Relationship between actors and addresses is unclear | definitions about specs HOT 6 CLOSED

"An address refers to an actor" is the confusing part for me.

How about highlighting the fact that it is merely an identifier, referencing an actor? Maybe:

An address is an identifier that refers to an actor in some Filecoin state. Miner actors, wallets, and {blah} all have addresses.

from specs.

Addresses have no concept of ownership. They are just an identifier used to reference an actor.

The particular miner actor has an owner field. This is used to control behavior in the implementation of that specific actor. Just like every actor doesn't have a sector set, or a power. These are things that are unique to the 'miner'

from specs.

Any suggestions on what would prevent this sort of confusion?

from specs.

If address have no concept of ownership, we could consider different phrasing around the storage miner, specifically:

// GetOwner returns the miners owner. The owner is the account that is authorized
// to control the miner, and is also where mining rewards go to.
GetOwner() Address

from specs.

@frrist The docstring for that method doesnt conflict at all with what I said. How else would you phrase it?

from specs.

Maybe some phrasing like:

// GetOwner returns the address of the account owning the miner. The owner account is authorized to control the miner, and its address is where mining reward is sent.

in addition to modifying the definition of Address as @mishmosh stated.

from specs.