Thanks to everyone for their patience. I hope you all had a good holiday and New Years! Some responses and next steps below.
First thanks to @zooko for the ECC update. For what it’s worth, I think it’s reasonable for ECC to plan on declining funding if a fiat-denominated cap is required. But I also think that the Foundation and community members deserve a more detailed rationale for ECC’s dismissal of suggested solutions to the employee incentive alignment issue.
As far as I can tell, the closest responses on this thread regarding my proposed solution to the incentive problem were as follows:
And most recently:
Meanwhile other ECC comments in this thread imply that the removal of a cap is not just related to employee incentive alignment but also ECC’s desire to expand spending in other areas. In that case, addressing the specifics of any suggested solution is a moot point.
Wanting the option to expand other spending would also be a perfectly reasonable position, but if it is indeed ECC’s position then @zooko @joshs I urge you to say so explicitly. The community deserves to know either a) why the proposed solution doesn’t work or b) that solutions to the problem are irrelevant because ECC wants more leeway in spending beyond the employee incentive issue. If that is the case, I kindly ask you to make it clear by updating your blog post about the cap and letting people know about it. Demonstrate your continued commitment to transparency by addressing these issues head on.
On the polling side, as others have brought up in this thread, the Foundation does think it makes sense to add a question to the poll that tackles what to do if the ECC declines their slice (and make it clear they intend to decline it if it includes a cap). I’ve assembled the (final I hope) draft of the polling questions here for the followers of this thread and I expect to reach out to begin the voting process shortly, along with providing more details and a timeline on the Zcash Foundation blog. I and others at the Foundation are excited to finish this round of sentiment collection!
“Do you support the ZIP 1014 presented here? ZIP 1014: Establishing a Dev Fund for ECC, ZF, and Major Grants (ZIP 1014 is a lightly modified version of ZIP 1012, which had the most support in the previous sentiment collection poll. Note that all follow up questions in this poll assume ZIP 1014 as a basis)”
- Yes
- No
“In ZIP 1014 what should the distribution of the dev fund slices be?”
- ECC: 35%, MG: 40%, ZF: 25%
- ECC: 40%, MG: 35%, ZF: 25%
- ECC: 45%, MG: 30%, ZF: 25%
- ECC: 50%, MG: 25%, ZF: 25%
- Any of the above distributions is acceptable
“Do you believe the Foundation should have independent authority in determining Major Grants, or should there be a new Major Grant Review Committee as prescribed in ZIP 1014?”
- There should be a new Major Grant Review Committee with near-complete authority as prescribed in the ZIP
- The Foundation should have independent authority in determining Major Grants
“Using this ZIP as a basis, should there be a Funding Target/Volatility Reserve (aka a cap) for the shares to ECC, ZF, and Major Grants or should there be no restrictions? Please note that we are not measuring your approval of the specific amount of the Funding Target in the ZIP; we are interested in your approval of the concept as a whole. The exact cap can be set by processes outlined in the ZIP.”
- There should be a Funding Target and Volatility Reserve for each slice as prescribed in the ZIP
- The other accountability requirements prescribed in the ZIP are sufficient and there shouldn’t be spending restrictions
“Note that the ECC has indicated they plan to decline their funding slice if there is a Funding Target/Volatility Reserve restriction (aka a cap). If they decline their funding, where should their slice be redirected?”
- Major Grants
- Zcash Foundation
- Miners