[Pkg-bitcoin-devel] Bug#700887: Bug#700887: ship bootstrap.dat (maybe in a separate package?)

[Antoine Beaupré]

On 2013-02-22, Dmitry Smirnov wrote:
> On Tue, 19 Feb 2013 07:12:05 Antoine Beaupré wrote:
>> Bootstrapping bitcoin takes a looong time in Debian. I started the
>> client yesterday and after more than 24h, it was still processing blocks
>> from november 2012.
>
> With the release of Bitcoin 0.8.0 bootstrapping become much faster so IMHO we 
> don't need to do anything. It simply doesn't worth troubles...

Indeed.

>> Shipping, or at least documenting the (in)famous bootstrap.dat file
>> would go a long way in improving this.
>> 
>>[...]
>>
>> The file is 2.5GB, so it may be too big for Debian's archive, but it
>> seems to me this could still be useful, as it saves a lot of time.
>  
> I think it is not a good idea. Peer-to-peer bootstrapping is great.
> It doesn't feel right to boost initial bootstrapping by providing data from 
> centralised authority even if it is trusted.

Well, I don't think that's much of a problem, personnally. I would trust
more Debian than Pirate Bay for bootstrapping, really. :)

But it does feel odd that we need another p2p network to bootstrap
bitcoin, which is supposed to be a p2p network in itself.

> Besides Bitcoin network benefit from more clients staying online. Fast 
> bootstrapping may not have a big impact for network but certainly won't help 
> clients to share already received blocks during initial synchronisation.

Not sure I understand this... 

But anyways, I also think shiping the bootstrap file is a bad idea,
especially now that bootstrapping works properly.

People can always fetch that data themselves. Maybe an update to the
README file?

A.

-- 
It is better to sit alone than in company with the bad; and it is better
still to sit with the good than alone. It better to speak to a seeker of
knowledge than to remain silent; but silence is better than idle words.
                        - Imam Bukhari
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