doc: add preliminary release notes for 0.9.0

1 files changed, 280 insertions, 2 deletions

diff --git a/doc/release-notes.md b/doc/release-notes.md
index 1cb517e5c7..5c7b8bce03 100644
--- a/doc/release-notes.md
+++ b/doc/release-notes.md
@@ -1,3 +1,281 @@
-(note: this is a temporary file, to be added-to by anybody, and moved to
-release-notes at release time)
+Bitcoin Core version 0.9.0rc1 is now available from:
 
+  http://sourceforge.net/projects/bitcoin/files/Bitcoin/bitcoin-0.9.0rc1/
+
+This is a release candidate for a new major version. A major version brings both
+new features and bug fixes.
+
+Please report bugs using the issue tracker at github:
+
+  https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues
+
+How to Upgrade
+--------------
+
+If you are running an older version, shut it down. Wait
+until it has completely shut down (which might take a few minutes for older
+versions), uninstall all earlier versions of Bitcoin, 
+then run the installer (on Windows) or just copy over
+/Applications/Bitcoin-Qt (on Mac) or bitcoind/bitcoin-qt (on Linux).
+
+If you are upgrading from version 0.7.2 or earlier, the first time you
+run 0.9.0 your blockchain files will be re-indexed, which will take
+anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours, depending on the speed of
+your machine.
+
+On Windows, do not forget to uninstall all earlier versions of the Bitcoin 
+client first, especially if you are switching to the 64-bit version.
+
+Windows 64-bit installer
+-------------------------
+
+New in 0.9.0 is the Windows 64-bit version of the client.
+There have been frequent reports of users running out of virtual memory on 32-bit systems
+during the initial sync. Because of this it is recommended to install the 64-bit version if
+your system supports it.
+
+Rebranding to Bitcoin Core
+---------------------------
+
+To reduce confusion between Bitcoin-the-network and Bitcoin-the-software we have
+renamed the reference client to Bitcoin Core.
+
+Autotools build system
+-----------------------
+
+For 0.9.0 we switched to an autotools-based build system instead of individual
+(q)makefiles.
+
+Using the standard “./autogen.sh; ./configure; make” to build Bitcoin-Qt and
+bitcoind makes it easier for experienced open source developers to contribute
+to the project.
+
+Be sure to check doc/build-*.md for your platform before building from source.
+
+Bitcoin-cli
+-------------
+
+Another change in the 0.9 release is moving away from the
+bitcoind executable functioning both as a server and as a RPC client.  The RPC
+client functionality (“tell the running bitcoin daemon to do THIS”) was split
+into a separate executable, 'bitcoin-cli'. The RPC client code will
+eventually be removed from bitcoind, but will be kept for backwards
+compatibility for a release or two.
+
+0.9.0rc1 Release notes
+=======================
+
+RPC:
+
+- 'listreceivedbyaddress' now provides tx ids
+- Updated help and tests for 'getreceivedby(account|address)'
+- In 'getblock', accept 2nd 'verbose' parameter, similar to getrawtransaction, but defaulting to 1 for backward compatibility
+- Add 'verifychain', to verify chain database at runtime
+- Add 'dumpwallet' and 'importwallet' RPCs
+- 'keypoolrefill' gains optional size parameter
+- Add 'getbestblockhash', to return tip of best chain
+- Add 'chainwork' (the total work done by all blocks since the genesis block) to 'getblock' output
+- Make RPC password resistant to timing attacks
+- Clarify help messages and add examples
+- Add 'getrawchangeaddress' call for raw transaction change destinations
+- Reject insanely high fees by default in 'sendrawtransaction'
+- Add RPC call 'decodescript' to decode a hex-encoded transaction script
+- Make 'validateaddress' provide redeemScript
+- Add 'getnetworkhashps' to get the calculated network hashrate
+- New RPC 'ping' command to request ping, new 'pingtime' and 'pingwait' fields in 'getpeerinfo' output
+- Adding new 'addrlocal' field to 'getpeerinfo' output
+- Add verbose boolean to 'getrawmempool'
+- Add rpc command 'getunconfirmedbalance' to obtain total unconfirmed balance
+- Explicitly ensure that wallet is unlocked in `importprivkey`
+- Add check for valid keys in `importprivkey`
+
+Command-line options:
+
+- Rename option '-tor' to '-onion' to better reflect what it does
+- Add '-disablewallet' mode to let bitcoind run entirely without wallet (when
+  built with wallet)
+- Update default '-rpcsslciphers' to include TLSv1.2
+- make '-logtimestamps' default on and rework help-message
+- RPC client option: '-rpcwait', to wait for server start
+- Remove '-logtodebugger'
+- Allow `-noserver` with bitcoind
+
+Block-chain handling and storage:
+
+- Update leveldb to 1.15
+- Check for correct genesis (prevent cases where accidentally a datadir from the wrong network is loaded)
+- Allow txindex to be removed and add a reindex dialog
+- Log aborted block database rebuilds
+- Store orphan blocks in serialized form, to save memory
+- Fix non-standard disconnected transactions causing mempool orphans
+- Add a new checkpoint at block 279,000
+
+Wallet:
+
+- Store key creation time. Calculate whole-wallet birthday.
+- Optimize rescan to skip blocks prior to birthday
+- Let user select wallet file with -wallet=foo.dat
+- Consider generated coins mature at 101 instead of 120 blocks
+- Improve wallet load time
+- Don't count txins for priority to encourage sweeping
+- Don't create empty transactions when reading a corrupted wallet
+- Fix rescan to start from beginning after importprivkey
+
+Mining:
+
+- Increase default -blockmaxsize/prioritysize to 750K/50K
+- 'getblocktemplate' does not require a key to create a block template
+
+Protocol and network:
+
+- Send tx relay flag with version
+- New 'reject' P2P message (BIP 0061)
+- Dump addresses every 15 minutes instead of 10 seconds
+- Relay OP_RETURN data TxOut as standard transaction type
+- Remove CENT-output free transaction rule when relaying
+- Lower maximum size for free transaction creation
+- Send multiple inv messages if mempool.size > MAX_INV_SZ
+- Split MIN_PROTO_VERSION into INIT_PROTO_VERSION and MIN_PEER_PROTO_VERSION
+- Do not treat fFromMe transaction differently when broadcasting
+- Process received messages one at a time without sleeping between messages
+- Improve logging of failed connections
+- Bump protocol version to 70002
+- Add some additional logging to give extra network insight
+- Added new DNS seed from bitcoinstats.com
+
+Validation:
+
+- Log reason for non-standard transaction rejection
+- Prune provably-unspendable outputs
+- Detect any sufficiently long fork and add a warning.
+- Call the -alertnotify script when we see a long or invalid fork.
+- Fix multi-block reorg transaction resurrection
+- Reject non-canonically-encoded serialization sizes
+- Only create signatures with even S, and verification mode to check.
+- Reject dust amounts during validation
+- Use 'low S' as malleability breaker rather than 'even S'
+- Skip unspendable outputs in consistency check
+- Generalize the remove-outputs check for fully-prunable transactions
+- Accept nLockTime transactions that finalize in the next block"
+
+Build system:
+
+- Switch to autotools-based build system
+- Build without wallet by passing `--disable-wallet` to configure, this
+  removes the BerkeleyDB dependency
+- Upgrade gitian dependencies (libpng, libz, libupnpc, boost, openssl) to more recent versions
+- Windows 64-bit build support
+- Solaris compatibility fixes
+- Check integrity of gitian input source tarballs
+- Enable full GCC Stack-smashing protection for all OSes
+
+GUI:
+
+- Switch to Qt 5.2.0 for Windows build
+- Add payment request (BIP 0070) support
+- Improve options dialog
+- Show transaction fee in new send confirmation dialog
+- Add total balance in overview page
+- Allow user to choose data directory on first start, when data directory is
+  missing, or when the -choosedatadir option is passed
+- Save and restore window positions
+- Add vout index to transaction id in transactions details dialog
+- Add network traffic graph in debug window
+- Add open URI dialog
+- Add Coin Control Features
+- Improve receive coins workflow: make the 'Receive' tab into a form to
+  request payments, and move historical address list functionality to File menu.
+- Rebrand to `Bitcoin Core`
+- Move initialization/shutdown to a thread. This prevents "Not responding" messages during start.
+  Also show a window during shutdown.
+- Don't regenerate autostart link on every client startup
+- Show and store message of normal bitcoin:URI
+- Fix richtext detection hang issue on very old Qt versions
+- osx: make use of the 10.8+ user notification center to display growl like notifications
+- osx: Added NSHighResolutionCapable flag to Info.plist for better font rendering on Retina displays.
+- osx: fix bitcoin-qt startup crash when clicking dock icon
+- linux: Fix Gnome bitcoin: URI handler
+
+Miscellaneous:
+
+- Add Linux script (contrib/qos/tc.sh) to limit outgoing bandwidth used by Bitcoin
+- Add '-regtest' mode, similar to testnet but private with instant block
+  generation with 'setgenerate' RPC.
+- Add 'linearize.py' script to contrib, for creating bootstrap.dat
+- Add separate bitcoin-cli client
+
+Credits
+--------
+
+Thanks to everyone who contributed to this release:
+
+- Andrey
+- bitsofproof
+- Brandon Dahler
+- Christian Decker
+- Christopher Latham
+- Chuck
+- coblee
+- constantined
+- Cory Fields
+- Cozz Lovan
+- Daniel Larimer
+- David Hill
+- Dmitry Smirnov
+- Eric Lombrozo
+- fanquake
+- fcicq
+- Florin
+- Gavin Andresen
+- Gregory Maxwell
+- Guillermo Céspedes Tabárez
+- HaltingState
+- Han Lin Yap
+- harry
+- Jeff Garzik
+- Johnathan Corgan
+- Jonas Schnelli
+- Josh Lehan
+- Josh Triplett
+- Julian Langschaedel
+- Kangmo
+- Lake Denman
+- Luke Dashjr
+- Mark Friedenbach
+- Matt Corallo
+- Michael Bauer
+- Michael Ford
+- Michagogo
+- Mike Hearn
+- Nils Schneider
+- Olivier Langlois
+- patrick s
+- Patrick Strateman
+- Peter Todd
+- phantomcircuit
+- phelixbtc
+- Philip Kaufmann
+- Pieter Wuille
+- Rav3nPL
+- regergregregerrge
+- Robert Backhaus
+- Roman Mindalev
+- Rune K. Svendsen
+- Ryan Niebur
+- Scott Ellis
+- Scott Willeke
+- Sergey Kazenyuk
+- Shawn Wilkinson
+- Sined
+- sje
+- super3
+- Tamas Blummer
+- theuni
+- Thomas Holenstein
+- Timon Rapp
+- Timothy Stranex
+- Vaclav Vobornik
+- vhf / victor felder
+- Vinnie Falco
+- Warren Togami
+- Wladimir J. van der Laan