The split over Bitcoin’s proposal archive became more public on Nov. 10. Developer Luke Dashjr said Bitcoin-specs/BIPs is now the official home for Bitcoin Improvement Proposals. The move comes about three months after he was removed as a BIP editor.
A fork, not a transfer
GitHub still labels Bitcoin-specs/BIPs as a fork of bitcoin/bips. It is not a transfer of the older repository. The bitcoin/bips archive remains active. Merges were recorded there on Nov. 9, and its process document still sends contributors to that repository.
Dashjr has argued that changes made in August were not authorized. He said those changes have been corrected while keeping the repository history and legitimate editorial work. He also said Bitcoin Core has no authority over the BIP process, which he described as independent of any Bitcoin implementation. That claim gets at a quiet question: who controls the publication process when editors disagree?
BIP 3, the document that describes the process, calls the repository a publication medium and archive. It also says individual BIPs do not show community consensus or a general recommendation for implementation. So the editor list matters, but perhaps less than it might look from outside.
Editor lists differ
The existing repository’s BIP 3 lists five editors: Bryan Bishop, Jon Atack, Mark Murch Erhardt, Olaoluwa Osuntokun and Ruben Somsen. The fork’s version lists those five plus Dashjr. Commits from Dashjr’s luke-jr account restore his editor listing and reverse BIP-110’s status from Closed to Complete.
A separate merge records the disputed changes in the fork’s history without accepting their effects, according to its commit message. In bitcoin/bips, BIP-110 remains marked Closed. The proposal would impose temporary limits on arbitrary data in Bitcoin transactions. Dashjr’s reversal also removes the changelog entry that explained the closure as following a chain split with stalled mining.
During the August discussion, Atack said the BIP-110 chain split and stalled when its mandatory signaling period began rejecting non-signaling blocks. Bitcoin’s editors removed Dashjr on Aug. 10. In the merged removal request, Atack wrote that he had verified Dashjr no longer had editor or administrator privileges in that repository. Reinstating his name in the fork changes the fork’s editor list, not the existing repository’s list.
Mailing list proposal remains open
Dashjr is also proposing a switch to a new development mailing list. The amendment is still open in the fork. He said messages to the new list would be held for moderation until Nov. 13 to give developers time to subscribe.
For now, Bitcoin has two BIP archives with competing claims about authority. The older repository still has the merges and the process document. The fork has Dashjr’s restored listing and a revised status for BIP-110. How contributors resolve that may depend on which archive they treat as the record.
