[announce] Namecoin - a distributed naming system based on Bitcoin

[dotbitme]

Hi, I have a problem. I tried to follow directions at  http://dot-bit.org/HowToRegisterAndConfigureBitDomains so i can pre-order my domain name for namecoins. However, here is what happens when i try to preorder a name:

If you do not have any namecoins you can use a webservice I recently created called dotbit.me. The process of registering a domain name is much simplified and you can pay with bitcoins if you wish. One you have a domain name, you can transfer it out to your own namecoin address for free.

Regards,
Tagide

[BitCoinNutJob]

i like namecoin

[khal]

http://register.dot-bit.org/ has been fixed, you can now register again :p

[nelisky]

What would rebasing namecoin daemon onto the latest bitcoin encompass? I could really use some of the updated RPC calls, and it feels like it would be very beneficial for everyone to be able to follow bitcoin development closely.

I tried a simple half baked hackish thing with getting the ports changed, the genesis block and the address version to what namecoin has over bitcoin's git head, but I can't get responses from peers (yes, I added namecoin ones using addnode) so I'm assuming there are more changes to the communication protocol.

And would it be possible to do this in two steps? First without dealing with namecoin specific features but only wallet and communications, and adding the NS stuff later on?

Finally... time for a bounty?

[virtualmaster]

I think that is a good idea. The newest client would have already the wallet password protection and the other features and to register .bit domains could be used the old wallet.
Many people anyway are only trading with namecoins.
Namecoin is great.

[khal]

I think that is a good idea. The newest client would have already the wallet password protection and the other features and to register .bit domains could be used the old wallet.
Many people anyway are only trading with namecoins.
Namecoin is great.

I think too, and it is on the todo list since a long time.
But nobody has worked on it yet.
Any coder available ? :p

[nelisky]

I have started doing it, but haven't been able to dedicate enough time. Basically need to debug why I get no responses from the seed nodes at this point. Is there anyone that can provide me with a quick tl;dr of the differences between bitcoin and namecoin in terms of communication protocol between peers and wallet format?

[nelisky]

I am not being able to find time to do this, and I could really use it.

Anybody wants to join in a bounty? I would say that bounty could be collected for an updated namecoin client based on the latest bitcoin code.

I pledge 1000 NMC to that, if it can be done within the next 2 weeks (should be a "simple" job, and I can provide a diff from namecoin to the bitcoin version it is based upon, as per vinced's repository)

[midnightlightning]

Is there anyone that can provide me with a quick tl;dr of the differences between bitcoin and namecoin in terms of communication protocol between peers and wallet format?

I'm circling back on my interest in Namecoin and hitting this roadblock as well. I'm on a Mac, and failed to get the v3.50 version to compile, and the latest compiled binary I could find was too old to be accepted into the current P2P network. The wiki does somewhat document the CLI/RPC commands, but looks to be completely silent on the actual P2P/TCP protocol (effectively, what changed between this documentation of Bitcoin's Protocol, and Namecoin's implementation). If that could somehow be documented, this project could be revived in other client implementations, even if the changes can't easily be rebased onto Bitcoin's latest source.

As some of the recent comments on the wiki indicate, because this alt-coin only has a command-line daemon, and no GUI, and no web-based wallet systems, it's one of the harder alt-chains to just pick up and start using.

I've gone through and created some diffs of Namecoin's source compared to Bitcoin's source at various points, and will try and see if I can muddle through them to figure out some decent documentation on the P2P protocol. If anyone else wants to take a peek as well:

• Namecoin 0.3.21 changes against Bitcoin 0.1.5: This is from Vinced's repository, and appears to be the first "released" version; the one that is timed about the same time as the announcement that started this thread, compared to the version of Bitcoin it was originally forked from. I use this one as the base since presumably by the time vinced was comfortable to release it, the various protocols and standards were fully fleshed-out. Notably, this is the largest Diff of the set, at 32.1K lines long (some coding efficiencies between 0.3.21 and 0.3.51 cleaned up 10K lines of code?).
  
• Namecoin 0.3.51 changes against Bitcoin 0.1.5: This is the current version of Namecoin, from the main "namecoin" github repo, compared to the version of Bitcoin it was originally forked from. 22.2K lines long.
  
• Namecoin 0.3.51 changes against Bitcoin 0.8.1: This is the current version of Namecoin, compared to the current version of Bitcoin. 25.6K lines long
  

[lunarboy]

Think Khal is your man.

I'm planning on spending some time on namecoin again. The price may fluctuate a bit :p

He's still working on the namecoin project, but appears to be quite busy. i'm willing to donate a few coins, perhaps if there is enough of us we could get some development. 

[nelisky]

Think Khal is your man.

I'm planning on spending some time on namecoin again. The price may fluctuate a bit :p

He's still working on the namecoin project, but appears to be quite busy. i'm willing to donate a few coins, perhaps if there is enough of us we could get some development. 

Reiterating my vouch for 1000 NMC to whomever get a working namecoind version (source code, obviously) that matches the functionalities of the current bitcoind and allows for keeping track of the developments of bitcoind going forward. I don't care about the UI, though that would certainly help further adoption, but that's best taken as a separate project or it might become a little daunting to do it all in a short time period.

My bounty can be extended if someone shows interested and provides a timeline.

[virtualmaster]

I am ready to donate for the developer who brings out an improved client with GUI and password protection.
The amount will be between 5-10 BTC if I ever receive back  this amount from the former namecoin bitparking exchange.

[marcus_of_augustus]

Wonder if it would easier at this point to begin with latest bitcoin as code base and try re-implement vinced's and khal namecoin functionality on top of that ... instead of trying to rebase namecoind ... 0.3.51 on to bitcoin 0.8.1?

On this ... I add my still outstanding bounty pledge for usable GUI to nelisky's ... 1000nmc, so total now 2000nmc for namecoin-qt client.

Also .. has anybody heard from doublec ... I can't believe he really disappeared with the bitparking exchange funds? ( I know where he lives)

[nelisky]

Wonder if it would easier at this point to begin with latest bitcoin as code base and try re-implement vinced's and khal namecoin functionality on top of that ... instead of trying to rebase namecoind ... 0.3.51 on to bitcoin 0.8.1?

On this ... I add my still outstanding bounty pledge for usable GUI to nelisky's ... 1000nmc, so total now 2000nmc for namecoin-qt client.

Also .. has anybody heard from doublec ... I can't believe he really disappeared with the bitparking exchange funds? ( I know where he lives)

I must have worded myself wrong. My pledge is for a working bitcoind, I don't really care for the GUI part at this point. And also rebasing is most simply not possible as the code bases have diverged a lot. Like I have mentioned before I can provide a diff for the namecoin specific changes over the bitcoin source as it was.

[tysat]

Wonder if it would easier at this point to begin with latest bitcoin as code base and try re-implement vinced's and khal namecoin functionality on top of that ... instead of trying to rebase namecoind ... 0.3.51 on to bitcoin 0.8.1?

On this ... I add my still outstanding bounty pledge for usable GUI to nelisky's ... 1000nmc, so total now 2000nmc for namecoin-qt client.

Also .. has anybody heard from doublec ... I can't believe he really disappeared with the bitparking exchange funds? ( I know where he lives)

I would think it would be easier to go from 0.8.1 -> new namecoind, rather than trying to bring 0.3.51 namecoind up to date.  Also makes me glad I had pulled my namecoins out of bitparking, even if I did convert and waste them all on satoshidice.

[crazy_rabbit]

Why not make a gui client operational via web browser? Run a small Apache server with PHP and just do everything through the browser. Appropriate no for a DNS system. It could be a plugin for chrome or something.

[lunarboy]

DoubleC is alive and well, had few messages from him some days ago about my account, super busy with a hack and repatriating Bitparking funds i'd imagine.

a GUI would be nice osx

+100 NMC pledge

[marcus_of_augustus]

Wonder if it would easier at this point to begin with latest bitcoin as code base and try re-implement vinced's and khal namecoin functionality on top of that ... instead of trying to rebase namecoind ... 0.3.51 on to bitcoin 0.8.1?

On this ... I add my still outstanding bounty pledge for usable GUI to nelisky's ... 1000nmc, so total now 2000nmc for namecoin-qt client.

Also .. has anybody heard from doublec ... I can't believe he really disappeared with the bitparking exchange funds? ( I know where he lives)

I must have worded myself wrong. My pledge is for a working bitcoind, I don't really care for the GUI part at this point. And also rebasing is most simply not possible as the code bases have diverged a lot. Like I have mentioned before I can provide a diff for the namecoin specific changes over the bitcoin source as it was.

Someone else was talking about just getting a namecoin-qt GUI client and renaming the debug window "Namespace Manager" to do name_XXXX cmndline rpc calls .. I thought you were talking about that?

Although updating the namecoind client for leveldb and pruning would be nice too .... not sure how easy the nmc merged-mining code would be to rebase onto 0.8.1 though ...

[nelisky]

The GUI should be easy to achieve once the namecoin support is patched on top of the latest bitcoind, but that does mean some hacking still.

I really think it is best to have this work split in two:

1) patching latest bitcoind to support namecoin
2) tweaking the GUI to support namecoin specific functions

I have pledged 1000 NMC to 1)

lunarboy (100) and marcus_of_augustus (1000) pledged 1100 NMC to 2)

the GUI can be achieved without 1), but I am certainly not interested in that as what I need is the server support.

Is there anyone willing to take this task? Any more pledges? Someone (trusted) to take the funds pledged and deliver to bounty taker after completion?

[nelisky]

Although updating the namecoind client for leveldb and pruning would be nice too .... not sure how easy the nmc merged-mining code would be to rebase onto 0.8.1 though ...

I could certainly live with a version that initially didn't support merged mining. I mean, miners can use (and are using) the old version anyway, we need a client to be able to use the coins and create services to support the chain. My pledge will be paid even if without merged mining.