|
| 1 | +--- |
| 2 | +title: IRC meeting summary for 2018-07-12 |
| 3 | +lang: en |
| 4 | +permalink: /en/meetings/2018/07/12/ |
| 5 | +name: 2018-07-12-meeting |
| 6 | +layout: page |
| 7 | +type: meetings |
| 8 | +version: 1 |
| 9 | +--- |
| 10 | +{% include toc.html %} |
| 11 | +{% include references.md %} |
| 12 | + |
| 13 | +- View this week's log on [BotBot.me][bbm log] or [MeetBot][mb log] |
| 14 | +- [Meeting minutes by MeetBot][mb minutes] |
| 15 | + |
| 16 | +--- |
| 17 | + |
| 18 | +Topics discussed during this weekly meeting included an announcement of |
| 19 | +a poll to help find widely-acceptable times for future weekly meetings, |
| 20 | +whether or not to move back the planned feature freeze date for Bitcoin |
| 21 | +Core 0.17, whether or not to produce a 0.16.2 maintenance release (and |
| 22 | +when to do it), status of upgrading the deterministic build environment |
| 23 | +to a new version of Ubuntu, and the status of a PR related to what coins |
| 24 | +(inputs) the wallet automatically chooses to spend. |
| 25 | + |
| 26 | +The usual first topic of *high priority pull requests for review* was |
| 27 | +skipped. Wladimir var der Laan said, "I've intentionally skipped high |
| 28 | +priority for review this time. [It] seems pretty clear [that we] just |
| 29 | +need to get the features for 0.17 in ASAP." |
| 30 | + |
| 31 | +## Meeting time poll |
| 32 | + |
| 33 | +**Background:** as mentioned [last meeting][], the project is trying to |
| 34 | +determine the best times to hold weekly meetings. |
| 35 | + |
| 36 | +**Discussion ([log][log meeting time]):** Cory Fields said, "Remember to |
| 37 | +vote on meeting time. If you didn't get a mail about it, now's the time |
| 38 | +to tell me! [The poll closes] this time next week." |
| 39 | + |
| 40 | +**Conclusion:** if you're a regular contributor, check your email for a |
| 41 | +poll about it or contact Fields. |
| 42 | + |
| 43 | +## Move feature freeze date? |
| 44 | + |
| 45 | +**Background:** Bitcoin Core attempts to release a new major version |
| 46 | +every six months. The first step of the release process is freezing the |
| 47 | +current feature set so that the focus can shift to maturing, testing, |
| 48 | +and documenting the upcoming release. |
| 49 | + |
| 50 | +**Discussion ([log][log feature freeze]):** Wladimir van der Laan |
| 51 | +introduced the topic, "So the current feature freeze is July 16th, which |
| 52 | +is in a few days [...] my question is, should we delay it, [or] are |
| 53 | +there important things that [we] would otherwise miss but [which] are |
| 54 | +*almost* ready?" |
| 55 | + |
| 56 | +Several meeting participants listed things they'd like to get in that |
| 57 | +they're worried won't be complete before the freeze: |
| 58 | + |
| 59 | +- [New scantxout RPC][#12196], mentioned by Jonas Schnelli |
| 60 | +- [New disableprivatekey setting][#9662] for watching-only wallets, |
| 61 | + mentioned by Schnelli |
| 62 | +- [Partially-Signed Bitcoin Transactions support][#13557], mentioned by |
| 63 | + Andrew Chow |
| 64 | +- [Machine-writeable configuration file][#11082] (rwconf), mentioned by |
| 65 | + Luke Dashjr |
| 66 | + |
| 67 | +**Conclusion:** the feature freeze date was moved back one week to |
| 68 | +Monday, July 23rd. |
| 69 | + |
| 70 | +## 0.16.2 |
| 71 | + |
| 72 | +**Background:** Bitcoin Core occasionally produces [maintenance |
| 73 | +releases][] that [backport][] bug fixes and minor improvements to |
| 74 | +existing versions of Bitcoin Core. The most recent of these was Bitcoin |
| 75 | +Core 0.16.1, released about a month ago. |
| 76 | + |
| 77 | +**Discussion ([log][log 0.16.2]):** the topic was suggested before the |
| 78 | +meeting. Wladimir van der Laan said, "It'd make sense to do a 0.16.2 |
| 79 | +release soon so it's not too short before 0.17. [Is there] anything |
| 80 | +that really needs to make it in besides what is already backported in |
| 81 | +[#13644][]?" No one in the meeting suggested any further backports. |
| 82 | + |
| 83 | +There was some discussion about release timing. Luke Dashjr suggested |
| 84 | +0.16.2 could be released shortly before 0.17.0's first Release |
| 85 | +Candidates (RCs) started to be build. Other meeting participants argued |
| 86 | +for keeping them apart, with Cory Fields saying, "But that way if a |
| 87 | +backport goes bad, potentially both new versions end up busted. I'd |
| 88 | +rather stagger [the releases] a bit, generally speaking." |
| 89 | + |
| 90 | +**Conclusion:** Van der Laan said, "Make sure you review \[#13644]." |
| 91 | +After that, the project will produce 0.16.2 RC1. If there are no bug |
| 92 | +reports for RC1 within about a week of its release, 0.16.2 final will be |
| 93 | +tagged. |
| 94 | + |
| 95 | +## Gitian build to 18.04 Ubuntu Bionic |
| 96 | + |
| 97 | +**Background:** Gitian is the system Bitcoin Core uses to allow multiple |
| 98 | +people compiling the same code to create identical executable programs, |
| 99 | +a process called deterministic building. This allows each of those |
| 100 | +builders to cryptographically attest to the program being the result of |
| 101 | +the peer-reviewed source code. To produce identical programs, everyone |
| 102 | +needs to use exactly the same build software, including the same |
| 103 | +operating system run in a virtual environment. Currently that operating |
| 104 | +system is an old version of Ubuntu; for the next release, the plan is to |
| 105 | +use the most recent long-term-support (LTS) version of Ubuntu, 18.04 |
| 106 | +(codenamed Bionic Beaver). |
| 107 | + |
| 108 | +**Discussion ([log][log gitian]):** Wladimir van der Laan started the |
| 109 | +discussion, "note that we *must* upgrade, otherwise the Qt build will |
| 110 | +fail (or [we] would have to downgrade Qt again, which is a mess)." |
| 111 | + |
| 112 | +Cory Fields, who has been working on a significant update to the build |
| 113 | +system toolchain said, "I was in denial that I would have toolchain |
| 114 | +stuff done in time for 0.17. Sadly it's not happening. [I] just |
| 115 | +started having a look at the current PRs." |
| 116 | + |
| 117 | +Andrew Chow mentioned that he's worked on a Docker-based build system, |
| 118 | +and other people mentioned various other systems. |
| 119 | + |
| 120 | +As a sub-topic, Fields mentioned that, "at some point we're going to |
| 121 | +have to use Gitian (or similar) to build all-deterministic toolchains. |
| 122 | +The work isn't done for all toolchains yet, but I do have something |
| 123 | +working that gets us a native one. I'm proposing that we go ahead and |
| 124 | +build that one so that it can later be used to build the rest [...] as |
| 125 | +with that done deterministically, we wouldn't have to rely on a distro |
| 126 | +toolchain at all for 0.18." |
| 127 | + |
| 128 | +**Conclusion:** work will continue on ensuring that the project's |
| 129 | +updated Gitian configuration is ready by the time the release candidates |
| 130 | +are ready to be built. Fields will "try to get enough together to PR |
| 131 | +something" related to his initial all-deterministic-toolchains work. |
| 132 | + |
| 133 | +## Status of PR #12257: coin selection destination groups |
| 134 | + |
| 135 | +*Not a tagged topic, but a separate discussion started after the |
| 136 | +previous topic.* |
| 137 | + |
| 138 | +**Background:** a focus of a significant amount of work in the past six |
| 139 | +months has been Bitcoin Core's coin selection---how its wallet decides which |
| 140 | +inputs to spend in a particular transaction. PR [#12257][] adds an |
| 141 | +option to Bitcoin Core's wallet that causes it to spend every output |
| 142 | +received to the same address whenever any of those outputs would be |
| 143 | +spent. This prevents two outputs to the same address from being spent |
| 144 | +in separate transactions, which is a common way the wallet reduces |
| 145 | +privacy. The downside is that it may make transactions larger than the |
| 146 | +smallest they need to be. |
| 147 | + |
| 148 | +**Discussion ([log][log coin selection]):** Gregory Maxwell asked, "I |
| 149 | +guess [the author of PR #12257, Kalle Alm,] isn't here (timezone |
| 150 | +[conflict]) but I wondered what was the status of #12257?" |
| 151 | + |
| 152 | +Pieter Wuille replied, "I held off on [reviewing] it, expecting other |
| 153 | +more invasive changes to coin selection to go in first, but if that |
| 154 | +isn't happening for 0.17, maybe we can do destination groups first." |
| 155 | + |
| 156 | +Andrew Chow suggested simulating its behavior along with his |
| 157 | +single-random-draw coin selection code as [described in a previous |
| 158 | +meeting][srd]. |
| 159 | + |
| 160 | +**Conclusion:** Maxwell said, "I'd forgotten about [PR #12257], sounds |
| 161 | +like some of the rest of us did too [...] Consider yourselves reminded." |
| 162 | + |
| 163 | +## Mini-topics |
| 164 | + |
| 165 | +- **Unicorns:** several meeting participants noted that GitHub pages are |
| 166 | + failing to load again, as mentioned in at least six previous meetings |
| 167 | + ([1][m1], [2][m2], [3][m3], [4][m4], [5][m6], [6][m6]), and are |
| 168 | + instead displaying an illustration of an angry unicorn. This prevents |
| 169 | + reviews on Bitcoin Core PRs, or at least slows them down while |
| 170 | + reviewers attempt workarounds. |
| 171 | + |
| 172 | +## Participants |
| 173 | + |
| 174 | +| IRC nick | Name/Nym | |
| 175 | +|-----------------|---------------------------| |
| 176 | +| wumpus | [Wladimir van der Laan][] | |
| 177 | +| luke-jr | [Luke Dashjr][] | |
| 178 | +| cfields | [Cory Fields][] | |
| 179 | +| sipa | [Pieter Wuille][] | |
| 180 | +| gmaxwell | [Gregory Maxwell][] | |
| 181 | +| achow101 | [Andrew Chow][] | |
| 182 | +| jonasschnelli | [Jonas Schnelli][] | |
| 183 | +| instagibbs | [Gregory Sanders][] | |
| 184 | +| meshcollider | [Samuel Dobson][] | |
| 185 | +| BlueMatt | [Matt Corallo][] | |
| 186 | +| kanzure | [Bryan Bishop][] | |
| 187 | +| MarcoFalke | [Marco Falke][] | |
| 188 | +| ken2812221 | [Chun Kuan Lee][] | |
| 189 | +| jamesob | [James O'Beirne][] | |
| 190 | +| jnewbery | [John Newbery][] | |
| 191 | +| nmnkgl | [Gleb Naumenko][] | |
| 192 | + |
| 193 | +## Disclaimer |
| 194 | + |
| 195 | +This summary was compiled without input from any of the participants in |
| 196 | +the discussion, so any errors are the fault of the summary author and |
| 197 | +not the discussion participants. In particular, quotes taken from the |
| 198 | +discussion had their capitalization, punctuation, and spelling modified |
| 199 | +to produce consistent sentences. Bracketed words and fragments, as well |
| 200 | +as background narratives and exposition, were added by the author of |
| 201 | +this summary and may have accidentally changed the meaning of some |
| 202 | +sentences. If you believe any quote was taken out of context, please |
| 203 | +[open an issue](https://github.com/bitcoin-core/bitcoincore.org/issues/new) |
| 204 | +and we will correct the mistake. |
| 205 | + |
| 206 | +[bbm log]: https://botbot.me/freenode/bitcoin-core-dev/msg/102030043/ |
| 207 | +[mb minutes]: http://www.erisian.com.au/meetbot/bitcoin-core-dev/2018/bitcoin-core-dev.2018-07-12-19.00.html |
| 208 | +[current high-priority PRs]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/projects/8 |
| 209 | + |
| 210 | +{% assign log = "http://www.erisian.com.au/meetbot/bitcoin-core-dev/2018/bitcoin-core-dev.2018-07-12-19.00.log.html" %} |
| 211 | +[mb log]: {{log}} |
| 212 | +[log meeting time]: {{log}}#l-15 |
| 213 | +[log feature freeze]: {{log}}#l-28 |
| 214 | +[log 0.16.2]: {{log}}#l-77 |
| 215 | +[log gitian]: {{log}}#l-104 |
| 216 | +[log coin selection]: {{log}}#l-194 |
| 217 | + |
| 218 | +[last meeting]: /en/meetings/2018/07/05/ |
| 219 | +[maintenance releases]: /en/lifecycle/#maintenance-releases |
| 220 | +[backport]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backporting |
| 221 | +[docs repo]: https://github.com/bitcoin-core/docs |
| 222 | +[srd]: /en/meetings/2018/06/21/#coin-selection |
| 223 | + |
| 224 | +[m1]: /en/meetings/2018/04/12/ |
| 225 | +[m2]: /en/meetings/2018/04/19/ |
| 226 | +[m3]: /en/meetings/2018/04/26/ |
| 227 | +[m4]: /en/meetings/2018/05/03/ |
| 228 | +[m5]: /en/meetings/2018/05/10/ |
| 229 | +[m6]: /en/meetings/2018/05/17/ |
| 230 | + |
| 231 | +{% include link-to-issues.md issues="13644,12257,12196,9662,13557,11082" %} |
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