[Lightning-dev] GitHub Repository for Detailed Specifications of Lightning Nodes

Mats Jerratsch matsjj at gmail.com
Mon Oct 26 17:12:18 UTC 2015


Hey everybody,

I created a new OSS-organisation on GitHub lightning-core and opened a
new repository dedicated to hold the specifications of any lightning
node.

https://github.com/lightning-core/lightning

This has several positive effects:

(1)
I am positive this will help to ensure we all build somewhat
compatible software. As we all only come together every once and again
on IRC (and rarely on the mailing list), we end up building the same
things in parallel that are not compatible at the end of the day.
While it is great to have implementations in different languages for
different systems, would be even better if they end up being one large
network at the end of the day.

(2)
It is in general a good idea to have the product specifications and
implementations in separate repositories. This way we have the
contract each implementation has to abide separate and clear in view.

(3)
It is easier to work towards different targets that may seem out of
reach right now, but still have them structurally on the same
repository. If some guy decides to work on an implementation on some
advanced topic, he will have a difficult time getting it across on the
mailing list. I think a github repo is a much better place to share
these ideas.

(4)
Anyone doing a complete new implementation does not have to search
across different implementations and mailing list posts to find
answers how his software should behave to communicate with the
network. The specification will be a great guideline for new
implementations


As I just started it, practically everything is still missing. I
started writing together the current implementation on the encryption
layer, but even there I noticed how much of it I have to scramble
together from different sources.

Feel free to fork and write up, we can always discuss the status quo
before pushing it to master. The skeleton is missing a lot too, but we
have to start at some point...

Cheers
Mats


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