Moving forward with Armory

[Bitcoinorama]

Many thanks to both @etotheipi and @goatpig for all you've done,

please any chance to keep Armory alive and include Trezor support?

Carlton Banks sums it all up in this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1350328.0

TLDR: need BIP32/44 first before implementing hardware wallets support.

Thanks bro for the consideration and the swift response. I think I as many Trezors owners bought it with the hope Armory would support it as Armory has always been the goto cold storage and Trezor bridges the middle ground between cold storage and a safe hot wallet environment online.

Alan Reiner and Slush have long been heros in the eyes of most here and I think we all would like to see your respective open source technologies work with eachother.

It's prob worth firing a message to Slush as i'm sure he'd be willing to support any Trezor integration if you need it.

[BCB]

Alan's announcement thread is lock so I'll post here.  

Alan has always been one of the true good guys in Bitcoin.  Your contribution and documentation has been invaluable to the understanding and development of the protocol.  I hope you will someday be able to share the lessons learned in your journey to turn your passion for bitcoin in to a profitable business.  Looking forward to see where you will be applying your considerable talents next.

goatpig good luck with the further development of Armory.

[goatpig]

The lack of Trezor integration is an issue on our side. Trezor as an organization have made themselves available the few times we thought we could move forward with the integration and reached out to them.

[Blazed]

I have used only Armory for years now and will defenetly contribute once you ask for some funds. Thanks for all of the hard work and making by far the most secure/best software wallet around.  

[PRab]

I'm sorry to hear that Alan will no longer be working on Armory. Goatpig, I'm glad that you will be continuing the work. Armory has been my go-to wallet for many years. I appreciate all the hard work that you both put in.

[Ente]

This isn't the news I hoped for, but at least the situation is clear now.
Alan, you are an inspiration, even for non-developing folks. One of the few good guys I trust. Thank you for all you did, and please stick around Bitcoin for your next endeavour! :-)
Goatpig, I am super happy to have you here, the lone hippie of the bunch. Please don't rush things, but have enough pleasant non-computer time as well. Try to delegate things, ask us, the community, for what we might help you with.

I like the idea of a crowdfunded interactive featurewishlist. Nothing wrong with starting that earlier than later, it's been some time that you actually received financial compensation, eh?

One detail question: as I understand it, there was a 0.94 branch on github, which was removed again. Isn't all the code which was published automatically under GPL as well? What's the difference between .93 and .94?

Oh well, Rough times, but Armory simply is without alternatives. Let's do this!


Ente

[goatpig]

One detail question: as I understand it, there was a 0.94 branch on github, which was removed again. Isn't all the code which was published automatically under GPL as well? What's the difference between .93 and .94?

I am not versed in IP law so I can't give you a reason why. The only thing I have been told and that I know is that anything but 0.93.3 as it stands in Alan's public repo is off limit. This whole endeavor has made me a bit paranoid with IP tainting. I would rather be safe than sorry, and I won't try to go for more than what is perceived as a perfectly safe state to start from.

Try to delegate things, ask us, the community, for what we might help you with.

On that front, if anyone has advice on how to properly deal with code licensing (I'm adding MIT code a GPL3 codebase), particularly in how to do it without making a mess, I'm all ears.

[droark]

One detail question: as I understand it, there was a 0.94 branch on github, which was removed again. Isn't all the code which was published automatically under GPL as well? What's the difference between .93 and .94?

I am not versed in IP law so I can't give you a reason why. The only thing I have been told and that I know is that anything but 0.93.3 as it stands in Alan's public repo is off limit. This whole endeavor has made me a bit paranoid with IP tainting. I would rather be safe than sorry, and I won't try to go for more than what is perceived as a perfectly safe state to start from.

One thing I'd like to know - and I doubt Farhod knows, for understandable reasons - is if this includes failed pull requests. As I mentioned over on Reddit, there's some Autotools/Gitian code that would be great to add. It was aimed at 0.94 but never officially made it into the repo. Does that mean it's safe? I'd like to think so, as starting from scratch would suck. IANAL, unfortunately.

[solitude]

Does this mean Armory is on life support and will meet its demise within a year or so?

What does this mean for people with a fair number of bitcoins held in Armory?  Should we look for a new client for our bitcoins?

[achow101]

Does this mean Armory is on life support and will meet its demise within a year or so?

No, goatpig will continue development and the project will remain open source so people can still contribute and keep armory alive.

What does this mean for people with a fair number of bitcoins held in Armory?  Should we look for a new client for our bitcoins?

Nothing will happen. Your Bitcoin will be safe, you just won't get updated wallets if Armory does stop being developed. When new features come out, it would be a good idea to get a new client of course.

[solitude]

Does this mean Armory is on life support and will meet its demise within a year or so?

No, goatpig will continue development and the project will remain open source so people can still contribute and keep armory alive.

What does this mean for people with a fair number of bitcoins held in Armory?  Should we look for a new client for our bitcoins?

Nothing will happen. Your Bitcoin will be safe, you just won't get updated wallets if Armory does stop being developed. When new features come out, it would be a good idea to get a new client of course.

So let's say I go to prison for ten years, and Armory had stopped being developed one year into my prison sentence.

Would I be able to get out of prison nine years after Armory had stopped being developed, find my paper wallet, and get access to my bitcoins?

[achow101]

Does this mean Armory is on life support and will meet its demise within a year or so?

No, goatpig will continue development and the project will remain open source so people can still contribute and keep armory alive.

What does this mean for people with a fair number of bitcoins held in Armory?  Should we look for a new client for our bitcoins?

Nothing will happen. Your Bitcoin will be safe, you just won't get updated wallets if Armory does stop being developed. When new features come out, it would be a good idea to get a new client of course.

So let's say I go to prison for ten years, and Armory had stopped being developed one year into my prison sentence.

Would I be able to get out of prison nine years after Armory had stopped being developed, find my paper wallet, and get access to my bitcoins?

If you could find a working install of armory, yes. Hopefully there will be further development to make it compatible with other wallets and current standards, in which case, you would not need to have armory at all and the paper wallet would still be compatible with other wallets.

[Blazed]

Does this mean Armory is on life support and will meet its demise within a year or so?

No, goatpig will continue development and the project will remain open source so people can still contribute and keep armory alive.

What does this mean for people with a fair number of bitcoins held in Armory?  Should we look for a new client for our bitcoins?

Nothing will happen. Your Bitcoin will be safe, you just won't get updated wallets if Armory does stop being developed. When new features come out, it would be a good idea to get a new client of course.

So let's say I go to prison for ten years, and Armory had stopped being developed one year into my prison sentence.

Would I be able to get out of prison nine years after Armory had stopped being developed, find my paper wallet, and get access to my bitcoins?

I am sure finding a version would be easy even if it can not send coins. Once you imported the wallets just dump the keys and import into something else. I have a feeling that Armory will continue on for a while. I hope when he asks for dev funds people help out.

[achow101]

Just a thought:

Couldn't you just host the releases on Github using the release function? Just tag the releases and then upload the corresponding binaries for that release and tell people to download the binaries from there.

Also, github pages could be utilized to set up a website for the open source project. A project site could be set up using github pages and it would all be hosted by github for free. In announcements text file could be kept there and armory could pull the announcement from there.

If we go with that option, I could help as I have experience with setting up all of that stuff for github, although when it comes to web design and development you will need to get other people to help. Thankfully the github pages thing actually makes making a website there really easy.

[tss]

thank you for making an effort to maintain armory in open source.. it is a great product.  so sad that the company was not able to monetize the project to cover expenses.  i wish you luck in all the updates coming forward and would def send a few satoshi for donation to continue development.

[sandal]

Looking forward to the next iteration!  Thanks for continuing to support!!

[goatpig]

Just a thought:

Couldn't you just host the releases on Github using the release function? Just tag the releases and then upload the corresponding binaries for that release and tell people to download the binaries from there.

Also, github pages could be utilized to set up a website for the open source project. A project site could be set up using github pages and it would all be hosted by github for free. In announcements text file could be kept there and armory could pull the announcement from there.

If we go with that option, I could help as I have experience with setting up all of that stuff for github, although when it comes to web design and development you will need to get other people to help. Thankfully the github pages thing actually makes making a website there really easy.

That's a good suggestion. I like keeping the releases on github directly, makes my life easier (and everybody else's I suppose?). For the website I have to think about it. Apparently I could get access to armory.org through a friend and ex-Armory employee. It's a valid option to consider.

[btcsql]

Thank you for your continued work on this, goatpig. I'd be happy to pledge some support in the future when the time arises.

[coins101]

Happy to take a look at the IP issue and give you some informal feedback / personal view.

[STRML]

Just a thought:

Couldn't you just host the releases on Github using the release function? Just tag the releases and then upload the corresponding binaries for that release and tell people to download the binaries from there.

Also, github pages could be utilized to set up a website for the open source project. A project site could be set up using github pages and it would all be hosted by github for free. In announcements text file could be kept there and armory could pull the announcement from there.

If we go with that option, I could help as I have experience with setting up all of that stuff for github, although when it comes to web design and development you will need to get other people to help. Thankfully the github pages thing actually makes making a website there really easy.

That's a good suggestion. I like keeping the releases on github directly, makes my life easier (and everybody else's I suppose?). For the website I have to think about it. Apparently I could get access to armory.org through a friend and ex-Armory employee. It's a valid option to consider.

We at BitMEX would be happy to help with resources and hosting. Please email us at support at bitmex dot com if you would like any help. We have plenty of extra capacity.

As for releases and documentation I heartily recommend doing releases on GitHub itself, and creating a gh-pages branch of the repository (or another repo) for docs/public website. That way we all benefit from open development of the docs site. I find in practice that if the repo is discoverable (e.g. there should be links to the GitHub page all over it), the community will submit PRs regularly. This makes keeping documentation helpful and up to date far easier.

Very sorry to hear how 0.94 went. As a team we're happy to help any way we can. Thank you for taking the lead on getting the work started to create a libre 0.94.