Capability improvement proposals

The CIP process begins with a new idea for Burstcoin. Each potential CIP must have a champion — someone who writes the CIP using the style and format described below, shepherds the discussions in the appropriate forums, and attempts to build community consensus around the idea. The CIP champion (a.k.a. Author) should first attempt to ascertain whether the idea is CIP-able.

Small enhancements or patches to a particular piece of software often don’t require standardization between multiple projects; these don’t need a CIP and should be injected into the relevant project-specific development workflow with a patch submission to the applicable issue tracker.

Additionally, many ideas have been brought forward for changing Burstcoin that have been rejected for various reasons.

The first step should be to search past discussions to see if an idea has been considered before, and if so, what issues arose in its progression.

After investigating past work, the best way to proceed is by posting about the new idea to the Burst Discord Forum.

Vetting an idea publicly before going as far as writing a CIP is meant to save both the potential author and the wider community time.

Asking the Burstcoin community first if an idea is original helps prevent too much time being spent on something that is guaranteed to be rejected based on prior discussions (searching the internet does not always do the trick).

It also helps to make sure the idea is applicable to the entire community and not just the author. Just because an idea sounds good to the author does not mean it will work for most people in most areas where Burstcoin is used.

Once the champion has asked the Burstcoin community as to whether an idea has any chance of acceptance, a draft CIP should be presented to the Burst Discord Forum. This gives the author a chance to flesh out the draft CIP to make it properly formatted, of high quality, and to address additional concerns about the proposal.

Following a discussion, the proposal should be submitted to the CIPs repository. This draft must be written in CIP style as described below, and named with an alias such as “cip-johndoe-infiniteburstcoins” until an editor has assigned it a CIP number (authors MUST NOT self-assign CIP numbers).

CIP authors are responsible for collecting community feedback on both the initial idea and the CIP before submitting it for review. However, wherever possible, long open-ended discussions on public mailing lists should be avoided. Strategies to keep the discussions efficient include: setting up a separate SIG mailing list for the topic, having the CIP author accept private comments in the early design phases, setting up a wiki page etc. CIP authors should use their discretion here.

It is highly recommended that a single CIP contain a single key proposal or new idea. The more focused the CIP, the more successful it tends to be. If in doubt, split your CIP into several well-focused ones.

When the CIP draft is complete, the CIP editor will assign the CIP a number, label it as Standards Track, Informational, or Process, and move the submitted text to the CIPs repository.

The CIP editor reviews incoming CIPs for their formal completeness and will not unreasonably reject a CIP.

Reasons for rejecting CIPs include duplication of effort, disregard for formatting rules, being too unfocused or too broad, being technically unsound, not providing proper motivation or addressing backward compatibility, or not in keeping with the Burstcoin philosophy.

For a CIP to be accepted it must meet certain minimum criteria. It must be a clear and complete description of the proposed enhancement. The enhancement must represent a net improvement. The proposed implementation, if applicable, must be solid and must not complicate the protocol unduly.

The CIP author may update the draft as necessary in the wiki. Updates to drafts should also be submitted by the author.

It occasionally becomes necessary to transfer ownership of CIPs to a new champion. In general, we’d like to retain the original author as a co-author of the transferred CIP, but that’s really up to the original author. A good reason to transfer ownership is that the original author no longer has the time or interest in updating it or following through with the CIP process, or has fallen off the face of the ‘net (i.e. is unreachable or not responding to email). A bad reason to transfer ownership is that you don’t agree with the direction of the CIP. We try to build consensus around a CIP, but if that’s not possible, you can always submit a competing CIP.

If you are interested in assuming ownership of a CIP, send a message asking to take over, addressed to both the original author and the CIP editor. If the original author doesn’t respond to email in a timely manner, the CIP editor will make a unilateral decision (it’s not like such decisions can’t be reversed :).

The current CIP editors are rico666 who can be contacted at [email protected] and umbrellacorp03 who can be contacted on Discord.

The CIP editor is present in the Burst Discord channel. Off-list CIP-related correspondence should be sent (or CC’d) to [email protected].

For each new CIP that comes in an editor does the following:

• Read the CIP to check if it is ready: sound and complete. The ideas must make technical sense, even if they don’t seem likely to be accepted.
• The title should accurately describe the content.
• A link to the CIP draft must have been sent to the Burst Discord channel for discussion.
• Motivation and backward compatibility (when applicable) must be addressed.
• The defined Layer header must be correctly assigned for the given specification.
• Licensing terms must be acceptable for CIPs.

If the CIP isn’t ready, the editor will send it back to the author for revision, with specific instructions.

Once the CIP is ready for the repository it should be submitted to the CIPs repository where it may get further feedback.

The CIP editor will:

• Assign a CIP number.
• Move the CIP to its final Wiki name when it is ready.

The CIP editors are intended to fulfill administrative and editorial responsibilities. The CIP editors monitor CIP changes and update CIP headers as appropriate.

Specification

CIPs must be written in markdown format.

Each CIP should have the following parts:

• Preamble - Headers containing metadata about the CIP (see below).
• Abstract - A short (~200 word) description of the technical issue being addressed.
• Copyright - As the CIPs are part of this Burstwiki project the license is GNU FDL.
• Specification - The technical specification should describe the syntax and semantics of any new feature. The specification should be detailed enough to allow competing, interoperable implementations for different Burstcoin platforms.
• Motivation - The motivation is critical for CIPs that want to change the Burstcoin protocol. It should clearly explain why the existing protocol is inadequate to address the problem that the CIP solves.
• Rationale - The rationale fleshes out the specification by describing what motivated the design and why particular design decisions were made. It should describe alternate designs that were considered and related work. The rationale should provide evidence of consensus within the community and discuss important objections or concerns raised during discussions.
• Backward compatibility - All CIPs that introduce backward incompatibilities must include a section describing these incompatibilities and their severity. The CIP must explain how the author proposes to deal with these incompatibilities.
• Reference implementation - The reference implementation must be completed before any CIP is given status “Final”, but it need not be completed before the CIP is accepted. It is better to finish the specification and rationale first and reach consensus on it before writing code. The final implementation must include test code and documentation appropriate for the Burstcoin protocol.

CIP header preamble

Each CIP must begin with an RFC 822 style header preamble. The headers must appear in the following order. Headers marked with “*” are optional and are described below. All other headers are required.

  CIP: <CIP number, or "?" before being assigned>* Layer: <Consensus (soft fork) | Consensus (hard fork) | Peer Services | API/RPC | Applications>  Title: <CIP title; maximum 44 characters>  Author: <list of author names or known community handles>* Discussions-To: <email address>* Comments-Summary: <summary tone>  Comments-URI: <links to wiki page for comments>  Status: <Draft | Active | Proposed | Deferred | Rejected |           Withdrawn | Final | Replaced | Obsolete>  Type: <Standards Track | Informational | Process>  Created: <date created on, in ISO 8601 (yyyy-mm-dd) format>  License: <abbreviation for approved license(s)>* License-Code: <abbreviation for code under different approved license(s)>* Post-History: <dates of postings to bitcoin mailing list, or link to thread in mailing list archive>* Requires: <CIP number(s)>* Replaces: <CIP number>* Superseded-By: <CIP number>

The Layer header (only for Standards Track CIPs) documents which layer of Burstcoin the CIP applies to.

The Author header lists the names and email addresses of all the authors/owners of the CIP. The format of the Author header value must be

 Random J. User <[email protected]>

If there are multiple authors, each should be on a separate line following RFC 2822 continuation line conventions.

While a CIP is in private discussions (usually during the initial Draft phase), a Discussions-To header will indicate the mailing list or URL where the CIP is being discussed. No Discussions-To header is necessary if the CIP is being discussed privately with the author, or on the bitcoin email mailing lists.

The Type header specifies the type of CIP: Standards Track, Informational, or Process.

The Created header records the date that the CIP was assigned a number, while Post-History is used to record when new versions of the CIP are posted to bitcoin mailing lists. Dates should be in yyyy-mm-dd  format, e.g. 2001-08-14. Post-History is permitted to be a link to a specific thread in a mailing list archive.

CIPs may have a Requires header, indicating the CIP numbers that this CIP depends on.

CIPs may also have a Superseded-By header indicating that a CIP has been rendered obsolete by a later document; the value is the number of the CIP that replaces the current document. The newer CIP must have a Replaces header containing the number of the CIP that it rendered obsolete.

CIPs may include auxiliary files such as diagrams. Auxiliary files should be included in a subdirectory for that CIP.

There are three kinds of CIP:

• A Standards Track CIP describes any change that affects most or all Burstcoin implementations, such as a change to the network protocol, a change in block or transaction validity rules, or any change or addition that affects the interoperability of applications using Burstcoin. Standards Track CIPs consist of two parts, a design document and a reference implementation.
• An Informational CIP describes a Burstcoin design issue, or provides general guidelines or information to the Burstcoin community, but does not propose a new feature. Informational CIPs do not necessarily represent a Burstcoin community consensus or recommendation, so users and implementors are free to ignore Informational CIPs or follow their advice.
• A Process CIP describes a process surrounding Burstcoin or proposes a change to (or an event in) a process. Process CIPs are like Standards Track CIPs but apply to areas other than the Burstcoin protocol itself. They may propose an implementation, but not to Burstcoin’s codebase; they often require community consensus; unlike Informational CIPs, they are more than recommendations, and users are typically not free to ignore them. Examples include procedures, guidelines, changes to the decision-making process, and changes to the tools or environment used in Burstcoin development. Any meta-CIP is also considered a Process CIP.