WEBVTT - Automatic transcript; recognition may contain errors. Reviewed for technical wording and speaker labels. Times match the published episode. 00:00:21.070 --> 00:00:23.290 Live from Utrecht, this is Bitcoin 00:00:23.290 --> 00:00:24.830 Explained. 00:00:25.150 --> 00:00:25.750 Hey, Sjors. 00:00:26.010 --> 00:00:26.590 What's up? 00:00:27.220 --> 00:00:31.160 I have an amazing gift for our listeners today. 00:00:31.600 --> 00:00:32.040 Okay. 00:00:32.420 --> 00:00:37.280 As you know, the Bitcoin Amsterdam conference is coming up. It's in October. 00:00:37.700 --> 00:00:38.060 Yes. 00:00:38.160 --> 00:00:44.490 And I can offer our dear listeners a discount code for 10% off of their tickets. 00:00:45.010 --> 00:00:46.370 That sounds amazing. 00:00:46.530 --> 00:00:50.780 Isn't that great? The discount code is Sjorsnado. 00:00:52.600 --> 00:00:56.720 I wanted to make sure we had a discount code that no one can pronounce or remember. 00:00:56.960 --> 00:01:00.340 Or spell correctly unless they know what they're talking about. No, it's excellent. 00:01:00.600 --> 00:01:06.170 Exactly. So now it's only for our one... I hope there... Let's see if there's 00:01:06.170 --> 00:01:11.530 even one person that will use the code. Like that will be our hardcore fan if 00:01:11.530 --> 00:01:15.190 there's one person that will use this code. I'm not sure if we can see if anyone 00:01:15.190 --> 00:01:20.810 uses the code. I think so. I hope there will be one person. And then if we meet 00:01:20.810 --> 00:01:23.730 you at the conference, we'll take a picture with you. Right, Sjors? 00:01:24.330 --> 00:01:25.230 Maybe, maybe not. 00:01:26.190 --> 00:01:31.380 Well... We've just promised it, so we can't really go back on it now. I've said 00:01:31.380 --> 00:01:36.740 it out loud. Sjors and I will take a picture with you at Bitcoin Amsterdam if you 00:01:36.740 --> 00:01:39.380 use the code Sjorsnado. 00:01:40.950 --> 00:01:41.710 All right. 00:01:41.910 --> 00:01:44.890 Sjors, what are we going to discuss today? We're going to discuss very sad news, 00:01:45.030 --> 00:01:45.590 actually, aren't we? 00:01:46.550 --> 00:01:47.530 I don't know if it's sad. 00:01:49.030 --> 00:01:50.210 It's not happy news. 00:01:50.410 --> 00:01:52.370 No, but it was somewhat predictable news. 00:01:52.510 --> 00:01:57.910 Yeah. Okay, so Wladimir van der Laan, the lead developer, lead maintainer of 00:01:57.910 --> 00:02:01.590 Bitcoin Core, he's going to quit, or he did quit. 00:02:02.070 --> 00:02:03.070 Yeah, he's retiring. 00:02:03.350 --> 00:02:08.670 He's retiring. He's done it since 2014. So that, is that right? Yeah. 00:02:08.810 --> 00:02:09.670 No, I think much longer. 00:02:09.770 --> 00:02:12.770 I think like officially, Gavin Andresen... 00:02:12.940 --> 00:02:16.640 As a maintainer, yeah. He's been in the project for almost 10 years. 00:02:16.800 --> 00:02:19.020 Probably at least 10 years, right? 00:02:19.400 --> 00:02:19.500 Yeah. 00:02:19.640 --> 00:02:23.540 But yeah, lead maintainer for, I guess, about eight, over eight years now. I 00:02:23.540 --> 00:02:27.600 think it was like March 2014 or something from top of my head. 00:02:27.960 --> 00:02:28.540 Could be. 00:02:28.680 --> 00:02:34.490 And he's stepping down. So we thought this was a good opportunity to 00:02:34.490 --> 00:02:40.130 maybe discuss... I guess, what a lead maintainer for Bitcoin Core 00:02:40.130 --> 00:02:46.030 does, what he is, and a little bit more broadly, the Bitcoin Core 00:02:46.030 --> 00:02:48.410 development process itself. 00:02:48.950 --> 00:02:49.670 Yes. 00:02:49.870 --> 00:02:55.830 So how is the Bitcoin Core software actually produced or who 00:02:55.830 --> 00:03:00.610 does this? It's not about individuals, but the different roles that are involved 00:03:00.610 --> 00:03:06.730 in that process. So, sure. First of all, What is Bitcoin Core? 00:03:07.390 --> 00:03:12.310 Well, Bitcoin Core is many things to many people. I mean, primarily it's the name 00:03:12.310 --> 00:03:17.190 of a piece of software. The piece of software just used to be called Bitcoin and 00:03:17.190 --> 00:03:21.370 then it was rebranded to Bitcoin Core. And I guess the brand stuck around. It's 00:03:21.370 --> 00:03:25.750 basically the node that validates all the blocks. And you can also use it with a 00:03:25.750 --> 00:03:28.570 wallet. And it's got a nice user interface. And it used to be able to mine 00:03:28.570 --> 00:03:33.390 blocks, all that sort of cool stuff. Bitcoin Core is also the name of a 00:03:33.390 --> 00:03:39.210 unspecified group of people that contribute code. To the Bitcoin Core software. 00:03:39.430 --> 00:03:42.150 Basically, anybody who does that is called a Bitcoin Core contributor. 00:03:42.830 --> 00:03:46.670 Apparently, and I believe this concept was invented by Peter Todd, you can also 00:03:46.670 --> 00:03:51.470 be a former Bitcoin Core contributor. So apparently, even though your commits 00:03:51.470 --> 00:03:57.180 will always be in there, at some point, you're not presently a 00:03:57.180 --> 00:04:02.680 contributor. I don't think there's a very tight definition of that. And then, in 00:04:02.680 --> 00:04:06.840 addition to contributing, you can maintain... you can be a maintainer and I guess 00:04:06.840 --> 00:04:09.600 we'll have to explain a bit what that is and then there's such a thing as a lead 00:04:09.600 --> 00:04:10.180 maintainer 00:04:10.180 --> 00:04:16.180 Yeah I want to I first I want to get a little bit more philosophical here if 00:04:16.180 --> 00:04:20.720 you'll allow me. Sure. So you just said Bitcoin Core is a piece of software, for 00:04:20.720 --> 00:04:25.580 example, that's one of the definitions you gave in short. So but but then, like 00:04:25.580 --> 00:04:30.860 if you— which piece of software is Bitcoin Core? How do you— how like— 00:04:31.850 --> 00:04:36.770 How is it defined? Is there a way to define which software actually is Bitcoin Core? 00:04:37.180 --> 00:04:41.660 Well I would say that once that becomes difficult there'll be probably be two 00:04:41.660 --> 00:04:45.740 names for two different things that's the easy way out right right because right 00:04:45.740 --> 00:04:49.420 now it's just you go to Bitcoin Core.org and the thing you see there is called 00:04:49.420 --> 00:04:53.720 Bitcoin Core and there's there's no controversy around that if you know unless 00:04:53.720 --> 00:04:55.180 you talk to some really crazy people. 00:04:55.180 --> 00:05:00.080 I mean there was some controversy about it like a year ago if you remember around 00:05:00.080 --> 00:05:05.380 the Taproot activation discussion at some point Luke Dashjr 00:05:05.940 --> 00:05:09.320 was arguing that Bitcoin Core was no longer Bitcoin Core. 00:05:09.680 --> 00:05:13.800 Okay, yeah, I guess in the eyes of some people that such a controversy can happen 00:05:13.800 --> 00:05:18.820 earlier, right? But I think in this case it was mostly his opinion. But you could 00:05:18.820 --> 00:05:23.340 have a situation where the people currently described as Bitcoin Core or some 00:05:23.340 --> 00:05:28.580 subset of it make changes that are considered controversial by other people, 00:05:28.840 --> 00:05:32.860 perhaps even also people who are part of Bitcoin Core. And so at that point, you 00:05:32.860 --> 00:05:36.680 might have a split in opinion where one group says, no, this is Bitcoin Core. And 00:05:36.680 --> 00:05:40.520 the other group says, this is Bitcoin Core. And there's nobody formally entitled 00:05:40.520 --> 00:05:45.160 to anything there. So then I guess you will have to start arguing about names and 00:05:45.160 --> 00:05:46.140 what's the real Bitcoin. 00:05:46.400 --> 00:05:48.360 Yeah, you get similar discussions. 00:05:48.980 --> 00:05:51.400 And it depends on the kind of change, right? So there could be two kinds of 00:05:51.400 --> 00:05:55.260 changes. One is a consensus change. And that's definitely what the situation with 00:05:55.260 --> 00:05:59.630 Luke Dashjr was about. So what are the actual rules of the Bitcoin blockchain? If 00:05:59.630 --> 00:06:02.810 you have a dispute about that, you get problems with ticker symbols and that sort 00:06:02.810 --> 00:06:07.550 of stuff. But you could also have a more benign conflict, for example, where some 00:06:07.550 --> 00:06:11.190 people say, well, Bitcoin Core should have a graphical client and it should be 00:06:11.190 --> 00:06:15.150 easy to use. And others would say, no, it should absolutely not be. And maybe 00:06:15.150 --> 00:06:19.550 that causes some sort of split where you have two pieces of software that follow 00:06:19.550 --> 00:06:23.980 the exact same rules, but they are really two different pieces of software. And 00:06:23.980 --> 00:06:26.820 maybe people fight over the name. I doubt it, but it could happen. 00:06:27.060 --> 00:06:31.620 Well, I'd say the example that I gave with Luke Dashjr was somewhere in between 00:06:31.620 --> 00:06:32.180 these two. 00:06:35.030 --> 00:06:38.250 I don't want to dwell on this, but at the same time, I do think it's kind of 00:06:38.250 --> 00:06:40.270 relevant for the episode and I'll explain why. 00:06:41.970 --> 00:06:47.070 So I never really gave it too much thought or I never really 00:06:47.070 --> 00:06:52.950 thought that it could ever become a problem. But if you would have asked me what 00:06:52.950 --> 00:06:58.950 Bitcoin Core is, then my answer would have been Bitcoin Core is whatever the 00:06:58.950 --> 00:07:02.550 lead maintainer of Bitcoin Core says is Bitcoin Core. 00:07:02.770 --> 00:07:07.610 Well, that won't work because if the lead maintainer says something crazy, then, 00:07:07.610 --> 00:07:11.850 you know. Then you could simply say, well, he's not the lead maintainer. And 00:07:11.850 --> 00:07:15.070 therefore, whatever the new lead maintainer says is Bitcoin Core. But then you 00:07:15.070 --> 00:07:16.770 might as well just directly say what it is. 00:07:17.900 --> 00:07:23.140 No so in my definition that would still be Bitcoin Core it's just that users 00:07:23.140 --> 00:07:27.620 would then have to adopt a new software they would have to migrate to a new 00:07:27.620 --> 00:07:32.740 software but the lead maintainer does sort of define in my personal definition 00:07:32.740 --> 00:07:37.940 the way I was always thinking about it like that is who defines it and then who 00:07:37.940 --> 00:07:41.420 is the lead maintainer of Bitcoin Core you know before because it could get 00:07:41.420 --> 00:07:46.600 circular that is either whoever founded the project or whoever 00:07:47.230 --> 00:07:51.950 inherited the project from either the founder or their previous lead maintainer 00:07:51.950 --> 00:07:54.910 does that make sense? So that's how I used to think about it. 00:07:54.910 --> 00:07:58.330 I guess it could make sense. I don't think that's— that's useful at the moment 00:07:58.330 --> 00:08:02.070 anyway right because in the beginning yes it was very clear that the founder was 00:08:02.070 --> 00:08:06.690 the lead maintainer but very quickly whether I mean Gavin I guess was the second 00:08:06.690 --> 00:08:12.650 lead maintainer before Wladimir but I and I think Gavin got it inherited in 00:08:12.650 --> 00:08:16.130 a way right I don't know if Wladimir got it inherited or… 00:08:16.130 --> 00:08:21.310 Well that one for sure like Wladimir definitely inherited it from Gavin that was 00:08:21.310 --> 00:08:27.010 very explicit the less explicit one was arguably Gavin from Satoshi that one is a 00:08:27.010 --> 00:08:30.450 little bit more murky I think it's… 00:08:30.450 --> 00:08:34.030 But right now it's just like Wladimir says okay I'm no longer the lead maintainer 00:08:34.030 --> 00:08:39.000 now there is no lead maintainer. And the next one is decided not necessarily by 00:08:39.000 --> 00:08:42.500 Wladimir. It could be somebody, you know, multiple people might say, oh, I would 00:08:42.500 --> 00:08:46.480 like the role. And then I guess a group of developers would sort of talk about 00:08:46.480 --> 00:08:51.280 it. My guess is that there will be zero or one volunteer for this role. And so 00:08:51.280 --> 00:08:54.760 there's not a problem of deciding who it is, but I wouldn't call it inheritance. 00:08:54.940 --> 00:08:59.140 I don't think. I mean maybe Wladimir's you know if he if he has a strong 00:08:59.140 --> 00:09:03.680 preference between two super equal candidates I could imagine people would say 00:09:03.680 --> 00:09:06.700 okay whatever his preference is but in the end… 00:09:06.700 --> 00:09:11.120 Okay that that's interesting. I was gonna get on this point in the at the end of 00:09:11.120 --> 00:09:15.740 the episode but now that you mentioned it let's just finish this thought so what 00:09:15.740 --> 00:09:20.720 you're saying you you expected the next lead maintainer would not actually be 00:09:20.720 --> 00:09:25.810 someone that Wladimir will explicitly say okay you're— no and you're my successor 00:09:25.810 --> 00:09:29.270 it will just sort of… How so who's going to decide or how does that… 00:09:29.270 --> 00:09:32.210 The thing is Wladimir has said for years that you know he would like somebody 00:09:32.210 --> 00:09:36.050 else to start doing this at some point and he said like if people don't do this 00:09:36.050 --> 00:09:39.930 voluntarily I'm just going to do this python situation where their lead 00:09:39.930 --> 00:09:44.330 maintainer just leaves very suddenly and the thing is with with these kind of 00:09:44.330 --> 00:09:49.400 projects like it's not the nicest and most thankful work so It's not like people 00:09:49.400 --> 00:09:52.720 are fighting to become the next lead maintainer of Bitcoin Core. Nobody wants to 00:09:52.720 --> 00:09:54.740 be the next lead maintainer, including Wladimir. 00:09:55.040 --> 00:09:55.200 Sure. 00:09:55.320 --> 00:09:58.940 At some point, if Wladimir says, I'm not doing this anymore, somebody else will 00:09:58.940 --> 00:10:03.160 eventually start doing it. But it's more like that. It's like, somebody please be 00:10:03.160 --> 00:10:03.980 the lead maintainer. 00:10:04.520 --> 00:10:05.000 Okay. 00:10:05.280 --> 00:10:06.920 It's not like president of the US. 00:10:07.480 --> 00:10:12.260 Someone will start doing it. And what it is, so that's sort of what we'll get 00:10:12.260 --> 00:10:16.870 into in the... the rest of the episode, but now we're really skipping it. So now 00:10:16.870 --> 00:10:18.270 I want to take a step back, I guess. 00:10:18.290 --> 00:10:22.410 Because it is multiple things. So what I'm basically, well, we'll get into what 00:10:22.410 --> 00:10:26.610 these things are, right? But what I'll guess is what happens is there's certain 00:10:26.610 --> 00:10:30.590 tasks that Wladimir used to do and he's not doing them anymore, or at least that 00:10:30.590 --> 00:10:35.850 might be the case. Somebody else will do one or more of those tasks. And perhaps 00:10:35.850 --> 00:10:39.450 whoever is doing most of those tasks because nobody else is doing it, then 00:10:39.450 --> 00:10:42.330 suddenly gets crowned. You are the lead maintainer now. Have fun. 00:10:43.030 --> 00:10:48.930 Okay, so at this point, we should get back in order of the episode. So yeah, 00:10:48.990 --> 00:10:53.470 the controversy at some point was, so my kind of loose definition of Bitcoin Core 00:10:53.470 --> 00:10:57.610 was always whatever the Bitcoin Core lead maintainer says is Bitcoin Core. And 00:10:57.610 --> 00:11:03.530 then what Luke Dashjr was kind of contending or arguing instead was 00:11:03.530 --> 00:11:09.190 that in his mind, Bitcoin Core is defined as a process. So there's a specific 00:11:09.190 --> 00:11:14.310 process. And if that process is being followed, then that is Bitcoin Core. That 00:11:14.310 --> 00:11:19.610 process has something to do with consensus. And if that process is broken, then 00:11:19.610 --> 00:11:25.090 whatever comes out of that process cannot be called Bitcoin Core. So he had a 00:11:25.090 --> 00:11:30.270 different way of defining Bitcoin Core, which is not something I've 00:11:30.270 --> 00:11:35.350 since then given much thought or have an opinion on. But I did think it was 00:11:35.350 --> 00:11:39.010 interesting that you can have different opinions or definitions of Bitcoin Core. 00:11:39.270 --> 00:11:44.930 So I just wanted to throw that out there. Now we've just 00:11:44.930 --> 00:11:49.190 kind of defined Bitcoin Core or we haven't or we've explained that there are 00:11:49.190 --> 00:11:54.230 different ways of looking at it so let's leave that aside next question 00:11:55.060 --> 00:12:00.940 or next point is so what are the roles within the Bitcoin Core 00:12:00.940 --> 00:12:05.300 project that there is a Bitcoin Core project let's just assume that and then there's 00:12:06.510 --> 00:12:11.130 roles within that project. And I think you've already mentioned one or two of them. 00:12:11.290 --> 00:12:14.230 Yeah, I went into what contributors are, right? So people who contribute code, I 00:12:14.230 --> 00:12:17.510 guess, you know, there's also people who contribute review and that sort of thing 00:12:17.510 --> 00:12:18.530 or issues, et cetera. 00:12:19.390 --> 00:12:25.270 Right and there's this is something anyone can do anyone can decide 00:12:25.270 --> 00:12:30.570 today or tomorrow or last year or next year, I'm gonna contribute to Bitcoin Core 00:12:30.570 --> 00:12:36.150 in some way or another can be code can be review can be maybe translations 00:12:36.150 --> 00:12:37.670 of text, or… 00:12:37.670 --> 00:12:42.030 Yeah and there's in principle there's like no barrier to entry to that right so 00:12:42.030 --> 00:12:46.410 you just show up with your piece of code or with your comment and unless it's 00:12:46.410 --> 00:12:49.340 like absolute spam you know, you'll be fine. 00:12:49.920 --> 00:12:50.060 Yeah. 00:12:50.620 --> 00:12:53.060 Maybe nothing happens with your code, but you know, it's not… 00:12:53.680 --> 00:12:58.880 Yeah. Nor does anything happen with you. You can start calling… 00:12:58.780 --> 00:13:01.520 Yeah. But then the next role would be a maintainer. 00:13:01.680 --> 00:13:02.000 Right. 00:13:02.180 --> 00:13:06.240 And that one has a, I would say a higher barrier to entry. I don't think there's 00:13:06.240 --> 00:13:09.320 a really a formal process for it, but what the maintainer does is they 00:13:09.320 --> 00:13:13.480 essentially click the merge button. So at this point, I think we need to explain 00:13:13.480 --> 00:13:14.740 a little bit of GitHub workflow. 00:13:15.000 --> 00:13:15.780 I think so. Yeah. 00:13:15.960 --> 00:13:20.000 Right. So there's this thing called GitHub, which is a place where people keep 00:13:20.000 --> 00:13:24.280 Git repositories. Git itself is a decentralized system that has existed for a 00:13:24.280 --> 00:13:29.560 long time or distributed system, depending on your look. And so on GitHub, you 00:13:29.560 --> 00:13:33.900 can, you know, there's an organization on GitHub. I would say it's not really an 00:13:33.900 --> 00:13:38.510 organization, but it's called Bitcoin. And this organization owns a repository. 00:13:38.710 --> 00:13:42.320 So a repository is a piece of code. And that piece of code is also called 00:13:42.320 --> 00:13:46.860 Bitcoin. So that's why the URL is GitHub.com slash Bitcoin, the organization 00:13:46.860 --> 00:13:50.660 slash Bitcoin, the project, the source code. 00:13:51.240 --> 00:13:51.360 Right. 00:13:51.440 --> 00:13:55.180 We'll get into what that Bitcoin organization is in a bit. But to explain the 00:13:55.180 --> 00:14:00.280 workflow, when you want to propose a change to Bitcoin, you make a pull request. 00:14:00.460 --> 00:14:06.300 And what that does is you take the code, the original code, and you clone 00:14:06.300 --> 00:14:10.620 it on your own computer. And then you change something. And you push that change 00:14:10.620 --> 00:14:15.920 to GitHub. So now GitHub has the original code plus your changes. And then you do 00:14:15.920 --> 00:14:19.300 something that's called a pull request, which basically sends a message, I guess, 00:14:19.420 --> 00:14:25.300 to the repository that shows the difference between your stuff and the 00:14:25.300 --> 00:14:30.880 original code. And then you can explain why you're doing it. And so other people 00:14:30.880 --> 00:14:34.940 will see, okay, they'll see this person wants to propose the following changes 00:14:34.940 --> 00:14:37.880 and this is their reasoning why. And then people will start looking at it. 00:14:37.980 --> 00:14:41.900 They'll review the differences. And if enough people agree with it, then somebody 00:14:41.900 --> 00:14:47.420 has to click a button, essentially, that now includes your changes into this 00:14:47.420 --> 00:14:51.740 Bitcoin slash Bitcoin repository so that everybody else can build on top of it. 00:14:51.900 --> 00:14:57.100 Right. So everything you mentioned so far... Up until the button clicking, that's 00:14:57.100 --> 00:14:58.780 what Bitcoin Core contributors do. 00:14:59.120 --> 00:15:03.260 Yeah, the contributors review your code. They suggest improvements. And at some 00:15:03.260 --> 00:15:06.860 point, if enough contributors and if enough contributors that have the correct 00:15:06.860 --> 00:15:11.600 skill set to actually judge that, say, okay, this code is fine. Then the 00:15:11.600 --> 00:15:13.820 maintainer more or less just presses the button. 00:15:14.400 --> 00:15:16.760 Yes. And what happens when they press the button? 00:15:18.230 --> 00:15:24.130 Then the code is included inside the master branch, which means then everybody 00:15:24.130 --> 00:15:28.570 else who wants to make a change has to build on top of what you just did. At 00:15:28.570 --> 00:15:33.750 least, you know, the way Git works is kind of a tree. So you don't actually have 00:15:33.750 --> 00:15:38.510 to build on top of the very latest thing that is on the master branch if you're 00:15:38.510 --> 00:15:41.730 not touching the same thing. So if there's like two different files, I don't have 00:15:41.730 --> 00:15:45.690 to build on top of the latest commit on master if I'm working on a different 00:15:45.690 --> 00:15:50.850 file. But there's something called the merge conflict where if the master branch 00:15:50.850 --> 00:15:56.370 contains a file that's been changed and you are also changing that file, you 00:15:56.370 --> 00:16:00.030 actually have to build on top of the latest version. Otherwise, we don't know 00:16:00.030 --> 00:16:02.850 what the truth is. But that's maybe for another episode. 00:16:03.450 --> 00:16:08.750 Okay, so someone needs to click that button. That person is a Bitcoin Core 00:16:08.750 --> 00:16:09.650 maintainer? 00:16:09.810 --> 00:16:10.030 Yes. 00:16:10.680 --> 00:16:15.100 How many Bitcoin Core maintainers are there right now or are there usually? 00:16:16.070 --> 00:16:18.790 There's six and it's always been sort of roughly around that number. 00:16:19.030 --> 00:16:22.410 Do you know from the top of your head, do you remember who these six are 00:16:22.410 --> 00:16:23.130 currently? 00:16:23.430 --> 00:16:26.810 Well, Wladimir is still technically. fanquake. 00:16:27.370 --> 00:16:28.490 Yeah, Michael Ford. 00:16:28.580 --> 00:16:30.850 right. And Marco Falke. 00:16:31.870 --> 00:16:32.750 Gloria Zhao. 00:16:32.870 --> 00:16:33.650 Gloria Zhao. 00:16:33.640 --> 00:16:34.180 Oh, right. 00:16:33.890 --> 00:16:36.390 I don't know what his real name is. 00:16:37.670 --> 00:16:38.590 And Andrew Chow. 00:16:39.110 --> 00:16:43.770 There you go. You made it to all six. We didn't insult anyone thanks to your 00:16:43.770 --> 00:16:49.250 great memory, Sjors. Thank you. So there are six currently, and I think that's 00:16:49.250 --> 00:16:53.970 usually around six, right? That's been around six for a long time. 00:16:53.970 --> 00:16:56.390 At least many years, yeah. Some people come, some people go. 00:16:56.690 --> 00:17:02.610 Right. So then how do you become a Bitcoin Core maintainer? How do you get the 00:17:02.610 --> 00:17:05.870 access to this button? 00:17:06.200 --> 00:17:10.260 Yeah, so there's not a super formal process for it, but basically the idea would 00:17:10.260 --> 00:17:14.380 be that you have been around for a while, you have a reputation of not doing 00:17:14.380 --> 00:17:19.540 absolutely insane things, and you understand when something is safe to include, 00:17:20.430 --> 00:17:25.230 right? So for the most part, what a maintainer does is they rely on other people 00:17:25.230 --> 00:17:29.160 who have done the reviewing and who've publicly said that it's okay. But you do 00:17:29.160 --> 00:17:33.780 need to know whose review is typically good and whose review may not be very 00:17:33.780 --> 00:17:38.040 good, right? So you need some experience in the project to know that. And so 00:17:38.040 --> 00:17:42.640 that's sort of so. So basically, then there's a meeting on the IRC chat where 00:17:42.640 --> 00:17:47.910 somebody might say, hey, you know, I'd like to become a maintainer. Or, hey, we'd 00:17:47.910 --> 00:17:50.810 like you to become a maintainer. And then others would say, yeah, sounds good, 00:17:50.890 --> 00:17:54.720 sounds good, sounds good. And maybe there's some discussion, maybe not. And then 00:17:54.720 --> 00:17:59.780 a little bit later. The one of the existing maintainers adds that new maintainer 00:18:00.840 --> 00:18:05.140 Right so maintainers are added by other maintainers essentially. 00:18:05.140 --> 00:18:09.100 Yeah but the approval process is a community thing. Yeah but the actual physical 00:18:09.100 --> 00:18:14.440 ad— act of making somebody a maintainer can only be done by maintainers or 00:18:14.920 --> 00:18:16.460 somebody with backdoor access. 00:18:18.980 --> 00:18:22.020 Right, like a GitHub employee could do it as well, essentially. 00:18:22.300 --> 00:18:25.500 Yeah, but then I guess we can get there later. I don't know if you want to get 00:18:25.500 --> 00:18:29.040 into that now, but there's basically two ways that people track who the 00:18:29.040 --> 00:18:31.180 maintainers is. So there is the... 00:18:31.180 --> 00:18:32.140 Let's get into it now. 00:18:32.260 --> 00:18:37.780 So on GitHub, there's basically GitHub itself as a platform, but it's a trusted 00:18:37.780 --> 00:18:41.680 platform. They have mechanisms to make sure that some people can push the button 00:18:41.680 --> 00:18:46.000 and other people cannot. So the list of current maintainers is updated inside of 00:18:46.000 --> 00:18:49.800 GitHub so that GitHub, you know, at least make sure that no random other person 00:18:49.800 --> 00:18:52.500 can press a button because that would create a mess. Wouldn't be the end of the 00:18:52.500 --> 00:18:55.780 world, but it would definitely create a mess. But there's a second thing because 00:18:55.780 --> 00:19:00.720 GitHub is a trusted platform. We don't really want to rely on that. Right. So, 00:19:00.900 --> 00:19:05.020 well, one thing you can do is you can just look at all the recent commits on the 00:19:05.020 --> 00:19:07.840 Bitcoin Core repository and you can look like who was hitting the merge button 00:19:07.840 --> 00:19:12.920 because the merge button, well, they're not technically not using the button, but 00:19:12.920 --> 00:19:16.300 I won't bore you with that. But you can see who made the merge commits. So you 00:19:16.300 --> 00:19:19.140 can check that it's actually one of those six people that you know to be the 00:19:19.140 --> 00:19:22.880 maintainers. But there's also an automated way to check that. And that's because 00:19:22.880 --> 00:19:26.760 there is a file inside the repository. And that file says these are the six 00:19:26.760 --> 00:19:30.820 maintainers. This is their PGP key. And so there's a script that will start with 00:19:30.820 --> 00:19:35.150 that file sometime in the past. Whatever the maintainers were then. It looks at 00:19:35.150 --> 00:19:38.750 all the merges and it will say, okay, this merge was done by somebody who was on 00:19:38.750 --> 00:19:42.530 the list at the time of the merge. And then at some point, the list itself has 00:19:42.530 --> 00:19:46.550 changed. It checks that the list was changed by somebody on that list and not by 00:19:46.550 --> 00:19:49.990 somebody else. And then it will check for the next commits that they were done by 00:19:49.990 --> 00:19:52.350 somebody who had permission to press the merge button. 00:19:52.530 --> 00:19:56.270 And that's because these commits are cryptographically signed? 00:19:56.470 --> 00:20:00.770 Yes, exactly. So GitHub has a really nice feature that not everybody uses and you 00:20:00.770 --> 00:20:05.570 don't have to use it. But when you make a commit, which is one piece of a change, 00:20:05.790 --> 00:20:09.850 you can sign it with your PGP key. You can do it automatically or you can do it 00:20:09.850 --> 00:20:14.490 manually. And maintainers always do this when they make a merge. So that means 00:20:14.490 --> 00:20:18.550 that you cryptographically sign using your PGP key that you are the one doing the merge. 00:20:19.200 --> 00:20:19.640 Right. 00:20:19.860 --> 00:20:21.300 Unless your key is compromised, of course. 00:20:23.210 --> 00:20:28.350 Sure. Right okay that's clear to me is that what you wanted to say about that part 00:20:28.350 --> 00:20:28.730 Yep 00:20:28.730 --> 00:20:34.290 Okay great so then so now we've discussed contributors which can essentially be 00:20:34.290 --> 00:20:38.770 anyone that contributes and then we've discussed maintainers which are about six 00:20:38.770 --> 00:20:44.590 and they get access to this merge button and then we have the lead maintainers 00:20:44.590 --> 00:20:50.070 so what differentiates the lead maintainer from regular maintainers or what are 00:20:50.070 --> 00:20:51.490 the roles of a lead maintainer? 00:20:51.490 --> 00:20:56.110 I think over time we could say that the lead maintainer is doing less and less or 00:20:56.110 --> 00:21:00.770 at least less and less very visible things but I mean the lead maintainer 00:21:00.770 --> 00:21:05.310 basically evolved from what would be the benevolent dictator in a project like 00:21:05.310 --> 00:21:11.190 Linux So it is the person, especially in the beginning, is the person who makes 00:21:11.190 --> 00:21:14.830 a release, who decides when it's, well, it doesn't really decide when it's time 00:21:14.830 --> 00:21:18.550 to make a release. I mean, in the original benevolent dictator thing, they would 00:21:18.550 --> 00:21:21.410 decide when to make a release. They would decide what would go into the release. 00:21:21.630 --> 00:21:23.470 They would put it on the website, et cetera. 00:21:23.810 --> 00:21:26.730 I mean, that was certainly true for Bitcoin in the early years as well. 00:21:26.910 --> 00:21:30.430 Yeah, and it's evolved a little bit where a lot of these subtasks have been more 00:21:30.430 --> 00:21:34.090 distributed, where there are still several buttons that Wladimir or the new 00:21:34.090 --> 00:21:37.380 maintainer has to push. But there are a lot of buttons that really anyone can 00:21:37.380 --> 00:21:39.460 push as long as somebody pushes them. 00:21:40.160 --> 00:21:42.240 Okay, so what are some of these buttons? 00:21:42.480 --> 00:21:45.240 But I would say one of the ones that's still probably critical is the release 00:21:45.240 --> 00:21:49.920 itself. Just to decide that this is a release and not some other commit. 00:21:50.140 --> 00:21:53.440 Hey, that kind of gets back to my definition of Bitcoin Core then, doesn't it? 00:21:53.920 --> 00:21:57.580 Yeah, but it's not that essential either. In principle, any maintainer, I guess, 00:21:57.640 --> 00:22:01.040 could also make a release. I don't know if that's still actually constrained or not. 00:22:02.240 --> 00:22:07.780 Well, isn't that the case now? Isn't Bitcoin Core released by, or different 00:22:07.780 --> 00:22:08.900 people sign off to it? 00:22:09.040 --> 00:22:13.080 Okay, so there's multiple aspects to the release. One aspect is which commit, 00:22:13.400 --> 00:22:17.340 which specific piece of code actually represents the release. That's done with a 00:22:17.340 --> 00:22:18.600 tag on GitHub. 00:22:18.880 --> 00:22:19.000 Right. 00:22:19.280 --> 00:22:23.560 Or even in Git, Git has tags. Tags are signed too. So the question is, who gets 00:22:23.560 --> 00:22:27.810 [unclear] tags? And the answer to that question is, well, if you have a script 00:22:27.810 --> 00:22:32.190 that checks the tags, you know, what does the script want? Maybe the script wants 00:22:32.190 --> 00:22:35.930 the lead maintainer to do it. Maybe the script is fine if any of the maintainers 00:22:35.930 --> 00:22:41.170 do it. But I would say it's the same kind of thing as a [unclear]. So maybe the 00:22:41.170 --> 00:22:44.790 lead maintainer doesn't even do that maybe he does but he doesn't have to maybe 00:22:44.790 --> 00:22:49.710 anybody could do it but in practice maybe only one person does it so that's one. 00:22:49.710 --> 00:22:54.530 So in short that's one person that says this is a new Bitcoin release. 00:22:54.530 --> 00:22:55.550 Yeah exactly. 00:22:55.550 --> 00:23:00.990 Okay and then currently in Bitcoin or so far in Bitcoin was this still Wladimir 00:23:00.990 --> 00:23:01.490 always? 00:23:02.220 --> 00:23:04.080 I haven't checked, probably. 00:23:04.460 --> 00:23:08.200 Okay, and the way he would do that is he would... 00:23:08.200 --> 00:23:13.980 He would open his computer, he would type the words Git tag and then 00:23:13.980 --> 00:23:16.940 v0.23.1. 00:23:17.500 --> 00:23:23.430 Sure, but my question is more, he would probably... need a reason to do that 00:23:23.430 --> 00:23:27.990 for himself, at least. He wouldn't just do that because he felt like it. He would 00:23:27.990 --> 00:23:29.230 probably have some kind of checklist. 00:23:29.450 --> 00:23:32.390 There are a bunch of checklists out there that you can see in the repository. A 00:23:32.390 --> 00:23:35.530 whole lot of things have to happen. I think, I forgot the name of the file, but 00:23:35.530 --> 00:23:40.830 there is basically a list, a release-process.md that has a lot of tedious things 00:23:40.830 --> 00:23:44.150 that have to happen. Like somebody has to upload the latest translations. Again, 00:23:44.210 --> 00:23:47.590 that could be any contributor, but somebody has to... at the translations. 00:23:48.030 --> 00:23:51.670 Somebody has to change the version number in the source code so that it displays 00:23:51.670 --> 00:23:55.110 the correct version number. Doesn't matter who does that. Somebody has to do it. 00:23:55.450 --> 00:23:59.110 There's a whole bunch of these things. Somebody has to make release notes. And 00:23:59.110 --> 00:24:03.430 then the more subjective part is to say, okay, are there still any bugs left that 00:24:03.430 --> 00:24:07.750 have to be fixed before it's good to make a release? And usually there's release 00:24:07.750 --> 00:24:12.040 candidates. Those are things that are released to the public that people can 00:24:12.040 --> 00:24:16.060 test. Then I guess it doesn't really matter when you do that. And then there's 00:24:16.060 --> 00:24:20.880 the actual release. And for the actual release, usually on the IRC chat, there's 00:24:20.880 --> 00:24:24.020 a meeting where people say, should we do the release? And then a lot of people 00:24:24.020 --> 00:24:28.780 say, yeah, let's do the release. Then the maintainer again just presses the 00:24:28.780 --> 00:24:29.780 button and makes the release. 00:24:33.320 --> 00:24:38.820 Okay so as far as we know or think or suspect so far it was still Wladimir 00:24:38.820 --> 00:24:42.560 who kind of went through this checklist and said all right everything is done 00:24:42.560 --> 00:24:45.120 this is the new Bitcoin Core release 00:24:45.600 --> 00:24:49.120 Yeah, I think so. But again, that sounds like something that can trivially be 00:24:49.120 --> 00:24:51.160 done by anyone, by any of the maintainers anyway. 00:24:51.420 --> 00:24:55.720 And then I think the second part you were going to get at is signing the release. 00:24:55.780 --> 00:24:59.700 Yeah. So once you have decided what source code belongs to release, now you need 00:24:59.700 --> 00:25:03.840 to actually make a binary that belongs to release. And there is a, we talked 00:25:03.840 --> 00:25:07.960 about this, deterministic builds many episodes ago about Guix, for example, how 00:25:07.960 --> 00:25:13.950 it's done now. Anybody can do that. And many different people should do that. And 00:25:13.950 --> 00:25:18.850 the results should be identical, whoever does it. So for the same code, for any 00:25:18.850 --> 00:25:23.350 given code, you should get the exact same binary. And not just one binary, but 00:25:23.350 --> 00:25:25.990 one for Windows, one for Mac, one for Linux, etc. 00:25:27.380 --> 00:25:33.060 And these binaries have checksums. And so what you want to sign is the checksums. 00:25:33.650 --> 00:25:36.910 And yeah, it used to be, and that's usually the case with a lot of open source 00:25:36.910 --> 00:25:40.770 projects, that the lead maintainer signs the binary and says this is the 00:25:40.770 --> 00:25:44.350 signature or this is the checksum of the binary and I'm here signing this binary 00:25:44.350 --> 00:25:48.270 with my PGP key so that people who download it know that they don't have malware. 00:25:48.570 --> 00:25:52.810 At least they know that if there's malware, then the malware is made by the lead 00:25:52.810 --> 00:25:57.090 maintainer. And so that has been changed recently. There are a lot of people 00:25:57.090 --> 00:26:01.740 signing off on these binaries. So the process has been changed so that 00:26:01.740 --> 00:26:07.680 multiple people can sign for a release. I think it's not 00:26:07.680 --> 00:26:13.540 just the maintainers. I think anybody can sign for a release. And that 00:26:13.540 --> 00:26:16.680 means that when you download the release, there's a whole bunch of signatures on 00:26:16.680 --> 00:26:22.170 it. And then you can decide, I guess, which signature you care about. 00:26:22.640 --> 00:26:26.640 So maybe you know somebody and you trust them. Maybe that's Wladimir, maybe 00:26:26.640 --> 00:26:30.440 that's somebody else. But yeah, so that removes again, removes the lead 00:26:30.440 --> 00:26:34.780