If the dev fund provides money to both zf and ecc, is there any accounting shared with the community? I saw some blog posts with transparency reports but nothing for the past few months. With all of the recent changes to how zf and ecc are operating and funding projects, it seems like transparency around how much these black box things like spend before sync, another wallet and the support for node software along with the research for proof of stake should be available to the community.
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The constraints of the charity status are what bind the foundation to doing what the mission statement lays out. The foundation posts quarterly reports and the tax documentation is available on the website so that you can see the actual figures (Advisory: the speed of the USG is like â2 years, no joke). Support for node software might fall under zebra updates and those are given at least every 2 weeks on the arborist call plus whatever updates that happen. I have to double check that I think the expenditures are laid out in said quaterly reports. The other 3 things you mentioned are the ECC which are a different entity and upon their behalf I cant speak.
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I think since this time zebra moved into release and development beginning to move to using it in favor of zcashd (its gonna take a while to fill the whole gap however)
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What concerns me from this thread is the lack of clear accountability for the amount of money being spend versus the progress.
2 current entities receiving a significant portion of funding. Letâs look at both -
ECC - Looks to be about 14 people remaining, with âoperationsâ roles and âtalent acquisitionâ roles after they laid off nearly half their staff, had multiple executive exits and is eliminating support for the one core node software in favor of âdecentralization and a walletâ. We have wallets already. Why another? Looking back, the wallet discussion from ECC has been going on for years, while others have built and supported functional wallets. So what is that remaining dev fund being spent on? zcashd? That appears to be mothballed in favor of zebra. Looking at the staff https://electriccoin.co/team/ there seems to be a lot of overlap in the roles. And again, what is being delivered other than roadmaps and hype that doesnât always seem to pan out.
ZF - shows the same amount of staff (14), half of which have some engineering title or focus. But also wields a level of control over the grants committee, with the most recent news about slashing the stipends for the committee members which should be a huge encourage for people to come. Add to that control of the advisory panel. Development focus on zebra as what looks to be the primary node software.
A while back, someone posted updated financial projections for both organizations. With a new dev fund a year away and those changes needing a few weeks (or longer), seems like now is as good a time as any to really understand what both orgs are doing, plan to do and the funding they think they need to do it. Because it is starting to seem like there are some politically-driven power grabs at play.
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Again, I canât speak for the ECC, but in the past few months they have let go a number of individuals so that number is probably lower. 13 seems of about right for the foundation. And correct, the ECC no longer actively develops on zcashd and someone from the ECC would have to give you further details about their other expenditures.
Originally, there was no stipend for ZCG members. It was created at least after the first iteration and has been reduced now because of coin cost, really.
Just to clarify and provide some additional context: initially, the stipend was set at $500 per month, with a time commitment of 5 hours per month (please see the link below for reference). In the second year, compensation was raised to $1,500 per month, with a time commitment of 15 hours per month, because committee members were working more than 5 hours per month. In the third year, the $1,500 stipend was adjusted for inflation and increased to $1,725. All ZCG committee members currently dedicate more than 15 hours per month.
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