I think the above text from James Prestwich is a must read for everybody in the community interested in the dev fund discussion.
I have said it bevor and will say it again, the whole dev fund discussion is a pretty unfair mess from beginning and not much has changed at all.
As the artice/thoughts above as well state, everything is dictated by the ECC and to some extend the ZF as well. Beginning from time lines, up to the selection progress and further to the conditions what is and what is not acceptable and interfering or favouring different proposals. Shouldn’t these all be all these proposals made by the community and decided as well by the community?
About the Time Line:
It’s a dictated one. Sure, there might be reasons behind that which i agree to, but than again, why did the ZF and ECC guidelines and thoughs came out just now? I think it’s obvious than just one more week until the 31st Aug. isn’t enough time for discussion and fine tuning proposals, even less in such a mess.
About the ZF:
The ZF came out with a guideline that they decided not the community at all. Sure, someone can argue that they have a mandate from the community, but i would have awaited at very least to use the governance community panel for polling the different directions, ideas. The last months there was plenty of time to re-organize the governance community panel IF the ZF’s interest was in representing the community in this matter. Actually this should have been the first stop for the whole dev fund discussion in my opinion.
About the ECC.
There is not much to add, the thoughts and paper of James Prestwich above pretty much fits it up perfectly. As stated in the article above, the author heared allready in Oct. 2018 of plans for a new dev fund. That’s absolutly ok, but no steps, no mechaism, no nothing since than have been worked on. It’s obvious that without mechanism the community can not come to a consensus.
Even going further, while the ECC and partly the ZF call the community to make proposals these later than get literally castrated due their guidelines, but wait, shouldn’t be the guidelines made by the community for a community fund?
I personally, and some others as well, have the impression that forum members that ask uncomfortable questions, favour different not ECC favouring proposals are object to some kind of discredition, FUD accusements, unhonest people, weed, etc., which is pretty close to repression.
About the community:
It’s pretty interesting to see how many people are comfortable with allocating funds we have no idea what they are used for, no idea how they are even calculated and no idea what the final result will be. I guess that’s because we don’t pay it out of our pocket. I personally think that we are that used to the FR that for many of us it seems normal that the very same FR continues somehow, but it shouldn’t be that way in my opinion.
The community should have all interest that as much as possible of the funds are used in the most possible efficient way for development that adds value and adoption to Zcash. Development shouldn’t be just 100% in the hands of the ECC, no matter they have the best team around. The current situation is a non-competive way of the development and only a handfull of not ECC developers had the luck to contribute to Zcash. Or in short, allocating funds often isn’t the most efficient way to reach a target, the art is how funds are used best to reach a target with minimal cost but highest efficiency and this is normaly the outcome of competition.
The community indeed should ask for way more accountabiity and transparency as the current state of both is more than questionable. Actually not only ask but persist on these.
About a 3rd entity:
While several people in the community have expressed that this might be an interesting and good approach, no mattere there is a discussion on how the 3rd entity should be occupied. But it seems as well that the 3rd entity isn’t something that the ECC/ZF desires or would like to see (my impression!).
This is another point the community governance panel should be vote on as soon as possible and it should be a community decision if they want a 3rd entity or not and not the ZF’s/ECC’s wish.
My Suggestions:
- For the ZF: Reorganize immediatly the Community Governance Panel including the voices of VC’s, miners, mining pools, 3rd parties that have interest in Zcash, community members and so on. The wider the better. Poll your own guidelines and check if the community back them up, even these that seem obvious to you. It’s always better and gives a stronger position if the ZF position is backed up by the community in a voting/polling process.
- For ECC and ZF: Mechanism for choosing a proposal. There is no mechanism for the community how a given proposal can be choosen. The only mechanisms so far i’am aware of are ECC and ZF internal mechanism that make a selection due their desires. For a community proposal that should decide about community funds this doesn’t sound as a good approach.
- For ECC: Disclose the ECC shareholders in detail. If this can or does not want to be done by the ECC the community & ZF should insist of a non-profit status for the ECC.
- Zcash Trademark:
Bevor any further decision about a new dev fund is made the Trademark mutlisig should have been finished.
Proposal Time Line:
The time-line should be post-poned until some requirements are fit. And these include:
- Zcash Trademark multisig finished.
- Zcash governance community panel voted/polled.
- A mechanism for the community is in place where they can vote about proposals.
- ECC answering questions like roadmap, shareholder disclose, stays for-profit or changes to non-profit and several other questions crucial for every proposal that wants to adress the funding of the ECC.
- Absolute neutrality towards all proposals.