Why not launching a new version without LND?

[PrivacyManiac]

I understand that the Electrum team is working hard on release 4 that will include lightning functionality.
Totally get that this is a complex and take time but would be great if in the meantime an interim version (3.9) would be officially released without Lightning but with the other functionalities (e.g.: improved multisig) and fixes.  I've tried to build from source on Windows but it doesn't really work.

So my question to the Electrum team, is this something you could consider doing, particularly if v4 is still months away ?
Thanks

[Lucius]

If you have some problems with 3.3.8 then this forum is not the right place to ask in terms of some future upgrades and fixes because the developers will not see your message. As far as I know, there is no problem with the current version, at least not as far as security is concerned.

Users may be used to frequent updates, but if there is no reason for them to release new versions to correct some minor bugs, I think we should be happy with the current version.

If you have any specific suggestions, you've noticed problems that need to be fixed, the right place to contact developers is GitHub : https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/issues

[PrivacyManiac]

Thanks for taking the time to answer.  I was not referring to some minor bugs but rather important features around multi-signature that are missing in 3.8 that Thomas Voegtlin has confirmed will be incorporated in the next release. It is actually already available in the source code on GitHub but the Windows build can't be created from source at this point because of other missing dependencies.

[HCP]

I've been building the Windows version of 4.0.0a0 for a while now... what dependency do you think is missing?

If you are just after libsecp256k1-0.dll (64 bit) so you can run from source, then you can get a copy of that here: https://keybase.pub/hcp/libsecp256k1-0.dll
Otherwise, I have my latest build available here: https://www.mocacinno.com/HCP/ (Thanks for the hosting again mocacinno! )

NOTES:

- Ignore the file name of 3.3.8. It IS a 4.0.0a0 build, it's just that the build script has not been updated to set the file name at build time as yet.
- This is the "portable" .exe... I can provide the installer or standalone if you really want, but the portable is more suited for 'testing' purposes imo as it can be run in it's own separate directory without disturbing your current "install".

[PrivacyManiac]

Thanks HCP.  Yes you are right, it was the libsecp256k1-0.dll that was creating some issues for me.  I appreciate your offer and please no offence but with the past scam around Electrum, I was hoping a version (with all the components incl. DLL) could be downloaded from the official source.  I guess I'll have to wait for the official release 4 which hopefully will be available in the coming months.

[pooya87]

i don't think that is possible, or at least it would be extremely difficult to exclude all the LN stuff and release a secure and working new version with other features. the problem is that they have been making commits to the master branch which is the main branch that holds the current state of the project. if it were another branch then it may have been possible to pull other features to master and make a release but not now.

[nc50lc]

If you need the last source code that didn't require 'secp256k1', I still have it.
File timestamps are Feb4 & 6 (I won't provide a link because of Electrum's false-positives).

That's as risky as using other's compiled 'libsecp256k1-0.dll', but you can review each of the files to check if something was tampered.
Also check if that bug fix was covered in that version.

[HCP]

Thanks HCP.  Yes you are right, it was the libsecp256k1-0.dll that was creating some issues for me.  I appreciate your offer and please no offence but with the past scam around Electrum, I was hoping a version (with all the components incl. DLL) could be downloaded from the official source.  I guess I'll have to wait for the official release 4 which hopefully will be available in the coming months.

No offence taken... I understand your concerns.

In which case, I'd suggest you download and install a virtual machine like Oracle Virtual Box, install Ubuntu 18.04 and compile your own version of libsecp256k1-0.dll... it isn't overly hard and doesn't take a lot of grunt... My Ubuntu VM only has 4 Gigs of RAM assigned to it... and my host machine is Windows10 with 8 Gigs total (and a very old i5-3570k).

Hell, you could probably even try installing the Windows Subsytem for Linux... run "Ubuntu" using that and compile the libsecp256k1-0.dll there. I might even test if this is possible if I get bored enough