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Dev Docs: "Not A Specification"

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Make explicit that the docs are not a specification and never will be.
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David A. Harding 2014-12-12 11:02:50 -05:00
parent 34edbe8461
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_includes/ref_intro.md
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@ -5,8 +5,9 @@ http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT.
{% autocrossref %}
The Developer Reference aims to provide specifications and API information
to help you start building Bitcoin-based applications. To make the best use of
The Developer Reference aims to provide technical details and API information
to help you start building Bitcoin-based applications, but it is [not a
specification][]. To make the best use of
this documentation, you may want to install the current version of Bitcoin
Core, either from [source][core git] or from a [pre-compiled executable][core executable].
@ -23,3 +24,43 @@ links will be shown in blue. If you hover over a cross-reference link, a brief
definition of the term will be displayed in a tooltip.
{% endautocrossref %}
#### Not A Specification
{:.no_toc}
{% autocrossref %}
The Bitcoin.org Developer Documentation describes how Bitcoin works to
help educate new Bitcoin developers, but it is not a specification---and
it never will be.
Bitcoin security depends on consensus. Should your program diverge from
consensus, its security is weakened or destroyed. The cause of the
divergence doesn't matter: it could be a bug in your program, it could
be an [error in this documentation][errors in docs] which you
implemented as described, or it could be you do everything right but the
majority software on the network [behaves unexpectedly][v0.8 chain
fork]. The specific cause will not matter to the users of your software
whose wealth is lost.
The only correct specification of consensus behavior is the actual
program behavior of the majority software on the network. As that
behavior is subject to arbitrary inputs<!--noref--> in a large variety
of unique environments, it cannot ever be fully documented here or
anywhere else.
However, the Bitcoin Core developers are working on making their
consensus code portable so other implementations can use it. Bitcoin
Core 0.10 will provide `libbitcoinconsensus`, a first attempt at
exporting some consensus code. Future versions of Bitcoin Core will
likely provide consensus code that is more complete, more portable, and
more consistent in diverse environments.
In addition, we also warn you that this documentation has not been
extensively reviewed by Bitcoin experts and so likely contains numerous
errors. At the bottom of the menu on the left, you will find links that
allow you to report an issue or to edit the documentation on GitHub.
Please use those links if you find any errors or important missing
information.
{% endautocrossref %}