[Bitcoin-development] 0.4.x stable branch

[Amir Taaki]

>Eventually, when there are a bunch of bitcoin implementations to

>choose from, I think bitcoin.org should look like bittorrent.org -- it
>should become a forum for developers to exchange ideas about the
>direction of bitcoin.
>
>Gavin Andresen

Thanks for your support. This is a noble ideal and will ensure bitcoin's eventual success by serving as a neutral platform for discussions.

One step I've taken in this direction is to setup a process for proposing changes to the bitcoin protocol. See my other email to this list and this url:

  https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Bitcoin_Enhancement_Proposals

The first proposal BEP 0001 is copied from Python's PEP 0001 and is a good starting point. I've marked it as a draft since it's only a non-working proposal. After that with mutual consent and discussion, we can move it to active status and start to think about setting up an arbitration committee.

We should in general favour long discussion over voting. The Wikipedia model for resolving issues through hammering out details is superior to debian with a cycling board of voting members.

The bittorrent page looks like a good future ideal to model ourselves off of and the EP pages too:

  http://bittorrent.org/beps/bep_0000.html

BEP 0001 needs review and comments. As you can see, bittorrent did the exact same thing here (copying the PEP process) with success:

  http://bittorrent.org/beps/bep_0001.html

genjix / Amir Taaki