[Pkg-bitcoin-devel] Packaging alternative bitcoin implementation

[Amaury SECHET]

Hi all,

Sorry for late reply, this went in the spam folder and as a result I was
unaware there was a response at all before talking to Jonas on IRC.

2017-01-11 1:08 GMT+01:00 Jonas Smedegaard <jonas at jones.dk>:

> Hi Amaury,
>
> Quoting Amaury SECHET (2017-01-11 00:09:13)
> > Not sure if you are aware, but the bitcoin core client you guys are
> > distributing is more or less taken over by a company which many
> > consider has goal don't align with the bitcoin community.
>
> I am aware that multiple implementations exist, and that big players
> involved - but which sharks I find the good sharks I have not decided.
>
>
I think that's fine. It is very hard to predict what's going to happen.


>
> > From there, 2 forks appeared in the name of bitcoin classic and
> > bitcoin unlimited.
> >
> > By packaging only core, debian is making a stance in these events. If
> > debian wants to make a stance, I suggest you guys do it with bitcoin
> > classic or unlimited. However, I suppose it is preferable for debian
> > to stay out of the debate and just make bitcoind and bitcoin-qt
> > virtual packages and provides the 3 implementations.
>
> Do you know of any good documentation of the issues you raise here, that
> you can recommend us and others following along to read?
>
>
Long story short: blockstream, a company, hired many of the core
developers. They started pushing for tech that are controversial (mainly
RBF and SegWit) ad refused to implement changes such as increasing the
block size, which many in the community wanted. Other core Developers who
disagreed (Gavin Andreesen, Jeff Garzik) were slowly weeded out and the
main discussion channels ( r/bitcoin , bitcointalk, the bitcoin dev mailing
list, bitcoin.org ) started to be heavily censored, and smearing campaign
started.

As a result, several people decided to fork bitcoin core and create various
alternative, the 2 biggest ones being bitcoin classic and bitcoin unlimited.

When it comes to community, it is very divided, with the core crowd living
in a walled garden and everybody else trying to get rid of them.

You can find blockstream's employee list here: https://blockstream.com/team/
Among them many important core devs: Matt Corallo, Pieter Wuille, Greg
Maxwell, Greg Sanders, Rusty Russel, Jorge Timon and Luke Dashjr. They also
contract with Kyle Torpey and Aaron van Wirdum (journalists) + hire at
least one internet troll ( brg444/bergalex ).

You can find a fairly well documented history of censorship in r/bitcoin
here :
https://medium.com/@johnblocke/a-brief-and-incomplete-history-of-censorship-in-r-bitcoin-c85a290fe43
, similar things are going on in the main channels.

I would suggest reading everything from John Blocke, that very high quality
content.

If you are more interested why RBF and SegWit are opposed, you can read:
https://medium.com/@octskyward/replace-by-fee-43edd9a1dd6d
https://medium.com/the-publius-letters/segregated-witness-a-fork-too-far-87d6e57a4179

Finally, there was an agreement about a year ago known as the HK agreement
in the community. The agreement state that core will rollout SegWit and a
solution to get bigger blocks. Greg Maxwell (blockstream's CTO) soon
qualified these who signed it of "well meaning dipshit" and essentially
opposed any effort to have the agreement succeed. Since then, it seems
unlikely that both side will find a common ground, as they can barely talk
to each others due to the rampant censorshipn and conversly, when core
supporter go out of the walled garden, they are received with the
proverbial pitchforks, so they do it less and less.

The HK agreement:
https://medium.com/@bitcoinroundtable/bitcoin-roundtable-consensus-266d475a61ff#.f90lxj4qv
The well meaning dipshit:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1330553.msg14835202#msg14835202

Because of this, the hashrate of alternative implementation is climbing:
https://coin.dance/blocks/historical (you'll note that bitcoin classic and
bitcoin unlimited both will appear as bitcoin unlimited on that graph).

The version packaged by debian is bitcoin core, in its version 0.13, which
enables SegWit and RBF. Overall, I think that's fine, I don't think this is
debian's place to tell user what software they should run, but I think it
would be preferable to let user chose.


>
> > I can provide support packaging classic and unlimited if that's
> > necessary.
>
> Thanks.  Help is always welcome - also biased help: You are quite
> welcome to join our team, no matter if your interest is only in specific
> tools.  I'd be happy to collaborate with you.
>
>
>
Just tell me where to start !

I think the sensible #1 step here is to rename the current bitcoin packages
and make virtual package to replace them. That'll allow to add alternatives
in the future. I have no idea where to start, however. Is there a
repository I should clone to start hacking ?
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