Organizationally, it doesn’t make sense for Bitcoin Core to be under the bitcoin GitHub organization. All of our other repos (gui, qa-assets, dev wiki, etc.) are under bitcoin-core, so having just this one repo in a different organization doesn’t totally make sense. It’s only in bitcoin/ for historical reasons. The bitcoin-core organization was created several years ago for the express purpose of moving this repo there, but we still haven’t done it.
Conceptually, it makes sense to complete the move as it gives further strength to the fact that Bitcoin Core is not Bitcoin. This move also provides us with some organizational benefits, primarily in the form of not having to keep two organization member and team lists in sync.
Additionally, because bitcoin and bips are under the same bitcoin github org, there are some questions about moderation and banning of people from either repo. A ban from one repo is necessarily a ban from both as bans are issued by the organization, not the repo. However, since Bitcoin Core and BIPs are separate projects, this type of behavior does not make any sense, and both projects should be able to make their own moderation decisions without impacting the other. By moving one or both repos out of the bitcoin github org, this conflict can be resolved.
When a repository is transferred, github will automatically create redirects for all of the URLs, including git remotes. This move would not affect anyone’s workflows, nor would it break any existing links to bitcoin/bitcoin. The only requirement is that a bitcoin/bitcoin repository is not created after the move. This necessitates that the current owners of the bitcoin github organization will remain the owners of it in order to prevent any takeovers of the redirects.
A related but tangential topic is whether bips should move to its own organization as well, and the bitcoin github org can remain under current ownership to preserve redirects for both repos.
This was discussed during today’s IRC meeting: https://achow101.com/ircmeetings/2025/bitcoin-core-dev.2025-04-24_16_00.log.html
The general sentiment seems to be in favor of this move, although it seems like there are still some reservations about doing so. I’m opening this issue for additional long form discussion. This will also be a topic in next week’s IRC meeting.