Part of this problem is just inherent to the development of distributed protocols. R&D induces uncertainty, and uncertainty at the consensus-protocol can be difficult for anyone building on it. This isn’t specific to Zcash. Random example: some Ethereum developers’ plans were badly derailed because some planned precompiles were eventually dropped from a consensus upgrade.
Another part of the problem is that ECC is sometimes reluctant to announce decisions, for the opposite reason: not because ECC wants to keep decisions behind close doors, but because they want to avoid forcing (or being perceived as forcing) decisions on the rest of the community. For example, if by some magic there emerged a community consensus on the desirable transaction fee rules, I believe ECC would gladly follow it. That such a consensus fails to emerge is hardly the default of excessive centralization; if anything, it points to lack of coordination.
But yes, a third part of the problem is ECC keeping cards close to its chest and failing to communicate effectively. A current important example is the proposed Orchard/Halo/ZIP 224 upgrade, which is being aggressively pushed as ready for activation within a few months, leading many to think deployment is feit accompli; while actual technical descriptions and plans have been very slow to appear and still have huge gaps. I was particularly disappointed that ECC pointedly abstained from having any representative in the recent Community Call on Halo, which was specifically planned for discussing requirements for this deployment. I’d hate to be an ecosystem developer whose livlihood depends on correctly predicting when and whether the major Orchard upgrade will happen.
(To be clear: I am not criticizing the technical aspects of Orchard, many of which I haven’t even seen yet. I am criticizing the communication, marketing, planning and coordination… which are very relevant to the issue that @buildwithrust is pointing out.)
For true FOSS projects, one has the autonomy to build solutions freely and users can choose to use it or not. In Bitcoin it is clear that miners have a voice and no single corporation has undue influence on what Bitcoin is. The fight over the Zcash trademark demonstrated that both ECC and ZF care deeply about controlling the definition of Zcash. This is problematic when outside developers, even with community support have a different vision for Zcash and want to retain that name.
This trademark criticism is a red herring. Technically, in principle, if ECC and ZF colluded they could temporarily use their trademark power to veto community consensus. In practice, this has never happened, I cannot imagine it happening under their current management, and I’m pretty sure this could be legally challenged (based on the nonprofits’ own legally-committed purpose) if it ever did happen.
I sincerely hope the ZOMG doesn’t accept an unearned sense of guilt and draws straws in the name of diversity, thereby eroding the mandate of the ZCAP’s vote.
I voted for panel members because I have confidence in what they can contribute to the Zcash ecosystem – for their abilities and passion, not biological characteristics.
There’s no need to fall on a sword here, and add insult to injury.
Not Hudson’s fault, but I think the sexist thing set off some things. Part of that’s a good thing, we should all make sure we’re not being unconsciously sexist. It’s really easy to do and not ok. And that may have happened to Sarah, for example in her candidacy thread for ZOMG when discussions about zero-days came up. But that has nothing to do with @adityapk00’s response. And I’m afraid he’s going to get tarred with it unfairly. That would be wrong and a disservice to adityapk00’s contributions.
For those of you who don’t know, @sarahjamielewis publicly announced a vulnerability in zec wallet some time ago without really notifying @adityapk00. There are reasons to do this and reasons not to, its a debated topic in infosec with no resolution. And some of the sexism I saw in this forum was over debating Sarah on this and basically concern trolling what is a totally valid security stance. But, when you publicly disclose a vulnerability with no notice, you are going to make life a pain for the developer and they are not going to like you at all. Not in some pretty personal way, but in a “you intentionally made my life harder and stressful and wronged me professionally” kinda way. Particularly if your justification is
“My reasons for ethically disclosing this via a tweet and not a private email is that I’m very high and I found and created a PoC to this in 20 minutes and so it’s inevitable that any dedicated attacker has found and is exploiting this in the 8 hours this app has been released.”" https://twitter.com/SarahJamieLewis/status/1236139783711121408"
So, there’s bad blood between @adityapk00 and Sarah for completely valid reasons. Even if no one was in the wrong.
And Sarah is the one who announces that ZOMG isn’t funding zecwallet long term. (edit: but suggests long term funding might be available later, here’s 2 months of funding now. There’s some room for interpretation here on how much of a rejection this was, but it’s clear how it was taken.)
And it’s done for concerns about “duplication” of work @adityapk00 is already doing and no one else is. I actually can understand what ZOMG was getting at here and I suggested what I still think is a good compromise , but the announcement was tone deaf and pretty much guaranteed to cause problems . As were some of the clarifications. This whole thing would probably have been resolved better with a phone call. But it wasn’t. So Sarah resigned, which I think was the right call because it helps resolve the issue, and here we all are.
Not sure if resignation was the right call, we all need to have thick skin as we are building the groundwork for private digital money, and the upcoming attacks and challenges from outside the community are going to be of a much larger magnitude to deal with. Yes, we must communicate, learn and improve.
While I don’t see a reason state names in this thread, this clearly appears false. Its pretty obvious that the majority of the community would like to see t addresses go away eventually. Public statements from ECC management on willingness to acquiesce to this community desire have been inconsistent at best. It remains one of the most consistent friction points and a critical one to ability to attract privacy focused ecosystem development.
Edit: On second thought, it’s more nuanced. Deprecating t-addresses is widely supported by denizens of this forum, but not necessarily by other important ecosystem participants who are not well-represented here, such as exchanges. I think that ECC is very attuned to the latter, and this explains some of the discrepancy.
Anyway, let’s not discuss this further on this thread, since there are several other threads dedicated to t-address deprecation.
I’m grateful that people like you and @Matthewdgreen brought attention to this. When we have the potential to preempt issues by coordinating better we should at least try to do so prior to issuing press releases. It’s hard to see any advantage in not even showing up for such an important call.
As a woman I would be very disappointed if a good man who could build a great system resigned just to let a woman on the panel, after a free and fair election.
If we wanted women on there we should have worked it into the election terms; if we “forgot” then we should fix it, without being punitive against a person who happens to be a man.
(+ you could replace “woman” with any other diversity label too.)
Now I’m confused and disappointed she didn’t come here first to reconcile a misunderstanding and is now clearly just broadcasting mistrust in this idea called Zcash by calling into question the leadership of it.
I don’t understand why this community is constantly at each other’s throats & perhaps never will. IDK if it’s because money & power corrupt or if it was always like this. But everyone involved is destroying the chances of success of the most promising project in the entire ecosystem because you can’t figure out how to work together.
It’s tragic. I sincerely hope the mission can be put before personal agendas before it’s too late to turn the ship around. I believe so strongly in the potential of the project that I would throw my own hat in the ring for a ZOMG seat, but it’s clear the isms render that pointless & another in-group member will be elected after a massive protracted battle on the technicalities of voting to replace a member, which in itself will cause a loss of more community members, moving even further from true diversity & decentralization.
Everyone wants their solo but true power comes from the synergy of the ensemble. Please find a way to work together, centering the mission, before it’s too late.
Never too late to go back to the workable plain language of zip1014 of a review committee rather than the no rules, whatever goes nonsense this turned into.
Sorry if this comment distracts from flow of the fallout fest, but this is the only solution.
The attacks on Sarah are the result of groupthink, she never mentioned sexism because toxic masculinity is just a convenient excuse for her assailants. Holding people accountable for what they say is the solution and unfortunately this isn’t the first time someone has left because we have failed to do so.
I wish I knew more, but it seems that she was tiring of having to justify her principles to other committee members and the zcash corporation employees. (And it was more of her commitment to privacy and sound products than anything else.)
Again, mgrc turned into a little side bureaucracy club zomg where personalities dominate rather than commitments to core values. Without knowing more my biases make me conclude that composition of the MGRC explains the consequence of losing the strongest zcash person.