OIP: 0001
Title: OIP Purpose and Guidelines
Authors: bench
Status: Draft
Type: Informational
Created: 2020-05-01
OIP stands for Onest Improvement Proposal but can also seen as an improvement protocol. A OIP is a design document providing information to the Onest community, or describing a new feature for Onest or its processes or environment. The OIP should provide a concise technical specification of the feature or the idea and a rationale for it. It may not only describe technical improvements but also document best-practises and recommendations.
We intend OIPS to be the primary mechanisms for proposing new features, for collecting community input on an issue, and for documenting the design decisions that have gone into Onest. The OIP author is responsible for building consensus within the community and documenting dissenting opinions.
Because the OIPS are maintained as text files in a versioned repository, their revision history is the historical record of the feature proposal.
There are two kinds of OIPS:
- An Informational OIP describes a Onest design issue, or provides general guidelines or information to the Onest community, but does not propose a new feature, protocol change or any other modification. Informational OIPS do not necessarily represent a Onest community consensus or recommendation, so users and implementors are free to ignore Informational OIPS or follow their advice. Examples would be best-practises or recommendations.
- A Protocol Upgrade OIP describes any change that affects most or all Onest implementations, such as a change to the protocol, a change in block or transaction validity rules, or any change or addition that affects the interoperability of applications using Onest.
People wishing to submit OIPS first should propose their idea as github issue first. After discussion you will be assigned a number for the OIP and can send a pull request for your draft. Once consensus among discussion participants is reached, the status can be switched to accepted. From this time on, major changes of the document will not be permitted.
If the proposal requires a protocol upgrade, the proposal is considered implemented only if shareholders have approved a corresponding worker or hard fork proposal. Informational OIPS can only reach the accepted state since their implementation is not enforced by the blockchain.
We are fairly liberal with listing OIP drafts here since the final decision of its actual implementation is made solely by Onest shareholders via approval voting.
It is highly recommended that a single OIP contain a single key proposal or new idea. Small enhancements or patches often don't need a OIP and can be injected into the Onest development work flow with a patch submission to the Onest issue tracker. The more focused the OIP, the more successful it tends to be. The OIP editor reserves the right to reject OIP proposals if they appear too unfocused or too broad. If in doubt, split your OIP into several well-focused ones.
Vetting an idea publicly before going as far as writing a OIP is meant to save the potential author time. Many ideas have been brought forward for changing Onest that have been rejected for various reasons. Asking the Onest 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 Onest is used.
Following a discussion, the proposal should be sent to the Onest developers and the OIP editors with the draft OIP. This draft must be written in OIP style as described below, else it will be sent back without further regard until proper formatting rules are followed.
If the OIP editor approves, he will assign the OIP a number, label it, give it status "Draft", and add it to the git repository. The OIP editor will not unreasonably deny a OIP. Reasons for denying OIP status include duplication of effort, being technically unsound, not providing proper motivation or addressing backwards compatibility, or not in keeping with the Onest philosophy.
The OIP author may update the Draft as necessary in the git repository. Updates to drafts may also be submitted by the author as pull requests.
For a OIP 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.
Once a OIP has been published, the reference implementation must be completed. When the reference implementation is complete and accepted by the shareholders via approval voting, the status will be changed to "Accepted". A OIP can also be "Rejected" by shareholders.
Furthermore, a OIP can be assigned status "Deferred". The OIP author or editor can assign the OIP this status when no progress is being made on the OIP. Once a OIP is deferred, the OIP editor can re-assign it to draft status.
OIPS can also be superseded by a different OIP, rendering the original obsolete. This is intended for Informational OIPS, where version 2 of an API can replace version 1.
Each OIP should have the following parts:
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Preamble -- RFC 822 style headers containing meta-data about the OIP, including the OIP number, a short descriptive title (limited to a maximum of 44 characters), the names, and optionally the contact info for each author, etc.
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Abstract -- a short (~200 word) description of the technical issue being addressed.
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Copyright/public domain -- Each OIP must either be explicitly labelled as placed in the public domain (see this OIP as an example) or licensed under the Open Publication License.
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Motivation -- The motivation is critical for OIPS that want to change the Onest protocol. It should clearly explain why the existing protocol specification is inadequate to address the problem that the OIP solves. OIP submissions without sufficient motivation may be rejected outright.
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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, e.g. how the feature is supported in other languages. The rationale should provide evidence of consensus within the community and discuss important objections or concerns raised during discussion.
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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 any of the current Onest platforms.
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Discussion -- The OIP shall include a discussion on positive and negative effects on the Onest ecosystem shall it be accepted by shareholders. This section is supposed to be the most important section for shareholders to grasp the full impact of the OIP and help shareholders to make a decision.
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Summary for Shareholders -- Most OIPS will probably be of technical nature. However, many shareholders are not as technical as the author of a particular OIP. This non-technical paragraph serves as a place which can be used to to interact with shareholders and help them form their opinion. It is not meant to be a marketing driven paragraph to convince shareholders to vote for or against a proposal, though.
OIPS should be written in mediawiki or markdown format. Image files should be included in a subdirectory for that OIP. A template including the header preamble is provided in this repository.
The current OIP editors are:
- Fabian Schuh Fabian@Onest.eu
- Sigve Kvalsvik sigvekvalsvik@gmail.com
- cass Cass@Onest.org
The editors don't pass judgement on OIPS. We merely do the administrative & editorial part.
Many OIPS are written and maintained by developers with write access to the Onest codebase. The OIP editors monitor OIP changes, and correct any structure, grammar, spelling, or markup mistakes we see.
For each new OIP that comes in an editor does the following:
- Read the OIP 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.
- Edit the OIP for language (spelling, grammar, sentence structure, etc.), markup (for reST OIPS), code style (examples should match OIP 8 & 7).
Once the OIP is ready for the repository it should be submitted as a "pull request" to the [https://github.com/Onest/OIPS Onest/OIPS] repository on GitHub where it may get further feedback.
The OIP editor will:
- Assign a OIP number (almost always just the next available number, but sometimes it's a special/joke number, like 666 or 3141) in the pull request comments.
- Merge the pull request when the author is ready (allowing some time for further peer review).
- List the OIP in [[README.mediawiki]]
- Send email back to the OIP author with next steps (post to Onest mailing list).
This document was derived heavily from Python's PEP-0001 and Bitcoin BIP-0001. In many places text was simply copied and modified. Although the PEP-0001/BIP-0001 text was written by Barry Warsaw, Jeremy Hylton, and David Goodger, they are not responsible for its use in the Onest Improvement Process, and should not be bothered with technical questions specific to Onest or the OIP process. Please direct all comments to the OIP editors or the Onest development mailing list.
Forked from Fabian Schuh (2020-05-01)