“Grant” sure, but “expenditure” isn’t covered in that bylaws text.
Also the zip is pretty explicit about not funding overhead for the zomg itself, hence the need for ZF to volunteer support discretionally
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- ZOMG did not fund Zondax, ZF did.
- Zondax had proven speciality in firmware development, but they missed out on planning end-to-end deliverable of contracting a JS/web based PoC to get through the Ledger review.
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Right, but the trouble is, hiring and managing your own staff isn’t a grant. In fact, legally, I think they’d still have to work for ZFND unless someone made a literal third legal entity. We went through that debate about paying ZOMG members and similar reasons are why ZFND just pays ZOMG members (IIRC out of ZFNDs dev fund share). Luckily, as I said, I believe ZFND is hiring staff for this.
To just come out and be explicit: if you read the quotes you’re providing dispassionately, one of three things is going on.
- ZOMG just wants some staffing and, once ZFND hires someone, it’s fine. I think this is the case. Everyone just wants to get stuff done in the quickest way possible and there some friction in working with the somewhat narrow scope in ZIP 1014. And so we can all move on and hand out grants to make Zcash better.
But If we’re going to insist machiavellian games are afoot then there are at least two possibilities :
-
ZFND could be playing power politics to control ZOMG. It would be odd because ZOMG is, per the community discussion, vote, and ZIP 1014, explicitly set up to not be a chess piece on the board. It’s just supposed to hand out grants. It’s meant to be not worth fighting for. And we haven’t, as far as I know, vetoed any proposed grants (which the ZIP lets ZFND do for the narrow reasons of its illegal for us to do so or grossly inappropriate).
-
Some people, probably outside ZOMG, are pushing ZOMG into a full blown third entity by exceeding the scope of zip 1014. And then you’d use it to alter the balance of power. Again, I really really don’t think thats the play here, i think it’s a civil disagreement from people who want to be as effective as possible. But if we are going to insist something strange is afoot…
Personally, I really agree with @hanh , I’m more worried about ZOMG being able to hand out grants. Deploying capital is hard and they got a large chunk of the dev fund. Staffing might help with oversight, but i’d be surprised if it was what was blocking on handing out proposals. ZFNDs grant committee managed without it. And personally (and this may or may not reflect the views of ZFND), I can live with some loss rate on bad grants while ZOMG gets its self up and running.
Thanks but I don’t see 2. as their responsability unless contractually stated (it may be).
When you write a server, it is not implied that you should check on the client code.
That’s stretching it. It comes down to the grant proposal, the target deliverables need to be defined and ZOMG proposal template covers it pretty well.
In the case of Zondax, the wider community understanding was the end result of having Shielded ZEC support on Ledger. All is not lost yet, as someone from the community can pick up the remnant work and deliver what needs to be done. Zondax has been asking for collaboration.
Zondax is also hiring a front end dev, hopefully to finish the task they started https://twitter.com/_zondax_/status/1402181784570417152
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To clarify, when I said “silly power politics” I didn’t mean anything diabolical like Machiavellian games or one entity trying co-opt another. I meant the basic personality conflicts common in office dynamics.
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This is technically delivered but impractical to say the least. I’d be interesting to see the grant text. Could someone provide a copy?
All the proposals are available at ZF grants site. Here is the Zondax one ZF Grants - New Zcash Ledger App + Integration
It would be good to have someone help them out so the mobile wallets too can integrate hardware wallet support for signing spends.
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Thanks
I have opened an issue regarding their API.
So far, no reply. As it stands, I don’t think wallets can integrate with them because they don’t expose the extended full viewing key but the IVK.
Anyway, we are getting off topic.
It would be doubly strange, given that it was the Foundation that decided that the major grants slice should be controlled by an independent committee instead of by the Foundation. The community expressed no clear preference either way (see the voting for question 3).
The Foundation fully and unambiguously respects the ZOMG Committee’s independent decision-making authority. We have zero interest in seeking to exert any influence over its decisions (unless the Committee explicitly asks for our input).
However, we also have a duty to uphold ZIP 1014. I think it would be an unforgivable abuse of the Foundation’s position to ignore or seek to subvert ZIP 1014, both in terms of its specific wording, and the intent that was expressed in the votes that led to and endorsed that wording.
For the record, the Foundation has not vetoed any of the grants that the ZOMG Committee has proposed funding.
With regards to providing assistance and support to the ZOMG Committee, the Foundation already provides administrative support (e.g. the minutes that are posted to the forum are recorded by a Foundation employee) and Alex (the Foundation’s COO) has recently begun attending ZOMG meetings in order to field any requests for help. (I would happily attend myself but the meetings are scheduled at 2am in my timezone).
At the Committee’s request, we created (and keep up to date) a spreadsheet-based dashboard that (a) tracks how much of the major grants slice funds are allocated versus available to fund future grants, and (b) provides a single view of what grant milestones have been completed and paid out, and which are coming up in the next few weeks.
Also at the Committee’s request, we’ve agreed to take responsibility for reviewing milestone payout requests (NB: these are milestones that are part of grants that have already been approved by the ZOMG Committee), with a clear proviso that the Foundation will not reject any milestone payouts without first consulting with the Committee, and a process whereby ZOMG can take over responsibility for any specific upcoming milestones that they want to review and decide on.
We (as in the Foundation and ZOMG Committee working together) also made some changes to the grants platform that we anticipate will help applicants ensure that their milestones are better defined, with deliverables that can be more objectively assessed.
When we fill the Communications & Ecosystem Relations Manager role, they will also play a significant role in helping with communications, outreach and engaging with both existing and potential grant applicants.
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In my opinion, the Zcash community needs a strong product & project manager not a communication manager.
You don’t need someone to help grant applicants. You need someone who can better evaluate and coordinate grants. Right now, we need to stop spilling grant money. People can see that it is not worth coming up with great projects when bad ones get the grant.
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Well where are you going?
I fully agree on this.
Instead of keeping on opening and funding new projects, one should focus on closing existing ones. And it means project follow-ups, status meetings, identify the issues on the road and discuss these to see how to solve them and reach the goals. And if something is making the project impossible to finish without substantial extra ressources, it should also be decided to be put on hold/closed.
That would add a lot of transparency / clarity to the ongoing projects.
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There is a lot on this thread, but on a specific point - I wanted to reassure @secparam that the @ZcashGrants doesn’t want to do more than hand out grants.
What Dodger implied in our first live conversation with him was that we should just show up on our bimonthly calls and say “yea or nay” to grants. At least that’s how it came across to all of us on that call.
We could do that, but then you end up with what is no better than a coin flipping process, which you don’t need to have run a full campaign process for in order to select a committee. And the results will speak for themselves: poor.
Instead, below is a list of what we think we need to do, in order to give out grants well, which would ultimately benefit everyone represented on this thread - community, ZF, ECC.
If someone were do do all this for us, so that we really only needed to show up for a call twice a week, and peruse perfectly written grants for an hour before each call, then we would be happy to pull our request for more and dedicated resources.
An experienced manager should know that doing The Work usually involves doing a lot of other things that don’t seem to be directly connected to The Work (like admin, cheerleading, managing, looking ahead,… the list goes on).
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@secparam, does this make sense? I would like to know if this reassures you RE zomg wanting to overreach. Or if not, I genuinely want to hear your reactions or further thoughts. I have thick skin 
, so you can speak directly
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I wish @tromer was still around, because he’s better for historical context than I.
Commenting purely in terms of historical context from a what was the idea for ZOMG ( now called MGRC) being discussed that lead to ZIP 1014.
Grant QA and Administrative seem in line with “hand out grants.”
The marketing and coms stuff are reasonable, I don’t think it was fully considered in the zip 1014 debate, but they quickly lead to things which were considered and are a problem.
To do all the comms stuff, you need to hire a staff. Which is what you asked to do. But ZOMG cannot employee staff. I don’t mean this as historical context or a point on the foundations position, I mean it as a legal fact: ZOMG does not control the money. So ZFND would have to pay them and, legally, be responsible for hiring , firing, and supervising them. And indeed ZFND is, I think, hiring someone who will actually be supervised by ZFND.
But my understanding is you all wanted to hire someone yourself. I understand the inclination, but consider the above problem. And trying to hire staff is what I meant by " It sure looks like ZOMG wants to do things that aren’t hand out grants." It’s not that you cannot do marketing, it’s that any staff to do it need to be ZFNDs.
Philosophically, this also poses a major problem with respect to the community’s decision in setting up the dev fund. Were ZOMG to directly hire a series of people and ZFND merely pay them somehow, it would actually be, defacto, the very third entity the community rejected. They did not want to create a third entity that people could play power games with and use as a platform to influence the community. If ZOMG had its own standing staff, marketing, and community presence, that would be an end run around the intent.
Taking off my historical context hat. I’m not sure what the friction is between Jack Gavagin and, it seems, @ml_sudo and Chris is. Jack can be gruff at times but I’ve heard no complaints from the rest of ZOMG and I’ve asked. I’m happy to try to help resolve this, hopefully privately. I’m worried a few of the louder voices here (not anyone at ZOMG or ZFND) simply want to use it as an excuse to start trouble.
Lastly, If you want to make ZOMG a third entity, thats fine, there’s a process for that. Then lets have a discussion about it explicitly where we consider the risk it poses to the balance of power, why the community did not do that the first time, and create some mitigations. Then have a vote and change the ZIP.
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Yes it does tell you about my leadership. If ZOMG wants to be a third entity, we should have a discussion about it and vote.
And I want to settle what seem like personal frictions between the ED and two members of ZOMG. And in my experience, it’s easier to do that when you get the principles in a room/ a call. Arguing over text is bad. Arguing over text on the public internet where third parties can start stuff, is even worse.
Ah, now i see what you mean.
No, its not a pencil pushing lawyer thing about “we must follow the rules.”
Its the community actually discussed and decided “We didn’t want ZOMG to be a third entity” when we set this all up.
ZOMG having its own staff that reported to it would violate the spirit of that agreement.
Which is why I keep pointing out how we can have another discussion and vote to change it.
I agree with you which is why I’m still utterly confused what the actual conflict is here.
ZFND will hire staff so ZOMG can hand out grants. We all want that to happen.
That resolves the logistical problem.
So why is this even a thread?
well either:
- we’re all frusted because hiring takes time
- its a nothing burger some people blew up for drama
- there’s some personal friction with Jack and two of the ZOMG members or
- Someone wants ZOMG to get its own staff and actually be a third entity. And this thread is them playing the exact power games the community wanted to avoid by prohibiting ZOMG from being a third entity. (and they aren’t willing to admit it and have an honest discussion and another vote)
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I agree with a good amount of what you say, but please let’s keep this respectful? 
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