Road to 1.0?

[casey]

I'm eager to use Bao in a project, so I'm curious about its current state, and when it might be ready for use. I read through the spec, and it seems pretty solid. Are there unresolved questions about the design, or is it mostly a question of getting more review at this point?

I'd be using it in a context where the quality of the implementation is less important than the stability of the output. I.e. it would be fine if the implementation isn't optimal, as long as the output of the hash function doesn't change.

[oconnor663]

Remarkable timing: There's going to be an announcement about this next week. The output will definitely change at that point, but after that I expect it to be stable.

[casey]

That's awesome to hear! I'l be looking forward to it.

[oconnor663]

We announced the BLAKE3 hash function on January 9, and I released Bao 0.10.0 at the same time. Bao is now based on BLAKE3, and (barring the embarrassing discovery of a vulnerability in BLAKE3) the output is stable.

Using Bao in production today would be a tad aggressive, since there are no existing production users, and the code hasn't been audited by anyone. (Being an open source project, I also don't have anything resembling a budget to pay for an audit.) But I think now would be a fine time to start prototyping :)