Luke Dashjr said on Nov. 10 that Bitcoin-specs/BIPs is now the “official” home for Bitcoin Improvement Proposals. The move came three months after his removal as a BIP editor, and it points contributors to a repository that GitHub labels as a fork of bitcoin/bips. The older repository is still active. Merges were recorded there on Nov. 9, and its process document still sends contributors to bitcoin/bips. So this is not a transfer of the archive. It is a competing copy with a claim to authority.
A Fork, Not a Move
Dashjr framed the August changes as unauthorized. He wrote that those changes had been corrected while keeping the repository history and what he called legitimate editorial work. He also argued that Bitcoin Core has no authority over the BIP process and that the process remains independent of any single Bitcoin implementation. That argument matters because BIP 3, the process document, calls the repository a publication medium and archive. It also says an individual BIP does not represent community consensus or a general recommendation to implement it.
What the Fork Changes
The existing bitcoin/bips BIP 3 lists five editors: Bryan Bishop, Jon Atack, Mark “Murch” Erhardt, Olaoluwa Osuntokun and Ruben Somsen. The fork lists those five and adds Dashjr. Commits from his luke-jr account restore his editor listing and reverse BIP-110 from “Closed” to “Complete.” A separate merge records the disputed changes in the fork’s history without accepting their effects, according to its commit message.
BIP-110 and the August Split
In bitcoin/bips, BIP-110 remains “Closed.” The fork’s reversal also removes the changelog entry that explained the closure as following a chain split with stalled mining. During the August discussion, Atack said the BIP-110 chain split and stalled when its mandatory signaling period began rejecting non-signaling blocks. Bitcoin’s editors removed Dashjr on Aug. 10. In the merged removal request, Atack wrote that he had verified Dashjr no longer had editor or administrator rights in that repository. Reinstating his name in the fork changes the fork’s editor list, not the existing repository’s list.
Mailing List Proposal
Dashjr is also proposing a switch to a new development mailing list. The amendment remains open in the fork. He said messages to the new list would be held for moderation until Nov. 13 to give developers time to subscribe. For now, the split leaves two archives with different editor lists and different records for BIP-110.
