Release notes for 0.8.2rc1

doc/release-notes.txt

@@ -1,99 +1,80 @@
 (note: this is a temporary file, to be added-to by anybody, and deleted at
 release time)
 
-Building this from
-
-	$ git shortlog --no-merges v0.7.1..
-
-Incompatible Changes
---------------------
-
-This release no longer maintains a full index of historical transaction ids
-by default, so looking up an arbitrary transaction using the getrawtransaction
-RPC call will not work. If you need that functionality, you must run once
-with -txindex -reindex to rebuild block-chain indices (see below for more
-details).
-
-Improvements
-------------
-
-Mac and Windows binaries are signed with certificates owned by the Bitcoin
-Foundation, to be compatible with the new security features in OSX 10.8 and
-Windows 8.
-
-LevelDB, a fast, open-source, non-relational database from Google, is
-now used to store transaction and block indices.  LevelDB works much better
-on machines with slow I/O and is faster in general. Berkeley DB is now only
-used for the wallet.dat file (public and private wallet keys and transactions
-relevant to you).
-
-Pieter Wuille implemented many optimizations to the way transactions are
-verified, so a running, synchronized node uses much less memory and does
-much less I/O. He also implemented parallel signature checking, so if you
-have a multi-CPU machine all CPUs will be used to verify transactions.
-
-New Features
-------------
-
-"Bloom filter" support in the network protocol for sending only relevant transactions to
-lightweight clients.
+Fee Policy changes
+------------------
 
-contrib/verifysfbinaries is a shell-script to verify that the binary downloads
-at sourceforge have not been tampered with. If you are able, you can help make
-everybody's downloads more secure by running this occasionally to check PGP
-signatures against download file checksums.
+The default fee for low-priority transactions is lowered from 0.0005 BTC 
+(for each 1,000 bytes in the transaction; an average transaction is
+about 500 bytes) to 0.0001 BTC.
 
-contrib/spendfrom is a python-language command-line utility that demonstrates
-how to use the "raw transactions" JSON-RPC api to send coins received from particular
-addresses (also known as "coin control").
+Payments (transaction outputs) of 0.543 times the minimum relay fee
+(0.00005430 BTC) are now considered 'non-standard', because storing them
+costs the network more than they are worth and spending them will usually
+cost their owner more in transaction fees than they are worth.
 
-New/changed settings (command-line or bitcoin.conf file)
---------------------------------------------------------
+Non-standard transactions are not relayed across the network, are not included
+in blocks by most miners, and will not show up in your wallet until they are
+included in a block.
 
-dbcache : now controls LevelDB memory usage. Running with (for example) -dbcache=1000
-will use a gigabyte of memory and might make the initial blockchain download faster.
+The default fee policy can be overridden using the -mintxfee and -minrelaytxfee
+command-line options, but note that we intend to replace the hard-coded fees
+with code that automatically calculates and suggests appropriate fees in the
+0.9 release and note that if you set a fee policy significantly different from
+the rest of the network your transactions may never confirm.
 
-par : controls how many threads to use to validate transactions. Defaults to the number
-of CPUs on your machine, use -par=1 to limit to a single CPU.
+Bitcoin-Qt changes
+------------------
 
-txindex : maintains an extra index of old, spent transaction ids so they will be found
-by the getrawtransaction JSON-RPC method. Can only be set when the database is
-initialized.
+* New icon and splash screen
+* Improve reporting of synchronization process
+* Remove hardcoded fee recommendations
+* Improve metadata of executable on MacOSX and Windows
+* Move export button to individual tabs instead of toolbar
+* Add "send coins" command to context menu in address book
+* Add "copy txid" command to copy transaction IDs from transaction overview
+* Save & restore window size and position when showing & hiding window
+* New translations: Arabic (ar), Bosnian (bs), Catalan (ca), Welsh (cy),
+  Esperanto (eo), Interlingua (la), Latvian (lv) and many improvements
+  to current translations
 
-reindex : rebuild block and transaction indices from the downloaded block data.
+MacOSX:
+* OSX support for click-to-pay (bitcoin:) links
+* Fix GUI disappearing problem on MacOSX (issue #1522)
 
-New JSON-RPC API Features
--------------------------
+Linux/Unix:
+* Copy addresses to middle-mouse-button clipboard
 
-lockunspent / listlockunspent allow locking transaction outputs for a period of time so
-they will not be spent by other processes that might be accessing the same wallet.
 
-addnode / getaddednodeinfo methods, to connect to specific peers without restarting.
+Command-line options
+--------------------
 
-importprivkey now takes an optional boolean parameter (default true) to control whether
-or not to rescan the blockchain for transactions after importing a new private key.
+* -walletnotify will call a command on receiving transactions that affect the wallet.
+* -alertnotify will call a command on receiving an alert from the network.
+* -par now takes a negative number, to leave a certain amount of cores free.
 
-gettxout retrieves a single transaction output from the current set of unspent outputs.
-Optionally, the mempool transactions are taken into account.
+JSON-RPC API changes
+--------------------
 
-gettxoutsetinfo calculates statistics about the current set of unspent outputs.
+* listunspent now lists account and address infromation.
+* getinfo now also returns the time adjustment estimated from your peers.
+* getpeerinfo now returns bytessent, bytesrecv and syncnode.
+* gettxoutsetinfo returns statistics about the unspent transaction output database.
+* gettxout returns information about a specific unspent transaction output.
 
-Important Bug Fixes
--------------------
 
-Privacy leak: the position of the "change" output in most transactions was not being
-properly randomized, making network analysis of the transaction graph to identify
-users' wallets easier. 
+Networking changes
+------------------
 
-Zero-confirmation transaction vulnerability: accepting zero-confirmation transactions
-(transactions that have not yet been included in a block) from somebody you do not
-trust is still not recommended, because there will always be ways for attackers to
-double-spend zero-confirmation transactions. However, this release includes a bug
-fix that makes it a little bit more difficult for attackers to double-spend a
-certain type ("lockTime in the future") of zero-confirmation transaction.
+* Significant changes to the networking code, reducing latency and memory consumption.
+* Avoid initial block download stalling.
+* Remove IRC seeding support.
+* Performance tweaks.
+* Added testnet DNS seeds.
 
-Dependency Changes
-------------------
+Wallet compatibility/rescuing
+-----------------------------
 
-Qt 4.8.3 (compiling against older versions of Qt 4 should continue to work)
+* Cases where wallets cannot be opened in another version/installation should be reduced.
+* -salvagewallet now works for encrypted wallets.