SIP: 1
Title: SIP Purpose and Guidelines
Author: Shawn Wilkinson <shawn@storj.io>
Status: Active
Type: Process
Created: 2016-06-24
SIP stands for Storj Improvement Proposal. A SIP is a design document providing information to the Storj community, or describing a new feature for Storj or its processes or environment. The SIP should provide a concise technical specification of the feature and a rationale for the feature.
We intend SIPs 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 Storj. The SIP author is responsible for building consensus within the community and documenting dissenting opinions.
Because the SIPs are maintained as text files in a versioned repository, their revision history is the historical record of the feature proposal.
There are three kinds of SIP:
- A Standards Track SIP describes any change that affects most or all Storj implementations, such as a change to the network protocol, a change in contract validity rules, or any change or addition that affects the interoperability of applications using Storj.
- An Informational SIP describes a Storj design issue, or provides general guidelines or information to the Storj community, but does not propose a new feature. Informational Storjs do not necessarily represent a Storj community consensus or recommendation, so users and implementors are free to ignore Informational SIPs or follow their advice.
- A Process SIP describes a process surrounding Storj, or proposes a change to (or an event in) a process. Process SIPs are like Standards Track SIPs but apply to areas other than the Storj protocol itself. They may propose an implementation, but not to Storj's codebase; they often require community consensus; unlike Informational SIPs, they are more than recommendations, and users are typically not free to ignore them. Examples include procedures, guidelines, changes to the decision-making process, and changes to the tools or environment used in Storj development. Any meta-SIP is also considered a Process SIP.
The SIP process begins with a new idea for Storj. Each potential SIP must have a champion -- someone who writes the SIP using the style and format described below, shepherds the discussions in the appropriate forums, and attempts to build community consensus around the idea. The SIP champion (a.k.a. Author) should first attempt to ascertain whether the idea is SIP-able. Posting to the Community Slack is the best way to go about this.
Vetting an idea publicly before going as far as writing a SIP is meant to save both the potential author and the wider community time. Many ideas have been brought forward for changing Storj that have been rejected for various reasons. Asking the Storj 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 Storj is used. Small enhancements or patches often don't need standardisation between multiple projects; these don't need a SIP and should be injected into the relevant Storj development work flow with a patch submission to the applicable Storj issue tracker.
Once the champion has asked the Storj community as to whether an idea has any chance of acceptance, a draft SIP should be presented to the Community Slack. This gives the author a chance to flesh out the draft SIP to make it properly formatted, of high quality, and to address additional concerns about the proposal. Following a discussion, the proposal should be sent to the Storj-dev list and the SIP editor with the draft SIP. This draft must be written in SIP style as described below, else it will be sent back without further regard until proper formatting rules are followed.
SIP authors are responsible for collecting community feedback on both the initial idea and the SIP before submitting it for review. However, wherever possible, long open-ended discussions on Community Slack should be avoided. Strategies to keep the discussions efficient include: setting up a channel, having the SIP author accept private comments in the early design phases, setting up a wiki page or git repository, etc. SIP authors should use their discretion here.
It is highly recommended that a single SIP contain a single key proposal or new idea. The more focused the SIP, the more successful it tends to be. If in doubt, split your SIP into several well-focused ones.
The SIP editors assign SIP numbers and change their status. Please send all SIP-related email to the SIP editor, which is listed under SIP Editors below. Also see SIP Editor Responsibilities & Workflow. The SIP editor reserves the right to reject SIP proposals if they appear too unfocused or too broad.
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Authors MUST NOT self assign SIP numbers, but should use an alias such as "SIP-johndoe-infiniteStorjs" which includes the author's name/nick and the SIP subject.
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If the SIP editor approves, he will assign the SIP a number, label it as Standards Track, Informational, or Process, give it status "Draft", and add it to the SIPs git repository. The SIP editor will not unreasonably deny a SIP. Reasons for denying SIP status include duplication of effort, disregard for formatting rules, being too unfocused or too broad, being technically unsound, not providing proper motivation or addressing backwards compatibility, or not in keeping with the Storj philosophy. For a SIP 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.
The SIP author may update the Draft as necessary in the git repository. Updates to drafts may also be submitted by the author as pull requests.
Standards Track SIPs consist of two parts, a design document and a reference implementation. The SIP should be reviewed and accepted before a reference implementation is begun, unless a reference implementation will aid people in studying the SIP. Standards Track SIPs must include an implementation -- in the form of code, a patch, or a URL to same -- before it can be considered Final.
Once a SIP has been accepted, the reference implementation must be completed. When the reference implementation is complete and accepted by the community, the status will be changed to "Final".
A SIP can also be assigned status "Deferred". The SIP author or editor can assign the SIP this status when no progress is being made on the SIP. Once a SIP is deferred, the SIP editor can re-assign it to draft status.
A SIP can also be "Rejected". Perhaps after all is said and done it was not a good idea. It is still important to have a record of this fact.
SIPs can also be superseded by a different SIP, rendering the original obsolete. This is intended for Informational SIPs, where version 2 of an API can replace version 1.
The possible paths of the status of SIPs are as follows:
Some Informational and Process SIPs may also have a status of "Active" if they are never meant to be completed. E.g. SIP 1 (this SIP).
Each SIP should have the following parts:
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Preamble -- RFC 822 style headers containing meta-data about the SIP, including the SIP 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 SIP must either be explicitly labelled as placed in the public domain (see this SIP as an example) or licensed under the Open Publication License.
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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 Storj platforms.
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Motivation -- The motivation is critical for SIPs that want to change the Storj protocol. It should clearly explain why the existing protocol specification is inadequate to address the problem that the SIP solves. SIP 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.
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The rationale should provide evidence of consensus within the community and discuss important objections or concerns raised during discussion.
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Backwards Compatibility -- All SIPs that introduce backwards incompatibilities must include a section describing these incompatibilities and their severity. The SIP must explain how the author proposes to deal with these incompatibilities. SIP submissions without a sufficient backwards compatibility treatise may be rejected outright.
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Reference Implementation -- The reference implementation must be completed before any SIP is given status "Final", but it need not be completed before the SIP is accepted. It is better to finish the specification and rationale first and reach consensus on it before writing code.
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The final implementation must include test code and documentation appropriate for the Storj protocol.
SIPs should be written in markdown format.
Each SIP must begin with an RFC 822 style header preamble. The headers must appear in the following order. Headers marked with "*" are optional and are described below. All other headers are required.
SIP: Title: Author: * Discussions-To: Status: Type: Created: * Post-History: * Replaces: * Superseded-By: * Resolution:
The Author header lists the names, and optionally the email addresses of all the authors/owners of the SIP.The format of the Author header value must be
Random J. User <address@dom.ain>
if the email address is included, and just
Random J. User
if the address is not given.
If there are multiple authors, each should be on a separate line following RFC 2822 continuation line conventions.
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The Resolution header is required for Standards Track SIPs only. It contains a URL that should point to an email message or other web resource where the pronouncement about the SIP is made.
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The Type header specifies the type of SIP: Standards Track, Informational, or Process.
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The Created header records the date that the SIP was assigned a number, while Post-History is used to record the dates of when new versions of the SIP are posted to Storj mailing lists. Both headers should be in yyyy-mm-dd format, e.g. 2001-08-14.
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SIPs may have a Requires header, indicating the SIP numbers that this SIP depends on.
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SIPs may also have a Superseded-By header indicating that a SIP has been rendered obsolete by a later document; the value is the number of the SIP that replaces the current document. The newer SIP must have a Replaces header containing the number of the SIP that it rendered obsolete.
SIPs may include auxiliary files such as diagrams. Image files should be included in a subdirectory for that SIP. Auxiliary files must be named SIP-XXXX-Y.ext, where "XXXX" is the SIP number, "Y" is a serial number (starting at 1), and "ext" is replaced by the actual file extension (e.g. "png").
It occasionally becomes necessary to transfer ownership of SIPs to a new champion. In general, we'd like to retain the original author as a co-author of the transferred SIP, but that's really up to the original author. A good reason to transfer ownership is because the original author no longer has the time or interest in updating it or following through with the SIP process, or has fallen off the face of the 'net (i.e. is unreachable or not responding to email). A bad reason to transfer ownership is because you don't agree with the direction of the SIP. We try to build consensus around a SIP, but if that's not possible, you can always submit a competing SIP.
If you are interested in assuming ownership of a SIP, send a message asking to take over, addressed to both the original author and the SIP editor. If the original author doesn't respond to email in a timely manner, the SIP editor will make a unilateral decision (it's not like such decisions can't be reversed :).
The current SIP editor is Gordon Hall who can be contacted at gordon+sips@storj.io.
All SIP-related correspondence should be sent (or CC'd) to gordon+sips@storj.io.
For each new SIP that comes in an editor does the following:
- Read the SIP 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 SIP for language (spelling, grammar, sentence structure, etc.), markup, code style.
If the SIP isn't ready, the editor will send it back to the author for revision, with specific instructions.
Once the SIP is ready for the repository it should be submitted as a "pull request" to the https://github.com/Storj/sips repository on GitHub where it may get further feedback.
The SIP editor will:
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Assign a SIP 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.
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Merge the pull request when the author is ready (allowing some time for further peer review).
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List the SIP in README.md
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Send email back to the SIP author with next steps
The SIP editors are intended to fulfill administrative and editorial responsibilities. The SIP editors monitor SIP changes, and correct any structure, grammar, spelling, or markup mistakes we see.
This document was derived heavily from Bitcoin's BIP-0001. In many places text was simply copied and modified. Please direct all comments to the SIP editors.