Merge pull request #11 from hsjoberg/blip-0004

BLIP-0011: NameDesc

Author: ryanthegentry

README.md

@@ -23,3 +23,4 @@ For more detail on the process, please read [bLIP-0001](./blip-0001.md) and
 | [2](./blip-0002.md)      | Reserved Values           | Bastien Teinturier          | Active |
 | [3](./blip-0003.md)      | Keysend                   | Valentine Wallace           | Active |
 | [10](./blip-0010.md)     | Podcasting 2.0            | Satoshis Stream             | Active |
+| [11](./blip-0011.md)     | NameDesc                  | Hampus Sjöberg              | Active |

blip-0011.md

@@ -0,0 +1,86 @@
+```
+bLIP: 0011
+Title: NameDesc
+Status: Active
+Author: Hampus Sjöberg <[email protected]>
+Created: 2022-01-27
+License: CC0
+```
+
+## Abstract
+
+NameDesc is a standard for conveying "receiver name" in BOLT11 invoices.
+
+This bLIP serves to document what is already supported by some wallets (see
+[Reference Implementations](#reference-implementations)), for posterity and so
+that new implementations don't have to reverse-engineer general-purpose NameDesc
+from existing implementations.
+
+## Copyright
+
+This bLIP is licensed under the CC0 license.
+
+## Motivation
+
+BOLT11 lets you include a description of an invoice. This is widely used across
+the ecosystem, however there's no coherent or conventional way to write an
+invoice description.
+
+NameDesc provides a clear way on how to structure an invoice description that is
+helpful for the user and which the wallet software can parse.
+
+It specifies how the name of the receiver should be presented, something which
+isn't always included. Not including the receiver name can lead to a transaction
+log item only showing an ID or product name, but not the actual service or
+store.
+
+NameDesc is intentionally simplistic in order to make it easy for wallets and
+services to adopt it. It also provides a very good experience should a wallet
+not support reading NameDesc.
+
+## Specification
+
+NameDesc consists in prepending the actual invoice description with the receiver
+name, a colon and two spaces (`:  `).
+
+For example, Alfred's wallet can produce an invoice with the following
+description:
+
+```
+Alfred:  payment for the bubblegum you owed me
+```
+
+When Barbara's wallet receives that, it displays something like:
+
+```
+Paying to: Alfred
+Description: payment for the bubblegum you owed me
+```
+
+## Rationale
+
+NameDesc paves a way for a more structured and standardised way of writing
+invoices descriptions. Wallets that do not support NameDesc will still have a
+graceful fallback, as they will show:
+
+```
+Description: Alfred:  payment for the bubblegum you owed me
+```
+
+And if the payee's wallet doesn't support including a "Name", Alfred can still
+manually type his name in the description field. Not the best experience in the
+world, but doable.
+
+## Universality
+
+NameDesc lives in the application layer. It is not necessary for a lightning
+implementation to support/insert what the bLIP does here.
+
+## Backwards Compatibility
+
+This does not have backwards compatibility concerns.
+
+## Reference Implementations
+
+* Blixt Wallet: <https://github.com/hsjoberg/blixt-wallet/commit/e0ab93fdbaa92ec56bf920803bae22bf9108dfc4>
+* lntxbot: <https://github.com/fiatjaf/lntxbot/commit/3bde760066ad5ae20e0672a53cdbd910f14d7149>