Dev Meeting Transcript (March 19, 2021)

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Dev Meeting Transcript (March 19, 2021)

[3:38 PM] Kent Bull: here suggested agenda for today:

  1. Which non-code things should the Foundation control and spend money on? Seeds Websites?

  2. Can someone put together a list of all the major Ravencoin-related websites & github accounts and who owns them or has control?

– What about social media accounts (Discord, Telegram, Reddit, etc) and who owns, controls, moderates them?

– Post them on the Foundation website

– The point of the exercise is transparency, not to gain control.

  1. Should we fund someone a modest amount to go through the Discord helpdesk and put together & maintain an organized FAQ for noobs?

  2. Should we fund someone a modest amount to keep Raven.wiki updated?

  3. Updates on existing core development work

  4. Update on #880 – Sweep capability for RVN core

See here for the agenda repository: https://github.com/kentbull/rvn-agendas/blob/master/agenda-suggestions/2021-03-19-suggested-agenda.md

[3:59 PM] Kent Bull: Just opened the channel up.

[3:59 PM] Tron: Hi Kent

[4:00 PM] Kent Bull: Hi Tron

[4:00 PM] Pathfinder: waves

[4:00 PM] Hans_Schmidt: Howdy

[4:00 PM] Wilson. CEO ฿: ola

[4:00 PM] pinkajou: Hello everyone!

[4:00 PM] HyperPeek: Hi!

[4:01 PM] Kent Bull: Hello all! Any additional agenda items to add to this list?

[4:01 PM] Kent Bull: The first item is which non-code things should the Foundation control and spend money on? Seeds? Websites?

[4:01 PM] pinkajou: If there is time at the end I'd like to gauge community reception to SegWit – not urgent for this meeting, though!

[4:02 PM] Hans_Schmidt: If there is time:

[4:02 PM] Hans_Schmidt: -Non-profit corporations formed to support communities usually publish their Articles of Incorporation and their Bylaws on their website. Will the Foundation do that?

-What is the plan regarding Tron's proposal for decentralized Foundation governance? Was that all contingent on a mining tax? see: https://discord.com/channels/429127343165145089/637386139279556659/773220055265181741

-Procedure for SIG gneration of bounties. The Electrum-SIG will soon want to put bounties on some intermediate milestones.

[4:02 PM] Kent Bull: Yes, feel free to bring that up

[4:02 PM] Kent Bull: got em

[4:03 PM] Kent Bull: Thanks to Hans for most of the agenda items for today. Let's start with the first one:

  1. Which non-code things should the Foundation control and spend money on? Seeds? Websites?

[4:03 PM] HyperPeek: I suggest that the foundation runs and maintains at least 1, better 2 or 3 electrumx server that we can then add to the new wallet as seeds. I am happy to keep mine running, but currently they are the primary server people connect to which seems a bit of a security concern in terms of both trust and decentralization.

[4:04 PM] HyperPeek: Its cheap — just 1 GB additional space on a node

[4:04 PM] Tron: We can put the Articles of Incorporation on the website.

[4:06 PM] Tron: Seeds, website, e-mail. We can run an electrum server on Digital Ocean.

[4:06 PM] Kent Bull: I'm still learning what Electrum and Electrumx are. I imagine we'll have to have a few bootstrap providers like yourself to build enough momentum for things to spread out more over time. Starting out something like this centralized can be cost effective.

It would be an interesting project to build some part of Electrumx into a decentralized service, though that would be a piece of work.

[4:06 PM] HyperPeek: electrumx is the server side connected to a node

[4:06 PM] HyperPeek: its required to get the wallets running

[4:07 PM] HyperPeek: If they are gone as they were, no wallets work

[4:07 PM] Hans_Schmidt: We will need trusted Electrumx servers if we want to do Bluewallet later. Bluewallet does not do proper SPV header verification because they inherently trust the Electrum servers which their dev team controls. So it is not secure to use Bluewallet with public Electrum servers.

[4:07 PM] Tron: Since I've been working on it this week, here's the foundations books.

[4:07 PM] Tron: https://ravencoin.foundation/accounting/

[4:08 PM] Kent Bull: awesome

[4:10 PM] Kent Bull: These seeds, website, email, and this electrum server seem like high-level community structural concerns. Where would we put a request or suggestion like this? Right now we just have this as an agenda item on my agendas repository. Do we have a wiki page or other project management document to give high-level community structure or architecture like this?

[4:10 PM] Tron: I'm curious Hans, what could an insecure electrum server do, other than trick the user into thinking they had more/less funds than they believe? I understand that a rogue electrum server could feed whatever it wanted to the wallet, but isn't that balance info? The wallet would certainly verify the amount it is signing for. What's the risk?

[4:13 PM] Hans_Schmidt: SPV depends on header verification plus transaction merkle root to verify validity. Without header verification the SPV model breaks completely and you are trusting that the UTXO set is what the server tells you. See see: https://github.com/BlueWallet/BlueWallet/blob/master/FAQ.md

[4:14 PM] Tron: I feel like SPV wallets that get their data from the Ravencoin network are important from a decentralization point of view and not allowing anyone to shut down or prevent transactions, but not as much for security reasons.

[4:15 PM] Kent Bull: Would a failed transaction be the worst case scenario or could you lose money?

[4:15 PM] Hans_Schmidt: The point is that Bluewallet doesn't do header download and verification like other true SPV wallets do.

[4:17 PM] Hans_Schmidt: I suggest we dig into the tech details later so that we can cover Foundation agenda items

[4:17 PM] HyperPeek: I think you can construct cases where this can get pretty bad and since its cheap, just run a few :slight_smile:

[4:21 PM] Kent Bull: We seem to have covered this item at least somewhat:

Which non-code things should the Foundation control and spend money on? Seeds? Websites?

We covered electrum seeds and also Tron posted the accounting records for the foundation. Is there anything further to discuss on this item?

[4:21 PM] Kent Bull: The next item, if we want to move on, is:

  1. Can someone put together a list of all the major Ravencoin-related websites & github accounts and who owns them or has control?

  2. What about social media accounts (Discord, Telegram, Reddit, etc) and who owns, controls, moderates them?

  3. Post them on the Foundation website

  4. The point of the exercise is transparency, not to gain control.

[4:21 PM] Hans_Schmidt: I like your suggestion of a page (I like on the Foundation website) where proposals are made for nodes, websites, electrum servers, which the Foundation will pay.

I suggest a 30-day comment and review period after which it becomes ok. Maybe hold the comments and discussion in the Foundation channel on Discord.

[4:22 PM] Kent Bull: I need to give Shaun Neal credit for that. It's a good idea and I'm glad he brought it up.

[4:22 PM] Mango Farm: This strikes me as a potential reason not to use bluewallet

[4:22 PM] Tron: I agree. I'm not suggesting we get rid of the current SPV wallets, which I think are important to maintaining an unstoppable network. For the sake of argument (and learning), let's say the electrum server gave out a bogus set of UTXOs. If they are UTXOs that don't belong to the user, then they can't be signed, or rather signing them and broadcasting them will do nothing. If they do belong to the user, and the server reports bad (larger) balances, it might be able to trick the wallet into crafting and signing a transaction that sends a bunch of fees to the network. The wallet wouldn't sign a transaction to the wrong address, or to a different address. Since fees are the delta between outputs and inputs there might be some mischief, but it wouldn't benefit the attacker directly. Am I missing something?

[4:22 PM] HyperPeek: What about a list somewhere (github?) where people can add what they own/do?

[4:23 PM] Tron: I'll make a Github area for the suggestions and comments. The Foundation website is static, and I'd like to keep it that way if possible.

[4:24 PM] Kent Bull: This is mostly what I was thinking. I wasn't aware of the capability to send a bunch of fees to the network though now that I think about it it seems like a low-risk attack vector since there is no way to directly control where the funds go. So, all in all, it seems low risk to use an Electrum server with Bluewallet, or another wallet, in place of a full-on SPV wallet.

[4:25 PM] Kent Bull: And potentially high benefit.

[4:25 PM] HyperPeek: I think its more about tricking the user into something he does not check / want…

[4:25 PM] HyperPeek: Most beginners do not exactly know what they need to take care about

[4:25 PM] Kent Bull: From what I gather all the user could be tricked into doing is thinking that they own more money than they do.

[4:26 PM] Kent Bull: And that's only if we have rogue electrum servers.

[4:26 PM] Hans_Schmidt: Github is ok, but Foundation topics should be inviting to non-technical people. For instance, Pull Requests are easy for us devs to do. But requiring PRs for the submission of agenda items for a meeting which is primarily about Foundation topics is a prejudicial way of excluding non-technical people, regardless of whether or not that was the intention.

[4:26 PM] Jeroz: a year or so ago, a rogue electrum server started pushing false update notifications to electrum wallets, linking to malware. If I remember correctly.

[4:26 PM] Tron: That's what it seems like to me. If anyone can think of other attack vectors, let me know.

[4:27 PM] HyperPeek: Yeah — and we have this website around that claims there is a 4.4.0.0 or whatever where people lost funds

[4:27 PM] Kent Bull: Yeah, it's not the most user friendly. There are plenty of channels we could use for submission and management of agenda items. I just put my repo out there as a starting point. Let's pick something more user-friendly for non-devs.

[4:27 PM] Destructo: as a somewhat "non technical" person, I agree

[4:27 PM] Kent Bull: I just wanted something more than Discord.

[4:28 PM] Tron: Nevermind. Mixing two conversations.

[4:29 PM] HyperPeek: Normal electrum wallets get update notifications through the server

[4:29 PM] Kent Bull: Ok, do we have any action items on 1. Which non-code things should the Foundation control and spend money on? Seeds? Websites? before we move on? It seemed like more of a question.

[4:29 PM] Tron: I'll add a conversation area on GitHub.

[4:30 PM] Kent Bull: cool, I'll add that to the notes

[4:30 PM] Kent Bull: Should we use that area for the fulfillment of the next agenda item as well?

  1. Can someone put together a list of all the major Ravencoin-related websites & github accounts and who owns them or has control?

[4:31 PM] HyperPeek: Seems perfect from my point of view

[4:32 PM] Kent Bull: Ok, that sounds like a good idea.

The next agenda item seems related to this as well:

Should we fund someone a modest amount to go through the Discord helpdesk and put together & maintain an organized FAQ for noobs?

[4:32 PM] Kent Bull: I suggest we have an FAQ page in the raven.wiki to start out with.

[4:33 PM] Tron: https://github.com/RavencoinFoundation/FoundationIdeas/issues/1

GitHub

The foundation should run one or more electrum servers · Issue #1 ·…

[4:33 PM] Kent Bull: This FAQ seems a bit more technical: https://raven.wiki/w/FAQ

So we might need another one

[4:33 PM] Hans_Schmidt: Maybe we create small bounties for all 3 of those items and use the Foundation discussion area to comment and eventually approve.

[4:33 PM] Tron: https://github.com/RavencoinFoundation/FoundationIdeas

GitHub

RavencoinFoundation/FoundationIdeas

A public forum for conversations around the role of the Ravencoin Foundation – RavencoinFoundation/FoundationIdeas

[4:33 PM] Mango Farm: This is the main one I see, but it does mean that if something is provided in exchange (a blue-wallet-UTXO-for-some-consideration-like-atomic-swapped-RVN-asset) it could be a problem in a very constrained set of malicious circumstances that would be uncovered pretty rapidly. EDIT: no, couldn't happen.

[4:33 PM] Jeroz: Just copy paste almost all of the helpdesk pins :stuck_out_tongue:

[4:34 PM] Jeroz: I write them because people frequently ask the same thing

[4:34 PM] Kent Bull: I like that. Would it work to have each of these be opened as issues in the FoundationIdeas repo?

[4:35 PM] Kent Bull: If we had the most common answers in raven.wiki we could just direct questions there, kind of like a support article database.

[4:36 PM] Kent Bull: If we have a Wiki we may as well use it. It requires cleanup and maintenance, though that's time well spent.

[4:36 PM] Kent Bull: If we're not going to use it then it becomes clutter and should be shut down. Do we like raven.wiki?

[4:36 PM] Tron: The wiki is probably the best place for Ravencoin websites and their owners. It is a large list that would become very quickly out-of-date either on the Foundation website, or in the issues section.

[4:36 PM] Tron: We love raven.wiki

[4:37 PM] Kent Bull: Great, just asking. I'm still learning what is and isn't used in the community.

[4:37 PM] bless yer heart: I like the wiki. could use some condensing but is an excellent start, and has all of the info needed throughout.

[4:37 PM] Kent Bull: I agree with this. The wiki UX is simple enough. It's not quite self-service, though it's easy enough to be updated as long as we list the wiki maintainers in very visible and prevalent locations.

[4:38 PM] Kent Bull: So it looks like our general direction is to use the wiki for handling our third agenda item.

Should we fund someone a modest amount to go through the Discord helpdesk and put together & maintain an organized FAQ for noobs?

Does that seem correct?

[4:39 PM] Jeroz: Oh sure. I wrote most for both :stuck_out_tongue:

[4:40 PM] Kent Bull: So a cool idea I got from one of my prior managers was all about 1% improvements. If we focus on improving the wiki just 1% per week, or more, then that will stack up over time. What improvements can we commit to today, or in the short term?

[4:40 PM] Jeroz: Might as well give it a face lift. It's an old media wiki version.

[4:40 PM] Rikki RATTOE Hotel Floor Pooper: Great Recommendation :thumbsup:

[4:41 PM] Kent Bull: That would be a huge improvement.

[4:41 PM] Kent Bull: And this directly addresses the next agenda item of

Should we fund someone a modest amount to keep Raven.wiki updated?

[4:42 PM] Hans_Schmidt: I am skeptical that the github "Foundation Ideas" area is a good place to host conversations on these multiple topics. Seems like Discord channels would work better. Maybe post official proposals then on github

[4:42 PM] Kent Bull: It's been a community effort to this point.

[4:42 PM] Kent Bull: I hear you. As long as we have a regular, consistent process I believe we could do it either place. It seems like Discord is good for free-form conversations. GitHub issues feels a bit more like a mailing list.

[4:42 PM] Kent Bull: It's a good start though.

[4:42 PM] Rikki RATTOE Hotel Floor Pooper: Yes it's very important to maintain communication between the non-technical and development parts of our community 100%

[4:44 PM] Kent Bull: What action items do we want to create for the FAQ and Raven Wikis for this week?

[4:44 PM] Tron: It's there if you want it. I can't keep up with Discord. We used to have (in Medici) someone who could summarize the Discord info for me.

[4:45 PM] LSJI07 – BWS: Formal discussion is not bad though. Some people prefer that kind of organisation to submit ideas that way for serious review..

[4:45 PM] Kent Bull: yeah, I had to mute the #thenest and #market-and-price-discussion channels due to Joe's spamming of the CoreDeveloper tags. And, there are tons of things going on everywhere else.

[4:45 PM] Kent Bull: I sympathize with this. Having a bit more asynchronous communication puts people in a more thoughtful frame of mind.

[4:46 PM] Kent Bull: I suggest we get to some more development updates prior to meeting end and come back to this discussion afterwards, even in chats or next week.

[4:46 PM] LSJI07 – BWS: It allows more considered responses imo.

[4:47 PM] LSJI07 – BWS: Rather than my initial reaction on discord to get playful gifs out.

[4:47 PM] Jeroz: I’m fine with working with Scotty to look at the wiki and update the version + porting. I’ve never asked for funding but people are welcome to tip.

[4:47 PM] Kent Bull: send me your tip address

[4:48 PM] Rikki RATTOE Hotel Floor Pooper: These spatial AMAs after Dev Meetings should also serve to act as an intermediary between the community and devs

[4:48 PM] Jeroz: It’s at the bottom of Ravennodes.com

[4:48 PM] Kent Bull: Ok, let's quickly move through development updates. They won't take long

[4:48 PM] Kent Bull: here's the next agenda item

Updates on existing core development work

[4:48 PM] Kent Bull: Tron Any news on the security review for P001?

[4:50 PM] Tron: I have not heard back from Kudelski.

[4:50 PM] Tron: I expected something this week. I'll contact them Monday.

[4:51 PM] Tron: I don't see it.

[4:51 PM] Kent Bull: I have a quick update on Raven core Issue #880. I don't have anything coded yet though using this to focus my C++ learning efforts.

[4:52 PM] Kent Bull: Ok, this is awesome, we just got through our entire agenda with nine minutes to spare.

Is there anything else we should go over?

[4:52 PM] Jeroz: https://ravencoin.network/address/RVNNodeS2S21fm9dmTvJfedhBXNQ4GNfvH

[4:52 PM] Hans_Schmidt: Today's discussion just started many topics which deserve more work. I propose that we rename these Friday meetings from "Development Meeting" to "Foundation Open Meeting" so that it focuses on finances, websites, marketing, administration, and corporate use-case promotion. There are many things which need to be discussed on those topics. The engineering can be discussed in focused SIG meetings and a Code Committee open meeting.

[4:53 PM] Tron: I'd like to invite everyone to spatial.io for an AMA, but next week, I'd like to hold it in Braveland — the Ravencoin Campus.

[4:53 PM] Kent Bull: I have been noticing this as well. We should clearly separate community relations meetings from development meetings.

[4:53 PM] LSJI07 – BWS: Is there any pain points the electrum sig needs help from the rest of the community? Perhaps more testnet nodes or smaller gpu miners?

[4:53 PM] LSJI07 – BWS: That shouldn't have been a response…

[4:54 PM] Kent Bull: We have been covering business development concerns here as well. Trying to pack all those concerns into what is titled "Development Meetings" sets us up for a mismatch of expectations.

[4:55 PM] Pathfinder: Shameless Plug: buy my Ravencoin NFTs if you want to donate to the Ravencoin Foundation. :slight_smile:

And if you would like me to be selling a meme that isn't currently up there, let me know and I'll add it so you can buy it.

Again, all proceeds are being donated to the Ravencoin Foundation.

http://dasfeb.industries/nft/

[4:55 PM] Kent Bull: That's cool, I'll check it out. I'll be there next week.

[4:55 PM] Tron: Quick poll. Braveland or spatial this week? Thumbs up for Braveland, thumbs down for spatial.io

[4:55 PM] Hans_Schmidt: This is the correct forum for Foundation topics. Dev needs more focus and more time. Everyone can't do everything.

[4:56 PM] Kent Bull: Should we make a separate channel for foundation open meetings?

[4:56 PM] Kent Bull: Also, should it be community open meanings? The foundation isn't intended to be a centralized administrator, if I'm understanding things correctly.

[4:57 PM] Rikki RATTOE Hotel Floor Pooper: Great Idea, I've been curious to check it out and it helps support the RVN Community

[4:57 PM] Jeroz: If anyone is reading this, WhaleStreet is looking for a react native dev to work on bluewallet.

[4:57 PM] Mango Farm: Personally, I would prefer that we keep this meeting focused on development. If there is going to be a foundation meeting or channel, I would suggest that it be separate. The development focus of this channel is one of the reasons I make a point of attending every week if I can.

[4:57 PM] Hans_Schmidt: There is already a discord foundation channel which is not being used. we could rename it if you prefer.

[4:58 PM] Mango Farm: I don't have a strong view on that. I just think the two need not (and probably should not) be mixed and matched.

[4:59 PM] Tron: Let's keep this 2:00 for dev, and the 3:00 Braveland for Foundation.

[4:59 PM] Kent Bull: We could try things being separate for a month and see how it goes.

[4:59 PM] Kent Bull: Should the foundation/community open meeting be bi-weekly or otherwise?

[4:59 PM] Hans_Schmidt: Agreed. As president and board member of the Foundation, Tron needs to run the Foundation open meeting. That's why I suggested this be the Foundation meeting, and do dev updates in another meeting.

[4:59 PM] Destructo: A RVN marketplace / asset exchange def needs to get on the topic list.

[5:00 PM] Tron: I really like Hans' idea of SIGs that can start to specialize on dev topics of interest.

[5:01 PM] Kent Bull: sounds like a great topic for the foundation meeting. Maybe those meetings are good for high-level, strategic questions like this and the development meetings could be more low-level, stuff that's agreed upon and in the works.

[5:01 PM] Mango Farm: I think we need to resist the temptation to have meetings run by presidents with gavels.

[5:01 PM] LSJI07 – BWS: The foundation has a centralizing influence. I would prefer a seperate channel for that meeting and keep this channel as is as an opportunity for the sigs to speak to each other.

[5:02 PM] Tron: The Braveland (Ravencoin Campus) is open 24×7 for discussions. After you've wandered around, find your favorite area to meet (Team Suites, or Meeting rooms).

[5:02 PM] Kent Bull: This makes the most sense to me. SIGs are for the nitty-gritty, this meeting could be for the next level of

effort aggregation and coordination.

[5:02 PM] Rikki RATTOE Hotel Floor Pooper: Only thing I'll say about Braveland and Spatial is Spatial has a phone app that actually works really well for people not in front of a computer and lacking a VR headset. From what I understand, Braveland doesn't have a phone app yet, correct?

[5:02 PM] Hans_Schmidt: No president with gavels :slight_smile: But the board members are obviously most aware of Foundation actions and status so need to lead the Foundation meeting

[5:03 PM] Mango Farm: Agree

[5:03 PM] Tron: No phone app for Braveland.

[5:03 PM] Tron: We were 6 to 0 on the poll for Braveland this week.

[5:03 PM] Mango Farm: +1

[5:03 PM] Kent Bull: Having each SIG leader post their team and goals in the Wiki would be a good way to provide visibility into SIGs without cluttering up Discord.

[5:04 PM] Rikki RATTOE Hotel Floor Pooper: +1 on moving to Braveland, hopefully they'll get a phone app up and running for those not in front of a computer sooner than later

[5:05 PM] Kent Bull: So, to finish of the development portion of this hybrid development/foundation meeting do we have any further development efforts or questions to address?

[5:05 PM] Tron: Ok, how about we meet in the "Braveland Classroom"

[5:05 PM] LSJI07 – BWS: I dont want to be negative and thumbsdown for Spatial. When I simply haven't got Braveland downloaded yet. :slight_smile:

[5:06 PM] pinkajou: I'll table my SegWit discussion until next week

[5:06 PM] Tron: That's the reason I was suggesting spatial this week. But the poll suggested otherwise.

[5:06 PM] pinkajou: There's a lot to process here already

[5:07 PM] Tron: I'll hang out in Braveland Classroom. Come say Hi.

[5:07 PM] Destructo: Same, I would really like to hear more thoughts on how to create an asset marketplace, or if that is something that wil happen in the future

[5:07 PM] LSJI07 – BWS: I'll have to test my download speed.

[5:07 PM] Tron: Here's the download:

[5:07 PM] Tron: https://www.virbela.com/install?id=bravelandcampus

Install

[5:08 PM] Tron: Mac or Windows.

[5:08 PM] Tron: We can decide after this whether we want to stay in Braveland or go back to Spatial.io

[5:09 PM] Tron: Oh, you need to sign up and then download.

[5:09 PM] Tron: Or at least I did, or I got an error.

[5:09 PM] LSJI07 – BWS: Well that download took 2 seconds.

[5:11 PM] Kent Bull: Just to keep our original time committment, thank you everyone for coming to the development meeting. We finished our agenda and are free to hang around here. I'll be checking out Braveland myself.

[5:11 PM] Jeroz: Grabs a GB when you boot it

[5:12 PM] LSJI07 – BWS: Grabbing now. :thumbsup:

[5:12 PM] Rikki RATTOE Hotel Floor Pooper: I'm remote so can't hit Braveland today but hopefully it all goes well for y'all :v:

[5:12 PM] Destructo: Whats braveland? like a virtual meet up?

[5:12 PM] Kent Bull: See you next week :v:

[5:13 PM] LSJI07 – BWS: Take care, thanks scrum master. :slight_smile:

[5:14 PM] Tron: Braveland is an entire Ravencoin Virtual Campus. There was a meetup this morning with about 500 people.

[5:14 PM] Tron: https://medium.com/me/stories/public

Medium

[5:14 PM] Tron: Dedicated to Ravencoin.

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