📅 Original date posted:2021-10-12
📝 Original message:
Hi Fabrice,
> I believe that was a mistake: a few days ago, Arcane Research published a
> fairly detailed report on the state of the Lightning Network:
> https://twitter.com/ArcaneResearch/status/1445442967582302213. They
> obviously did some real work there, and seem to imply that their report
> was vetted by Open Node and Lightning Labs.
Appreciate the hard work from Arcane on putting together this report. That
said, our role wasn't to review the entire report, but instead to provide
feedback on questions they had. Had we reviewed the section in question, we
would have spotted those errors and told the authors to fix them. Mistakes
happen, and we're glad it got corrected.
Also note that lnd has _never_ referred to itself as the "reference"
implementation. A few years ago some other implementations adopted that
title themselves, but have since adopted softer language.
> So I'm proposing that lnd's source code be removed from
> https://github.com/lightningnetwork/ (and moved to
> https://github.com/lightninglabs for example, with the rest of their
> Lightning tools, but it's up to Lightning Labs).
I think it's worth briefly revisiting a bit of history here w.r.t the github
org in question. In the beginning, the lightningnetwork github org was
created by Joseph, and the lightningnetwork/paper repo was added, the
manuscript that kicked off this entire thing. Later lightningnetwork/lnd was
created where we started to work on an initial implementation (before the
BOLTs in their current form existed), and we were added as owners.
Eventually we (devs of current impls) all met up in Milan and decided to
converge on a single specification, thus we added the BOLTs to the same
repo, despite it being used for lnd and knowingly so.
We purposefully made a _new_ lightninglabs github org as we wanted to keep
lnd, the implementation distinct from any of our future commercial
products/services. To this day, we've architected all our paid products to
be built _on top_ of lnd, rather than within it. As a result, users always
opt into these services.
As it seems the primary grievance here is collocating an implementation of
Lightning along with the _specification_ of the protocol, and given that the
spec was added last, how about we move the spec to an independent repo owned
by the community? I currently have github.com/lightning, and would be happy
to donate it to the community, or we could create a new org like
"lightning-specs" or something similar. We could then move the spec (the
BOLTs and also potentially the bLIPs since some devs want it to be within
its own repo) there, and have it be the home for any other
community-backed/owned projects. I think the creation of a new github
organization would also be a good opportunity to further formalize the set
of stakeholders and the general process related to the evolution of
Lightning the protocol.
Thoughts?
-- Laolu
On Fri, Oct 8, 2021 at 5:25 PM Fabrice Drouin <fabrice.drouin at acinq.fr>
wrote:
> Hello,
>
> When you navigate to https://github.com/lightningnetwork/ you find
> - the Lightning Network white paper
> - the Lightning Network specifications
> - and ... the source code for lnd!
>
> This has been an anomaly for years, which has created some confusion
> between Lightning the open-source protocol and Lightning Labs, one of
> the companies specifying and implementing this protocol, but we didn't
> do anything about it.
>
> I believe that was a mistake: a few days ago, Arcane Research
> published a fairly detailed report on the state of the Lightning
> Network: https://twitter.com/ArcaneResearch/status/1445442967582302213.
> They obviously did some real work there, and seem to imply that their
> report was vetted by Open Node and Lightning Labs.
>
> Yet in the first version that they published you’ll find this:
>
> "Lightning Labs, founded in 2016, has developed the reference client
> for the Lightning Network called Lightning Network Daemon (LND)....
> They also maintain the network standards documents (BOLTs)
> repository."
>
> They changed it because we told them that it was wrong, but the fact
> that in 2021 people who took time do do proper research, interviews,
> ... can still misunderstand that badly how the Lightning developers
> community works means that we ourselves badly underestimated how
> confusing mixing the open-source specs for Lightning and the source
> code for one of its implementations can be.
>
> To be clear, I'm not blaming Arcane Research that much for thinking
> that an implementation of an open-source protocol that is hosted with
> the white paper and specs for that protocol is a "reference"
> implementation, and thinking that since Lightning Labs maintains lnd
> then they probably maintain the other stuff too. The problem is how
> that information is published.
>
> So I'm proposing that lnd's source code be removed from
> https://github.com/lightningnetwork/ (and moved to
> https://github.com/lightninglabs for example, with the rest of their
> Lightning tools, but it's up to Lightning Labs).
>
> Thanks,
>
> Fabrice
> _______________________________________________
> Lightning-dev mailing list
> Lightning-dev at lists.linuxfoundation.org
> https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/lightning-dev
>
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Olaoluwa Osuntokun [ARCHIVE] /
npub19h…zkvn4
2023-06-09 13:04:03
in reply to nevent1q…hzke
Author Public Key
npub19helcfnqgk2jrwzjex2aflq6jwfc8zd9uzzkwlgwhve7lykv23mq5zkvn4Published at
2023-06-09 13:04:03Event JSON
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"content": "📅 Original date posted:2021-10-12\n📝 Original message:\nHi Fabrice,\n\n\u003e I believe that was a mistake: a few days ago, Arcane Research published a\n\u003e fairly detailed report on the state of the Lightning Network:\n\u003e https://twitter.com/ArcaneResearch/status/1445442967582302213. They\n\u003e obviously did some real work there, and seem to imply that their report\n\u003e was vetted by Open Node and Lightning Labs.\n\nAppreciate the hard work from Arcane on putting together this report. That\nsaid, our role wasn't to review the entire report, but instead to provide\nfeedback on questions they had. Had we reviewed the section in question, we\nwould have spotted those errors and told the authors to fix them. Mistakes\nhappen, and we're glad it got corrected.\n\nAlso note that lnd has _never_ referred to itself as the \"reference\"\nimplementation. A few years ago some other implementations adopted that\ntitle themselves, but have since adopted softer language.\n\n\u003e So I'm proposing that lnd's source code be removed from\n\u003e https://github.com/lightningnetwork/ (and moved to\n\u003e https://github.com/lightninglabs for example, with the rest of their\n\u003e Lightning tools, but it's up to Lightning Labs).\n\nI think it's worth briefly revisiting a bit of history here w.r.t the github\norg in question. In the beginning, the lightningnetwork github org was\ncreated by Joseph, and the lightningnetwork/paper repo was added, the\nmanuscript that kicked off this entire thing. Later lightningnetwork/lnd was\ncreated where we started to work on an initial implementation (before the\nBOLTs in their current form existed), and we were added as owners.\nEventually we (devs of current impls) all met up in Milan and decided to\nconverge on a single specification, thus we added the BOLTs to the same\nrepo, despite it being used for lnd and knowingly so.\n\nWe purposefully made a _new_ lightninglabs github org as we wanted to keep\nlnd, the implementation distinct from any of our future commercial\nproducts/services. To this day, we've architected all our paid products to\nbe built _on top_ of lnd, rather than within it. As a result, users always\nopt into these services.\n\nAs it seems the primary grievance here is collocating an implementation of\nLightning along with the _specification_ of the protocol, and given that the\nspec was added last, how about we move the spec to an independent repo owned\nby the community? I currently have github.com/lightning, and would be happy\nto donate it to the community, or we could create a new org like\n\"lightning-specs\" or something similar. We could then move the spec (the\nBOLTs and also potentially the bLIPs since some devs want it to be within\nits own repo) there, and have it be the home for any other\ncommunity-backed/owned projects. I think the creation of a new github\norganization would also be a good opportunity to further formalize the set\nof stakeholders and the general process related to the evolution of\nLightning the protocol.\n\nThoughts?\n\n-- Laolu\n\nOn Fri, Oct 8, 2021 at 5:25 PM Fabrice Drouin \u003cfabrice.drouin at acinq.fr\u003e\nwrote:\n\n\u003e Hello,\n\u003e\n\u003e When you navigate to https://github.com/lightningnetwork/ you find\n\u003e - the Lightning Network white paper\n\u003e - the Lightning Network specifications\n\u003e - and ... the source code for lnd!\n\u003e\n\u003e This has been an anomaly for years, which has created some confusion\n\u003e between Lightning the open-source protocol and Lightning Labs, one of\n\u003e the companies specifying and implementing this protocol, but we didn't\n\u003e do anything about it.\n\u003e\n\u003e I believe that was a mistake: a few days ago, Arcane Research\n\u003e published a fairly detailed report on the state of the Lightning\n\u003e Network: https://twitter.com/ArcaneResearch/status/1445442967582302213.\n\u003e They obviously did some real work there, and seem to imply that their\n\u003e report was vetted by Open Node and Lightning Labs.\n\u003e\n\u003e Yet in the first version that they published you’ll find this:\n\u003e\n\u003e \"Lightning Labs, founded in 2016, has developed the reference client\n\u003e for the Lightning Network called Lightning Network Daemon (LND)....\n\u003e They also maintain the network standards documents (BOLTs)\n\u003e repository.\"\n\u003e\n\u003e They changed it because we told them that it was wrong, but the fact\n\u003e that in 2021 people who took time do do proper research, interviews,\n\u003e ... can still misunderstand that badly how the Lightning developers\n\u003e community works means that we ourselves badly underestimated how\n\u003e confusing mixing the open-source specs for Lightning and the source\n\u003e code for one of its implementations can be.\n\u003e\n\u003e To be clear, I'm not blaming Arcane Research that much for thinking\n\u003e that an implementation of an open-source protocol that is hosted with\n\u003e the white paper and specs for that protocol is a \"reference\"\n\u003e implementation, and thinking that since Lightning Labs maintains lnd\n\u003e then they probably maintain the other stuff too. The problem is how\n\u003e that information is published.\n\u003e\n\u003e So I'm proposing that lnd's source code be removed from\n\u003e https://github.com/lightningnetwork/ (and moved to\n\u003e https://github.com/lightninglabs for example, with the rest of their\n\u003e Lightning tools, but it's up to Lightning Labs).\n\u003e\n\u003e Thanks,\n\u003e\n\u003e Fabrice\n\u003e _______________________________________________\n\u003e Lightning-dev mailing list\n\u003e Lightning-dev at lists.linuxfoundation.org\n\u003e https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/lightning-dev\n\u003e\n-------------- next part --------------\nAn HTML attachment was scrubbed...\nURL: \u003chttp://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/lightning-dev/attachments/20211012/53ceba64/attachment.html\u003e",
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