Author: Yaacov Akiba Slama 2019-11-08 06:39:59
Published on: 2019-11-08T06:39:59+00:00
In an email exchange, Rusty Russell and Yaacov Akiba Slama discussed the possibility of using Universal Business Language (UBL) in the Lightning Network (LN) specification. While Rusty is a fan of standards, he has concerns about the complexity of UBL and doubts that forcing its implementation on wallet providers will be successful. Yaacov argued that using UBL in LN specification would actually simplify things as most money transactions are between users and companies, not between two users. He believes that in order to replace fiat with Bitcoin, businesses need to be able to integrate easily with POS systems, which requires support for standards. From a technical standpoint, UBL libraries already exist in Java and C#, so every wallet implementation can use them. To avoid duplication, Yaacov proposed using only the UBL structure and adding an "opaque" field to the LN standard invoice that would contain only fields specific to LN. They agreed that an explicit mapping between invoices/offers and UBL would need to be established, and that further consideration is required regarding which fields should have their own existence in the invoice/offer and which should be in a general UBL field. Rusty thanked Yaacov for his work and dedication to LN's development.
Updated on: 2023-06-02T21:39:10.354531+00:00