Author: Olaoluwa Osuntokun 2021-06-30 20:15:42
Published on: 2021-06-30T20:15:42+00:00
The Lightning Network community has been discussing the need for a BIP-style process, called bLIPs or SPARKs, that would sit on top of the existing BOLTs. The aim would be to provide a place for app layer best practices to be succinctly described and organized, especially those that require coordination. These features are being built outside of the BOLT process today in areas such as path finding heuristics, AMP, dynamic commitments, podcast payment metadata, p2p messaging formats, remote node connection standards, etc. The proposed process would not affect the existing BOLT process but rather expand it with a descriptive design document. This new process would enable features that have organically evolved over time to find their way into the spec. The Lightning Network community believes that the current BOLTs do a good job of specifying what base functionality is required for a routing node in a prescriptive manner, but there is a gap in describing functionality that has emerged over time due to progressive evolution and aren't absolutely necessary but enhance node/wallet operation. Laolu Akande suggests that bLIPs can be a descriptive home for these types of standards, while BOLTs can be reserved for prescriptive measures. The protocol as implemented today has a number of extensions that allow implementations to spin out their own sub-protocols, many of which won't be considered absolutely necessary for node operation. The Lightning Network community should embrace more of a "bazaar" style of evolution and acknowledge that loosely coupled evolution allows participants to more broadly explore the design space without constraints. Historically, BOLTs have had a monolithic structure, and by having distinct documents for proposals/standards, bLIPs (author documents really), each new standard/proposal is able to be more effectively explained, motivated, versioned, etc. The proposed bLIP process has started on Github, and developers from various implementations and from the broader app layer ecosystem are invited to volunteer to be listed as editors.
Updated on: 2023-05-23T14:48:27.531656+00:00