e7441a6a45
fac4814106doc/release-process: Add torrent creation details (Carl Dong)5d24cc3d82guix/INSTALL: Guix installs init scripts in libdir (Carl Dong)5da2ee49d5guix/INSTALL: Add coreutils/inotify-dir-recreate troubleshooting (Carl Dong)318c60700bguix: Adapt release-process.md to new Guix process (Carl Dong)fcab35b229guix-attest: Produce and sign normalized documents (Carl Dong)c2541fd0caguix: Overhaul README (Carl Dong)46ce6ce378tree-wide: Rename gitian-keys to builder-keys (Carl Dong)fc4f8449f3guix: Update various check_tools lists (Carl Dong)263220a85cguix: Check for a sane services database (Carl Dong) Pull request description: Based on: #21462 Keeping the README in one file so that it's easy to search through. Will add more jumping links later so navigation is easier. Current TODOs: - [x] Shell installer option: prompt user to re-login for `/etc/profile.d` entry to be picked up - [x] Binary tarball option: prompt user to create `/etc/profile.d` entry and re-login - [x] Fanquake docker option: complete section - [x] Arch Linux AUR option: prompt to start `guix-daemon-latest` unit after finishing "optional setup" section - [x] Building from source option: Insert dependency tree diagram that I made - [x] Building from source option: redo sectioning, kind of a mess right now - [x] Optional setup: make clear which parts are only needed if building from source - [x] Workaround 1 for GnuTLS: perhaps mention how to remove Guix build farm's key - [x] Overall (after everything): Make the links work. Note to self: wherever possible, tell user how to check that something is true rather than branching by installation option. ACKs for top commit: fanquake: ACKfac4814106- going to go ahead and merge this now. It's a lot of documentation, and could probably be nit-picked / improved further, however, that can continue over the next few weeks. I'm sure more (backportable) improvements / clarifications will be made while we progress through RCs towards a new release. Tree-SHA512: dc46c0ecdfc67c7c7743ca26e4a603eb3f54adbf81be2f4c1f4c20577ebb84b5250b9c9ec89c0e9860337ab1c7cff94d7963c603287267deecfe1cd987fa070a
Bitcoin Core integration/staging tree
For an immediately usable, binary version of the Bitcoin Core software, see https://bitcoincore.org/en/download/.
Further information about Bitcoin Core is available in the doc folder.
What is Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is an experimental digital currency that enables instant payments to anyone, anywhere in the world. Bitcoin uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority: managing transactions and issuing money are carried out collectively by the network. Bitcoin Core is the name of open source software which enables the use of this currency.
For more information read the original Bitcoin whitepaper.
License
Bitcoin Core is released under the terms of the MIT license. See COPYING for more information or see https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT.
Development Process
The master branch is regularly built (see doc/build-*.md for instructions) and tested, but it is not guaranteed to be
completely stable. Tags are created
regularly from release branches to indicate new official, stable release versions of Bitcoin Core.
The https://github.com/bitcoin-core/gui repository is used exclusively for the development of the GUI. Its master branch is identical in all monotree repositories. Release branches and tags do not exist, so please do not fork that repository unless it is for development reasons.
The contribution workflow is described in CONTRIBUTING.md and useful hints for developers can be found in doc/developer-notes.md.
Testing
Testing and code review is the bottleneck for development; we get more pull requests than we can review and test on short notice. Please be patient and help out by testing other people's pull requests, and remember this is a security-critical project where any mistake might cost people lots of money.
Automated Testing
Developers are strongly encouraged to write unit tests for new code, and to
submit new unit tests for old code. Unit tests can be compiled and run
(assuming they weren't disabled in configure) with: make check. Further details on running
and extending unit tests can be found in /src/test/README.md.
There are also regression and integration tests, written
in Python.
These tests can be run (if the test dependencies are installed) with: test/functional/test_runner.py
The CI (Continuous Integration) systems make sure that every pull request is built for Windows, Linux, and macOS, and that unit/sanity tests are run automatically.
Manual Quality Assurance (QA) Testing
Changes should be tested by somebody other than the developer who wrote the code. This is especially important for large or high-risk changes. It is useful to add a test plan to the pull request description if testing the changes is not straightforward.
Translations
Changes to translations as well as new translations can be submitted to Bitcoin Core's Transifex page.
Translations are periodically pulled from Transifex and merged into the git repository. See the translation process for details on how this works.
Important: We do not accept translation changes as GitHub pull requests because the next pull from Transifex would automatically overwrite them again.