Published on: 2014-05-12T17:11:25+00:00
In a conversation on May 12, 2014, Matt Whitlock raised concerns about the difficulty of obtaining a BIP (Bitcoin Improvement Proposals) number. Despite BIP 1 suggesting that assigning a number is not a significant hurdle, proposals that require hours of work are not receiving numbers. Whitlock questioned whether the numbers are only given to well-liked proposals and if the purpose of assigning numbers was not to facilitate organized discussions about all proposals, including those that are not popular.The response clarified that assigning numbers to proposals that have not been publicly discussed is not part of the BIP process. If individuals want to create specifications without engaging in public discussion, they can do so, but BIP is not intended for that purpose. The primary reason for assigning numbers is to provide a reference for a proposal before further actions are taken. This issue is also present in other contexts.To address the struggle of attaching labels to their yet-to-be-numbered BIPs, Gregory Maxwell suggested in May 2014 that individuals should use the labeling format "draft--" followed by the name of the BIP, such as draft-maxwell-coinburning. This format is inspired by pre-WG IETF drafts. Despite this suggestion, it remains unclear why there is a high bar for obtaining a BIP number, especially considering that there is no shortage of available integers. The assignment of numbers is meant to enable organized discussions about all proposals, even those that may not be well-liked.
Updated on: 2023-08-01T09:14:21.541021+00:00