Re: Interledger RFCs, ILP Packet, and Ledger Plugin Interface

On 1 June 2016 at 02:46, Evan Schwartz <evan@ripple.com> wrote:

> Correct, Jehan.
>
> If you have a "ledger" with multiple currencies, it must implicitly
> support converting one to the other to fulfill the transfer requirement. In
> ILP, connectors are the ones that convert currencies. Thus, it is simpler
> to model "ledgers" such as WebCredits, the Ripple Consensus Ledger, or many
> bank systems as multiple single-currency ledgers connected by connectors
> that handle the exchange.
>
> (I've gone back and forth a bunch of times with Stefan about this point so
> I can empathize with the question but in the end he convinced me that this
> is the right way to go)
>

I see what you're saying.  And I can see both side.

Consider a primitive ledger:
Alice has 3 sheep, 2 pigs and 4 chickens
Bob has 2 sheep, 10 coins and 2 knives

This could be a ledger just keeping record of stuff.

I wonder if we could have Ledger as a parent term, with single currency
ledger, and multi currency ledger as child terms?


>
> On Tue, May 31, 2016 at 5:46 PM, Jehan Tremback <jehan.tremback@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Melvin, I think I remember someone saying that ledgers containing
>> different currencies would be considered as separate ledgers, with each
>> currency being it's own ledger.
>>
>> On Tue, May 31, 2016 at 5:39 PM, Melvin Carvalho <
>> melvincarvalho@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 1 June 2016 at 00:22, Evan Schwartz <evan@ripple.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I want call your attention to the Interledger RFCs repo
>>>> <https://github.com/interledger/rfcs>, and to three of the documents
>>>> in particular. These reflect the latest ideas, which includes some new
>>>> developments that clarify the structure of Interledger and make the analogy
>>>> between Interledger and the internet protocols even stronger.
>>>>
>>>>    - IL-RFC-1: Interledger Architecture
>>>>    <https://github.com/interledger/rfcs/blob/master/0001-interledger-architecture/0001-interledger-architecture.md>
>>>>    This provides an overview of how the protocols in the Interledger
>>>>    suite fit together and may be useful for answering the question "so what
>>>>    *is* interledger?" (the whitepaper is more a theoretical defense of
>>>>    the concepts underpinning interledger, rather than a description of the
>>>>    components and how they work)
>>>>    - IL-RFC-3: Interledger Protocol
>>>>    <https://github.com/interledger/rfcs/blob/master/0003-interledger-protocol/0003-interledger-protocol.md>
>>>>    This spec describes the ILP Packet format (a new and important
>>>>    concept), which is heavily inspired by IP packets. Notably, it only
>>>>    includes the destination address, destination amount and a nextHeader field
>>>>    for adding additional headers (inspired by IPv6's extension format). It
>>>>    does not include conditions, because we realized those actually fit into
>>>>    "transport layer" protocols such as Universal and Atomic.
>>>>    - IL-RFC-4: Ledger Plugin Interface
>>>>    <https://github.com/interledger/rfcs/blob/master/0004-ledger-plugin-interface/0004-ledger-plugin-interface.md>
>>>>    This is the Interledger protocol, right? So it's time for us to be
>>>>    able to support other types of ledgers. This spec defines the abstraction
>>>>    layer we will use to enable Interledger payments over new ledger types
>>>>    (Bitcoin, Ethereum, BigchainDB, etc). We'll be refactoring the
>>>>    five-bells-sender and -connector to use this interface. The goal is to make
>>>>    supporting new ledgers as easy as writing a library that defines these
>>>>    functions and plugging it in to the existing client and connector code
>>>>    bases.
>>>>
>>>> As the name suggests, these are requests for comments, so comment away!
>>>>
>>>> These are all still drafts (and the other specs in the repo are just
>>>> placeholders for now) but we're excited about these developments and
>>>> realizations so we wanted to make sure you saw them.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Great job on the modularity.
>>>
>>> Question:  why should a ledger contain only one type of currency?  In my
>>> wallets the ledgers can contain multiple currencies.  Perhaps this is just
>>> a naming issue.
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Evan Schwartz | Software Architect | Ripple
>>>> [image: ripple.com] <http://ripple.com>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Evan Schwartz | Software Architect | Ripple
> [image: ripple.com] <http://ripple.com>
>