ZingoLabs is continuing to contribute, we need funding:
Here’s my opinion about the need for a Deprecation Commander:
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Agree with what Zancas has posted on Free2Z
If ZCG approves my grant I’m willing to take the lead on this initiative.
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Zcash literally cannot move forward with Zcashd weighing us down. ECC won’t add new features to Zcashd because it’s going away, ZF doesn’t have the resources to build out all the missing functionality into Zebra that Zcashd has. So we are stuck in limbo without a clear path to Zcashd retirement.
Zancas idea of a “Commander” (I would use the term “Coordinator”) who can help organize this effort is a good one.
This person has to know Zcash inside and out as well as be able to work with both ECC and ZF teams. They’ll need to map out the missing puzzle pieces and break them down into smaller tasks for others to tackle.
IMHO @pacu would be a good candidate for the role as long as it’s not interfering with his other work. Others familiar with the Zcash ecosystem should also apply!
lfg
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Folks can pay small amounts of ZEC to post on free2z.
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Having full replacement for zcashd using components from the zebrad ecosystem is blocking basically everything and weighing down productivity. So, I’ve been recently saying that 70% of all funding or more should be put towards cutting over- not just cutting over, but building new, modern, SDKs and APIs against the new stack for higher-level developers to be able to build out cool stuff on the provided foundations.
I’m all for funding devs to get us to the new stack with shiny new tools and tooling. 
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IMO, the current management of the zcashd migration is doing a good job and has my full support. This is a difficult task and I think that they have the best experience and skills needed to carry it out. It may end up taking longer than planned but I am confident it will get there.
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I got the impression from weekly updates that ECC and ZF are currently busy with implementing consensus rule changes for NU6, plus Zashi work. So nobody is currently prioritizing Zcashd depreciation.
Perhaps I’m incorrect?
After NU6 resources may become available. In the meantime is there anything the community can do to help keep the ball rolling? Research, organizing, bounties?
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I’d love to hear some feedback regarding which wallet-related zcashd RPC methods should be prioritized.
We are currently working on a subset that would support apps like ZGo, and we would love to hear about other use cases.
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I agree it’s looking disorganized and that’s because:
- We’ve been mostly focused on getting NU6 ready, which we need to do now to meet the halving deadline
- I believe ECC Is focusing on tex support for Zashi which is also urgent since a lot of people use Binance
- We’re at a point that even getting other people involved would take time (it’s a known reality that in software development, throwing more people at a project doesn’t magically makes it go faster) but I believe this should change shortly after we get the NU6 changes done and tested, which should hopefully happen this week.
Regardless, I really appreciate everyone’s enthusiasm in helping and will do my best to help organize the upcoming work so we can better assign people to tasks.
ECC has their DAG and we have a tracking issue. At some point there will be a single DAG covering both projects.
Additionally, ECC has been putting a lot of work in zcash_client_backend which will be a critical piece for adding wallet functionality to zebrad, so while it may feel that nothing is going on, in fact there is a lot of stuff going on for zcashd deprecation!
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Appreciate the info and work that is happening! Sometimes it’s hard to know what all is going on from the updates that are posted here on the forum.
I know the teams have a lot of irons in the fire, you all have limited bandwidth. If there is opportunity for outside help to be beneficial please say so, I’m certain that people would be willing and able to chip in.
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Who’s managing it?
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Who’s driving this train?
If it’s not obvious from the outside, then it’s not obvious enough.
If there’s not a single stakeholder, then it’s not coordinated enough.
I’m not denigrating the current coordinators @Hanh and I’m not advocating “throwing devlopers” at the problem.
I’m asking this question:
Who is the one person in charge of this effort?
If that one person:
- exists
- is public
- has the proper expertise
- has the proper incentives
Then I believe that the rate of Zcashd Deprecation will be increased.
What’s the value realized from finishing deprecation a day, a week, 6 months sooner? Not to be hyperbolic, but every engineer know that the difference between a correct and incorrect approach can be… significant.
I hear from @hanh and @conradoplg that things are going well… what does that mean?
Where’s the timeline?
Where are the milestones?
Who’s charged with what?
When will interrelated parts be complete and unblock each other?
Does anyone claim to have reasonable answers for these questions? Why are these questions being asked?
I believe that everyone involved is being effective, honorable, and diligent. I am NOT complaining. I am NOT criticizing any of the excellent work done, or being done. I am observing that the work necessary to organize the effort appears to be less-complete, and public than would be ideal.
I believe there are excellent folks that could fill such a role.
My contention is that this role should exist.
Full disclosure, I am in the 1 month sooner is worth some large number of ZEC… how about 21_000, camp?
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There is no single person. @pili is the project manager for Zebra. I’m not sure who is leading on ECC side but I’m assuming it’s @daira .
I already explained the reasons for the current status of the process; I believe “not having a single person in charge” is not one of them.
Those are excellent questions and I’d love to give you answers but that takes effort in figuring it out and we were in the process of figuring it out when we had to pause for NU6. In the meantime we’ve been mostly working on things we know we will need regardless of how exactly the rest of the process will be laid out.
I think having a single person in charge as its benefits, but I’m a bit skeptical of appointing someone who isn’t already part of the process, because they will need a lot of time and resources to catch up. I developed zebra for a good while and I still have catching up to do in order to fully understand what exactly we need to do.
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I hear you.
It seems like someone who’s already managing related projects might be the right person?
In that case maybe the thing to do, is ask one of them to take over Zcashd Deprecation, and hand off other responsibilities to less expert-or-newer parties?
From a distance I perceive the people that I have heard mentioned as the right folks to consider. They really ought to be as expert as possible.
I don’t feel comfortable advocating for any particular person, but I strongly believe that the more expertise, the better.
I see where you’re coming from @conradoplg and what you say makes sense. However this status-quo is a glass ceiling. If we don’t break it, we can’t really grow bigger.
For one thing and as far as I am concerned, this current situation prevents the proper governance many here are looking forward to implement.
Also, I suppose, this lack of communication can make it difficult for other developers to work around those things being developed. Anyway, on this it seems @zancas has expressed something quite clear that I would tend to agree with.
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Yes it’s me. I agree with Conrado.
A core group of ECC and ZF engineers working on zcashd and zebrad respectively have been meeting weekly for the past 6 months (since February 2024) to coordinate on this work. The meeting is currently on Thursdays at 15UTC, except for those that clash with the earlier Arborist call, and we’re happy to invite others that are interested in contributing to zcashd deprecation to this meeting. Please DM me with your email address so I can add you to the meeting invite if that’s the case.
It has been the top priority for ZF engineering since then, with a primary focus on zebra supporting a replacement to the zcashd built in wallet. We recently switched to NU6 in mid July and are ready to switch back to zcashd deprecation work once zebra goes through NU6 activation successfully on testnet.
If anyone wants more details into how exactly we have been working towards that, it’s all there in my Sprint updates 
Additionally, since May of this year, we have been dedicating a slot in the Arborist calls to give updates on zcashd deprecation and anyone is also invited to participate in those or review the recordings afterwards.
I appreciate that it would be good to have a single person to be responsible for managing and coordinate this effort. However, this person would have to have visibility and significant influence over the priorities for all teams involved in this effort.
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Hmmm, @zancas, you don’t seem to be making a solid case for yourself here…
Thanks for sharing this thought @hanh unfortunately there’s nothing substantive for me to respond to… that is, you’re not making a case at all, so I will leave this response with my gratitude for your contribution.