol and client version is sub-optimal and undesirable long-term. The current coarse-grained scheme was preferred by Satoshi Nakamoto, who actively discouraged alternative client efforts. Protocol development has clearly slowed, and we have at least one major alternative client in the works (bitcoinj), so it seems fair to revisit those assumptions and preferences. The mini-proposals include avoiding creating four-component version numbers (W.X.Y.Z) and using pszSubVer as a client identification string; removing IP transactions in v0.4; creating constants for protocol version and auditing code to split client version from protocol version; splitting protocol and client versions in v0.4 and using a single bit inside 'nServices' to indicate the presence of an optional "capabilities" message. The purpose of this is to enable minor protocol changes without having to change the protocol version.
Updated on: 2023-05-26T18:08:04.805390+00:00