#namecoin-meeting Recap/Notes

[phelix]

is it known now how high moa's bounty is?

[biolizard89]

is it known now how high moa's bounty is?

I don't think so.

[somename]

is it known now how high moa's bounty is?

I don't think so.

Can someone contact him and ask?

[phelix]

Explanation of ZeroMQ in Bitcoin: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob ... doc/zmq.md

In the current implementation it sounds just like an alternative to blocknotify etc.

[biolizard89]

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#namecoin-dev meeting notes, 2016 01 03

# Present:

Jeremy
Hugo
Cassini
Erkan
Brandon
Jonas
EN

Namecoin Core
	Jeremy got Windows Gitian builds mostly working.
		Needed a change that affects upstream Bitcoin, waiting to see what they'll do upstream.
		Some of the .exe files in the .zip distribution have the wrong name/metadata/icon.
		The NSIS installer runs (though untested whether its installed client works).
		The NSIS installer still has Bitcoin graphics (but Namecoin text).
		How much of this do we want to fix for 0.12.0 ?
		Should 0.12.0 exclude the installer if we don't have the Namecoin graphics in by then?
		RESOLUTION: Jeremy will try to get stuff into the Namecoin 0.12 branch
	No idea if OS X Gitian builds work.
	Question of whether to do Windows and OS X signing of Gitian-produced binaries
		RESOLUTION: Don't do it for 0.12.  Probably don't do it at all for OS X.
	Adding a gitian sigs repo?
		RESOLUTION: Ask Daniel or Phelix to add a repo.
	Heard back from fsb; he hasn't had any luck on the Name Management GUI port.
		Not surprising, he wasn't expecting to make it work.
		Brandon will ask around to see if anyone is willing to work on this.
	Reminder that there is discussion about a hardfork due to BIP 9.
		We should collect a list of relevant major users (miners, exchanges, registrars, explorers, wallet/client devs) who need to be informed and consulted about imminent software upgrades.
		Is there a benefit to implementing the P2Pool merged mining scheme?
			RESOLUTION: Probably don't worry about P2Pool's MM or other extra stuff, due to engineering effort and the imminent hardfork deadline
		Namecoin 0.3.80 will stop working when the hardfork occurs.
			That means we need name management GUI ported by then.
			RESOLUTION: Using Phelix's Python NameGUI is preferable over rushing a Namecoin Core Qt name GUI.
		Should we put on hold any plans to get new pools (e.g. Antpool) mining Namecoin until after the hardfork?
			RESOLUTION: yes.

ncdns
	ncdns speed testing
		ncdns is much faster with Namecoin Core than with NamecoinQ.  Like, an order of magnitude faster.
		ncdns seems to be about 3x faster than NMControl when the result is cached.	
	There are a number of tickets from dionyziz in the ncdns issue tracker
	Jeremy is still cleaning up the TLS code.

GSoC
	GSoC 2016 is approaching.
	Mentor org submissions open Feb 8, end Feb 19.
	We should clean up our Ideas Page from last year.
	Daniel probably can't be a mentor anymore for contractual reasons, but we can use him as a reference.
	We should grab a copy of Daniel's mentor org submission from last year, and make any changes as needed.
		

Website
	Still waiting on ryan-c to set up Jekyll on the server.
		Last Jeremy heard Ryan was in Germany at 32c3; not sure if he's returned yet.

Fundraising
	BountySource
		Jeremy is currently locked out of the Namecoin team page in BountySource.
			Waiting on BountySource staff to get back to us, they're probably away due to holidays.
		Our bounty for SOCKS support in Python urllib3 has been awarded.

[biolizard89]

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#namecoin-dev meeting notes, 2016 04 03

# Present:

Jeremy
Cassini
Joseph

Namecoin Core
	Progress toward 0.12.0 milestone: 4 tickets have been closed so far, 10 remain open.
		https://github.com/namecoin/namecoin-core/milestones/nc0.12.0
	Travis builds are now mostly succeeding, but sometimes run out of time.
		Cassini suggests looking into whether it's possible to split the offending build instance into 2 instances.
		Joseph comments that it might be possible to raise the time limit if we pay Travis CI money.
	Brandon's GUI PR has a linker error in Gitian (both Windows and Linux).
		https://github.com/namecoin/namecoin-core/pull/67
		Jeremy will try to do a depends build as per moa's instructions and see if I get a similar error.
	0.12 branch now supports Gitian builds for both Windows and Linux.
		So when nc0.12.0rc3 is tagged, we should be able to make Gitian builds for both platforms.
		The 4 Namecoin developers who currently use Gitian (Jeremy, Joseph, Jonas, and midnightmagic) have agreed that 1 signature is enough to post a binary, but it will have a warning next to it until 3 people have reproduced the build.
			This policy will be reevaluated before the end of 2016.
		Master branch still doesn't support Windows Gitian builds yet, because we're waiting for upstream Bitcoin Core to merge a related PR.
	Gitian builds for OS X are on hold, because an Xcode input is needed, and that Xcode input can't be downloaded using Tor Browser.
		Seems to be a known bug in Tor Browser; probably not intentional on Apple's part.
		Sadly, that Xcode input also is distributed without TLS, and without any hashes or signatures.
		Cassini ran into some unrelated OS X build issues without using Gitian.  Fixed by manually copying some libdb_cxx headers, but that doesn't seem like a proper solution.
	Alert keys won't be replaced.
		That's because Bitcoin Core upstream has removed the alert system completely.
		Bitcoin devs also say that replacing an alert key would DoS the network.

VersionBits
	VersionBits has been merged to upstream Bitcoin Core.
	Not an immediate threat to Namecoin, but Daniel had to disable VersionBits on the Namecoin network until the hardfork.

BitcoinJ
	Jeremy doesn't plan to release the BitcoinJ code until name data is working.
		This is because currency-only clients are useless to Namecoin's intended target audience, and reinforce a misperception that Namecoin is a currency.	
	Jeremy is experimenting with retrieving name data.  Nothing concrete to report yet.

Website
	Progress toward 1.0 Jekyll milestone: 7 tickets have been closed so far, 4 remain open.
		When those 4 are closed, Jeremy will push the Jekyll site to beta.namecoin.org.
		https://github.com/namecoin/namecoin.org/milestones/1.0
		Help review PR's!

EclipseMC
	EclipseMC mining pool has shut down.

[biolizard89]

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#namecoin-dev meeting notes, 2016 04 17

# Present:

Jeremy
Jonas
Joseph
Brandon


Namecoin Core

	Progress toward 0.12.0 milestone
		5 tickets closed, 7 remain open
			Several tickets were deferred until after BIP9, and several more are pending a decision on deferral
			https://github.com/namecoin/namecoin-core/milestones/nc0.12.0

	Brandon has joined the Namecoin Gitian club
		That makes 5 Gitian builders for Namecoin: Jeremy, Joseph, Jonas, midnightmagic, and Brandon.

	Brandon's name management GUI PR
		Starting at https://github.com/namecoin/namecoin-core/pull/67#issuecomment-205184074
		Brandon has most functionality from the 0.3.80 Manage Names page is present
		Brandon has gone through the issues raised in the PR and elsewhere, and pushed fixes for them
		Brandon is currently writing some wallet tests		
		Mostly waiting for more testing
		Brandon pushed a temporary Windows build branch for making Gitian Windows binaries
			Brandon requests that Gitian builders make sigs for that branch
				Joseph is currently building it
		Jonas noticed that the binary segfaults when built with the --incompatible-db flag		
			Brandon is looking into it
			Jonas will test Bitcoin Core and Namecoin Core master to see if the same thing occurs there
		Brandon asks what timeline we're looking at to get the GUI PR merged
			Jeremy notes that Bitcoin Core 0.12.1 is out; includes BIP9			
		Jeremy suggests listing beta builds on the namecoin.org downloads page once Jekyll site goes live
			ACK from Brandon
		tosh0 on GitHub reports that it doesn't build in EasyWinBuilder (looks like a Boost-related error)
			Jeremy asks: do we care?  Is EasyWinBuilder even supported by Bitcoin devs?
				Joseph is pretty sure Bitcoin devs don't support EasyWinBuilder.
				Jeremy suggests that if anyone wants us to support EasyWinBuilder, they should get it merged upstream to Bitcoin (which already has a bunch of contrib build scripts e.g. deb/rpm)
					ACK from Brandon
					ACK from Jonas
				Brandon recomments pointing people to the Bitcoin Windows build instructions
		exmachinalibertas on Reddit found an address display bug
			https://www.reddit.com/r/Namecoin/comments/4774lw/namecoin_core_pull_request_for_name_management_gui/d262tn5
			Brandon pushed a fix	
		Brandon asks if it's okay to post signed testing binaries on /r/Namecoin
			Jeremy ACKs as long as the usual warnings are included about who's reproduced the hashes, it being beta software that fails Travis CI tests, and should be used with a wallet that users aren't willing to lose.	

	Jonas asks if BIP9 merged mining can be tested with Bitcoin and Namecoin testnets.
		Jeremy doubts it, because it's timestamp-dependent, but regtest should work okay
		Jonas will try to test the regtest instructions that Daniel posted

	Bitcoin Core merged Jeremy's NSIS PR
		That means we can proceed with Windows Gitian builds in the master branch

	Brandon asks whether the next Namecoin Core binary release will be number 0.12.0 or 0.12.1.
		Jeremy has no strong opinion.

	Jonas asks whether a testnet reset can get into nc0.12.0
		Jeremy thinks Daniel prefers waiting until after BIP9
		Jonas will submit a PR labeled as WIP

	Jeremy mentions that Travis CI builds are failing right now; seems to be a BIP9-related error
		https://github.com/namecoin/namecoin-core/issues/86#issuecomment-209596073

	Jonas asks if Namecoin Core is buildable on OS X.
		Jeremy points to https://github.com/namecoin/namecoin-core/issues/83 where this is being tracked
		

Block explorers
	Jonas notes that webbtc is stuck on the wrong testnet fork and that there aren't any other testnet explorers.
		Jeremy agrees this is an issue
		Jonas will try to set up the webbtc code himself, but documentation isn't great

ncdns
	Jeremy has been cleaning up the TLS code
		Parts of it are now almost readable!

Website
	All known remaining blocking issues have been resolved, the Jekyll site is ready for deployment to beta.namecoin.org
		https://github.com/namecoin/namecoin.org/milestones/1.0
	Jeremy will push it to the beta site
	
Funding
	Jeremy got a refund for the BountySource bounties that were assigned to the Armory issues (which are currently marked as wontfix)
	Jeremy rewrote the donations section of the site and has a PR pending; feedback is requested.
		https://github.com/namecoin/namecoin.org/pull/53
		Since ShapeShift is down right now, it might make sense to either temporarily remove ShapeShift from the PR, or wait until ShapeShift is back before merging.
		Jonas utACKs the PR

[biolizard89]

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#namecoin-meeting notes, 2016 05 01

# Present:

Jeremy
Joseph
samurai373
Brandon
Jonas

Jeremy will have limited availability the next couple weeks due to end of semester hecticness.

Namecoin Core

	Progress toward 0.12.0 milestone
		6 tickets are closed, 6 remain open
		https://github.com/namecoin/namecoin-core/milestones/nc0.12.0

	Brandon's name management GUI PR
		Starting at https://github.com/namecoin/namecoin-core/pull/67#issuecomment-211101252
		Joseph posted Gitian sigs for Windows and GNU/Linux.
		Brandon plans to make a Reddit post asking for more testers (with Gitian binaries provided)
		Brandon added unit tests for the wallet changes
		Randy had trouble getting name_update and name_firstupdate to work; some kind of wallet issue.
			Brandon is working on debugging it; looks like the transactions got rejected from the mempool.			
		Brandon mentions that uploading binaries to Google Drive isn't quite ideal.
			Jeremy concurs, but doesn't see any practical attacks as long as users download via Tor and check the hashes.
			Jeremy might be able to upload binaries to the namecoin.org server.
		Jeremy plans to submit a namecoin.org PR for a "beta downloads" page.
		Randy noticed some minor display issues.
			Expired names show up in the Names tab, with negative "expires in" block counts.
				Jeremy actually likes this being available.  Maybe leave that functionality in as an optional mode?
		Brandon working on unit tests for the Qt code that handles whether to send pending name transactions.
		Brandon will try to debug the issue Jonas reported last meeting about a segfault if --incompatible-db was used.
		samurai373 notes that posting binaries is important for getting people to test; building Namecoin Core takes a long time.
			Jeremy concurs.

	Jeremy is happy to report that Bitcoin miners are now mining BIP9 blocks, and that Namecoin's AuxPoW is perfectly fine with this.
		https://namecoin.webbtc.com/block/e68f4594a7021c24b5fdf0cabcb0a78f5fa6a9fd2b1db19f48b2448dda7d2aa1.json

	OS X Builds
		Jonas got OS X to build successfully in Gitian.
			Jonas thinks Gitian's environment is somewhat non-deterministic.  Sometimes the build fails.
			Jonas reports that the Gitian descriptors work out of the box, as long as "bitcoin" is renamed to "namecoin" in a few places.
			Jonas might have found a way to extract the OS X SDK without needing an OS X machine.  Still untested whether it builds properly.

	Jeremy requests an ACK or NACK on deferring https://github.com/namecoin/namecoin-core/issues/68#issuecomment-215619022 until after the BIP9 hardfork.

	Jonas asks whether nightly-ish Gitian builds would be useful.
		Jeremy thinks Bitcoin has a bot that does regular builds, but unless multiple people do builds, Gitian isn't particularly useful.
		Joseph thinks nightly is ambitious, unless a bot does it, but agrees with Jeremy that a single bot isn't that useful.
		Jeremy prefers to spend time coding rather than babysitting Gitian builds.
		Brandon says weekly might make more sense.
		Jonas thinks binaries aimed at public testing should use Gitian.
			Brandon and Jeremy agree.
		
	Jonas asks about roadmap for 0.12.0rc3.
		Potential things that would be worth a new RC:
			Jonas suggests the name tab.
			Jeremy suggests the Windows Gitian support (already merged) or OS X Gitian support.

	Jonas notes that Bitcoin Classic has a Gitian build for ARM, wonders if it would be useful for us.
		Jeremy would like to see that merged, but preferably via Bitcoin Core.
		Jonas concurs.

	samurai373 asks about freezing new Bitcoin commits prior to a Namecoin release.
		Jonas notes that the 0.12 branch is mostly stable.
		Jeremy notes that our 0.12 branch follows Bitcoin Core's 0.12 branch, which while mostly stable, does keep merging new things after a Bitcoin Core release.
		Jeremy would be okay with having an extra branch that stops merging stuff after a Bitcoin Core release, but this would be extra work for Daniel, so Daniel would have to ACK it.
		samurai373 doesn't think a new branch is needed.

	Jonas hasn't yet had a chance to test BIP9 on regtest.

	Jonas has code for Namecoin testnet2; will soon submit as PR with (WIP) label.

	A user posted about a wallet corruption issue on GitHub:
		https://github.com/namecoin/namecoin-core/issues/89
		Note this is an 0.3.80 issue.  Core probably already fixed the issue.
		If anyone has suggestions on recovering the wallet, please post in that thread.
		samurai373 mentions a theoretical wallet corruption bug in 0.3.80 that he never tried to reproduce.
			Brandon says that's entirely plausible; 0.3.80 name tab caused a lot of things to happen with the wallet and could easily cause corruption.
			Jeremy asks if those bugs still exist in Namecoin Core with Brandon's name tab.
			Brandon says they shouldn't.

	Brandon asks about Travis CI failures.
		Daniel and Jeremy are still playing whack-a-mole with Travis CI build errors.
			Daniel may have fixed an issue that happened because a BIP9 test was failing (as expected, since Namecoin doesn't do BIP9 yet).
		

Public Relations

	Jekyll site is pushed to https://beta.namecoin.org .
		Jeremy plans to push it to production if no NACKs are received by May 6.
		Everyone please test the heck out of it.
			Jonas will do so.

	Jeremy, EN, and Stephen gave a presentation on Namecoin to the OU CS Board of Visitors.
		Went very well.
		One of the board members asked if we had considered talking to Google about bundling Namecoin with Chrome.

	Jeremy is possibly participating in a poster session at OU's CS dept on May 6.

Funding

	BountySource balance:
		$5/month from 1 recurring supporter
		Total funds available: $164 USD

	Jeremy suggests closing the remaining GitHub issues for namecoin/libcoin as wontfix.
		https://github.com/namecoin/libcoin/issues/20
		This would free up $130 USD on BountySource which we could use for new bounties.
			https://www.bountysource.com/issues/3161846-name-management
			https://www.bountysource.com/issues/4417065-use-libcoind-as-a-backend-instead-of-namecoind
			https://www.bountysource.com/issues/3161708-testnet

[somename]

There's a comment that building from source takes a long time, and a question whether a Gitian ARM build would be useful.

Partially because of the former, the answer to latter is "yes".
Secondly, older ARM devices (512MB RAM) probably can't even build Bitcoin Core 0.12.
So overall it would be useful to have Gitian binaries for ARM.

[biolizard89]

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#namecoin-meeting notes, 2016 05 15

# Present:

Jeremy
Jonas
Joseph
pigeons

Housekeeping: Jeremy was away for the past week due to finals week.  He's back now.  As a result, this is a shorter meeting than last meeting.

Namecoin Core

	Progress toward 0.12.0 milestone
		7 tickets are closed, 5 remain open
		https://github.com/namecoin/namecoin-core/milestones/nc0.12.0

	Windows Gitian builds
		Jeremy fixed Gitian Windows builds in master branch.

	OS X Gitian builds
		Jonas says that extracting the OS X SDK from Linux didn't seem to work; it produced a tar.gz that was very different in file size from the one produced on OS X.
		Jonas says it might be a good idea to just create the tar.gz deterministically on OS X and publish the hash.
		Jeremy is curious if the difference is innocuous.  Do the content files have the same hash when extracted?
		Joseph suggests Debian's diffoscope tool.
		Jeremy says maybe ask Cory Fields from Bitcoin whether he knows anything about this, seeing as this topic is applicable to Bitcoin.
		
	Last week Jonas noted that Bitcoin Classic has a Gitian build for ARM, wondered if it would be useful for us.
		Jeremy checked; the commit was submitted to Bitcoin Core but was rejected due to poor code quality.
		https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/7659
		So far no one has cleaned it up.		

	0.3.80 / Core compatibility
		johnc reports that 0.3.80 has trouble downloading blockchain from Core.
		https://forum.namecoin.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2547
		Jeremy wonders if this is something that we actually care about or need to fix.
		0.3.80 is being hardforked off the network soon anyway.
		Jeremy doesn't see much reason to expend effort on making it easier to run 0.3.80.
		Jonas concurs that it's not a problem we need to fix

	Travis Builds
		Daniel fixed a Travis build issue relating to BIP 9.
		There's still at least 1 Travis build issue remaining.

	Regarding the wallet corruption issue that Jeremy brought up last meeting
		https://github.com/namecoin/namecoin-core/issues/89
		The bug reporter confirms that Namecoin Core is not affected by the bug.  Only Namecoin 0.3.80 is.
		Jeremy was able to help the reporter recover his wallet using the -salvagewallet option in Namecoin Core.

	Jonas mentions that someone is still mining on testnet with the old 0.3.80 client.
		This is annoying for people who are trying to sync the testnet.

BitcoinJ

	Jeremy is still tinkering with BitcoinJ.
		Jeremy got an SPV name lookup to work.
		Not optimized at all yet; Jeremy has ideas for making it work better.

Public Relations

	Jekyll site
		No NACKs received on Jekyll site, so Jeremy will push it to production as soon as possible.

	Downloads page
		Consensus on GitHub is to link to Namecoin Core binaries on the main downloads page.
		Full details at https://github.com/namecoin/namecoin.org/issues/57 .
		If anyone disagree with this course of action, say so on GitHub before we get around to filing a PR.

	Exchanges page
		Jeremy suggests adding Bitsquare
			https://github.com/namecoin/namecoin.org/issues/58
		Jeremy notes that Kraken is delisting Namecoin soon.
			Jeremy considers this unsurprising; Kraken's AML policies caused most users to use ShapeShift or Bitsquare instead.
			We should remove Kraken from the Exchanges page.

Funding

	BountySource balance:
		$5/month from 1 recurring supporter
		Total funds available: $164 USD