[Pkg-bitcoin-devel] bfgminer package

[Luke-Jr]

On Monday, April 29, 2013 7:32:08 AM Dmitry Smirnov wrote:
> When I decided to package `cgminer` I had a quick look at `bfgminer`
> but I couldn't figure out how is it different from
> `cgminer`. Apparently there is no documentation (or I wasn't able to
> find it) that highlight improvements over `cgminer`.

The initial improvements were the driver abstraction and FPGA support. Over 
time, it has grown to include numerous bugfixes, various other general 
improvements, ASIC support, etc.

> Moreover it isn't clear why `bgfminer` exist: `cgminer` is very
> actively developed so why forking it? Did you try to merge your
> changes with `cgminer`? It appears to me that both projects share so
> much in common that existence of fork is hardly justified.  I realise
> that `bfgminer` often pulls from `cgminer`. Is there flow of
> patches in opposite direction?

For a time, the cgminer author was willing to collaborate and merged BFGMiner 
changes into his tree. However, when his GPU miners were made effectively 
obsolete, he took a hostile position and forked the project, giving management 
of the code I maintained to another guy and rejecting all future updates I 
made to the master codebase, including bugfixes (with very few rare 
exceptions).

> Besides I know one particular pool (Ozcoin) that recommend `cgminer`.

There are also many pools, including ones which are not detrimental to the 
Bitcoin network (as Ozcoin is), which recommend BFGMiner.

> I do not wish to bring yet another miner especially if it have little
> improvements that couldn't be merged due to lack of cooperation
> between authors but not due to technical reasons.

The cgminer developers have reiterated their refusal to collaborate as 
recently as earlier this year. There is nothing I can do about that.

Luke