Moving the Dev Fund discussion forward

As you’ve stated it, that suggests that we support those as the only options, which is not correct, and does not actually resemble anything that I or @joshs or ECC have communicated.

ECC (via Bootstrap) currently receives 35% of dev funding. That is less than the Major Grants slice (40%), so it is not a “lion’s share”.

We have not placed any constraint on what other entities can receive dev funding. Josh has said:

but this is not a constraint that ECC is imposing on the process. It is @joshs’ belief (which I happen to agree with), and clearly expressed as such.

@joshs’ proposal is just one possible proposal, which ECC is of course entitled to make just like any other participant in the Zcash ecosystem.

The community has many possible choices. For example:

  • It could collectively accept @joshs’ proposal either as-is, or with modifications to the slice proportions.
  • It could collectively accept any proposal that either doesn’t allocate funds to Bootstrap, or that allocates them for a period less than or equal to one year after the 2024 halving (and similarly complies with any restriction that other entities express on the funds that they receive).
    • For instance, it could truncate Bootstrap’s allocation to one year in any of the existing proposals that include a Bootstrap slice, as long as it is clear what the allocations are after that.
  • It could collectively not accept any immediate funding renewal, so that the funding streams will expire at the 2024 halving.
    • This may or may not include some future commitment to move to a grant-based model, or some specification of how to account for the funds that would have been allocated if an extension had been agreed.
  • It could collectively accept absolutely any other thing that is well-specified, realistically implementable and compatible with the technical and security constraints, and that has the consent of each recipient for its own allocation.

All of these options are clearly compatible with what we’ve said. There is easily sufficient time for implementation and audits of, I think, almost everything that has been proposed so far (but we are running out of time).

@GGuy’s proposal as it is has ECC receiving dev funds at a hard-coded address for more than one year after the 2024 halving. That is not acceptable as it stands. I explained why it’s appropriate for every recipient in a given proposal to have a veto on how it receives funds:

It’s not up to me to suggest specific changes that would resolve this, it’s up to @GGuy (and similarly for the other authors of proposals that currently have ECC / Bootstrap receiving direct protocol funding more than one year after the 2024 halving).

In my opinion it’s completely straightforward how to change the drafts of such proposals to meet this requirement, but there are several possibilities and I don’t want to bias the decision toward a particular alternative, because I have a conflict of interest. Each author might make a different decision, of course.

[Edit: reworded to clarify that the veto of each recipient is on how it receives funds, not on how other recipients do.]

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