lightning-dev

proposal for Lightning Network improvement proposals

proposal for Lightning Network improvement proposals

Original Postby Olaoluwa Osuntokun

Posted on: July 22, 2018 20:32 UTC

The current process surrounding creating, modifying and drafting BOLT documents needs to be better documented as confusion arose regarding the process.

The current minimal process among various implementations has worked well so far but there may need to be more structure put in place to ensure transparency for newcomers. René Pickhardt recently proposed that they start having their own LIPs (Lightning Network Improvement proposals) in the grand tradition of BIPs. The LIPs should be placed on github.com/lightning account in a repo called lips or within the lightning rfc repo. A draft has already been created for LIP-0001 which describes the process and is 95% influenced by BIP-0002. René Pickhardt realized that many ideas are distributed within the community and there is no central place where future enhancements for BOLT1.1 can be collected. Potential LIPs could include watchtowers, autopilot, AMP, splicing, routing protocols, broadcasting past routing statistics, eltoo etc. Pickhardt volunteered to work on a LIP for Splicing. Olaoluwa Osuntokun asked why another repo was needed when they already have the equivalent of improvement proposals: BOLTs. Historically new standardization documents are proposed initially as issues or PR's when ultimately accepted.