ZOMG meeting minutes: 9-28-2021

[Shawn]

Link to updated ZOMG accounting Dashboard:

Zcash Community Grants Dashboard

ZOMG Google Meet Meeting: September 28, 2021

[Minutes taken by Danika]

Meeting minutes:

Attendance:

• Chris Burniske

• Holmes Wilson (arrived midway through the meeting)

• Hudson Jameson

• ML_Sudo

• Shawn

• Alex Bornstein acting as ZF resource

• Danika Delano acting as notetaker

Notes:

Feedback on Documents Alex sent

• Hudson told Alex he really appreciates him jumping in like this and helping out, in reference to RFP/RPI/SOP documents and in general.
• Shawn also gave kudos for the Q1 transparency report that the Foundation just posted, highlighting that it is the most comprehensive report from the Foundation.
• Alex thanked them for their kind words and said everything was a team effort with Danika and Winfred.

Interim period for ZOMG

• Chris asked Alex for clarification on contingency plans for ZOMG’s transition into the next cohort; he summarized that it was posted on the forum that the elections will be postponed 90 days but he is not not sure what else has been communicated and how the current ZOMG will operate; they should be careful about communicating anything related to the pausing of grants; finding a way to continue processing grants makes sense, even if it’s at a lower capacity (but it doesn’t have to be at a lower capacity).
• Hudson pointed out that the holidays are a natural slow down so they are likely not to get as many grant applications coming through.
• Shawn reminded the committee that Alex was polling current members who would be available after Nov 15, which is the committed time for everyone; there are three contingency plans that are dependent on how many people can commit.
• Alex replied that there is no preconceived notion of how it should work and is open to ideas; if enough current members are not able to continue on at the same or a lower capacity, they need to discuss other options.
• Chris shared that he is feeling bandwidth constrained and would like to peel off on Nov 15 but can push through if he needs to; he posed the idea of keeping three members on and holding elections for 2 members to use it as an opportunity to start staggering seat turnover; he said maybe that would make it worse and opens a can or worms but he wanted to raise it an an opportunity.
• ML replied that “it’s wormy” (in reference to Chris’s can of worms metaphor) and Alex agreed.
• Chris said that’s fine and asked if they are being asked to extend their commitment 3 months.
• Alex shared that 90 days was the idea, so they can consider an actual 3 month delay.
• Chris asked for clarification on the actual dates and Alex assured them that he will share dates with them immediately when they have dates nailed down.
• Shawn brought up that the plans are contingent on who would stay on past Nov 15. Hudson agreed that step 1 is figuring out everyone’s time commitment.
• Chris reiterated that his preference is to drop off but would stay on if dropping off would mean they wouldn’t be able to process grants.
• Shawn said that he can support grants or be a part of a skeleton crew to figure out processes; either is fine and, like Hudson said, there might not be a plethora of grants coming in over the holidays; he brought up that their ability to accept grants is dependent on how many people stay on; if there is only 2, then they shouldn’t accept grants.
• ML stated that she is on the fence; if they are not expecting a lot of grants, she thinks she can do it.
• In Holmes’ absence, Hudson said that he thought Holmes was in the same boat as Chris.
• Chris added that it would be a burden to continue on at the same cadence.
• Hudson voiced that if three stay on with grant making decisions and (maybe) put some boundaries in place, they should be able to continue accepting grants.
• Chris asked Alex if ZOMG member compensation would change during that time and Alex said there were no planned changes to compensation.
• Chris agreed that they will be able to process on but wanted clarity on election and turnover date. Alex reiterated that he will share dates with them first, then publicly.
• ML clarified that her reluctance to stay on is because she believes there are serious structural issues, not because she doesn’t want to work with everyone on grants; she still thinks the work is very important.

Conflict of Interest and ZOMG Members/Elections

• Hudson summarized for the committee that the community was unaware that if they are on ZOMG, they can’t propose new grants; this needs to be communicated to ZOMG candidates.
• Alex explained that the email that he sent out for a Doodle poll is for the call when they will talk it through with current and new ZOMG candidates as there’s some nuisance to it. Alex summarized that the question came up on forums and he asked the Foundation’s lawyers about it; legal counsel made it clear that ZOMG members that apply for grants would be a conflict of interest. This was reconfimed via additional back and forth between ZF and legal counsel.
• Chris asked if it is the case that ZOMG cannot grant anything to anyone on ZOMG. Alex clarified that there are 2 scenarios: 1) An individual gets elected and submits a grant request. There is no circumstance that is allowable. 2) What is possible is if someone has a professional or personal interest with a grantee, then they can recuse themselves as long as they are not doing the work; it would need to be publicly disclosed in the minutes. The distinction is who is doing the work and disclosing the relationship. Alex stated that the second scenario requires more conversation and consideration.
• Chris asked what a creative solution to allow an individual to do work and be on ZOMG would be. ML replied that the creative solution has to come from a lawyer that respects legal requirements while also trying to help us achieve our strategic objectives, instead of only offering opinions about why we can’t do what we would like to do. Alex said they could take opinions to a lawyer and, from his experience, it can be effective to bring ideas to outside counsel. The call to be held will generate additional questions and ideas that Alex will discuss with ZF’s legal counsel.
• Hudson asked if he got a response from everyone regarding times for the meeting. Alex said he has gotten responses from mostly everyone and the call would be scheduled shortly.

zecwebsite.com

• ML reminded the committee that in the last meeting they were leaning toward rejecting but she wanted to ask for proof of market/demand before making a decision. She didn’t think they had convincing evidence on demand so they should reject.
• All members agreed to reject. ML volunteered to respond to the applicant.

Zcash + Open Index Protocol Integration

• Hudson explained that Holmes told the applicant on the forums that they decided not to fund; it just wasn’t rejected on the backend; Hudson said he can reject or ask Holmes to reject it.

Payment Gateway with BTCPay

• ML pointed out that they don’t need to have a forum post for ZOMG to discuss the grant, they can decide during this meeting.
• ML brought up that she was curious about the 75% and 25% payouts for the milestones since the 1st milestone of this grant is a milestone from the previous grant with the work already complete; she pointed this out as a systemic problem where ZOMG needs someone to properly follow and vet grants, someone whose full time job is to summarize the development of grants and to make a judgment on how much work is reasonably involved in a particular project. Hudson added that it’s more about transparency, knowing how fast work takes
• Hudson brought up that they will have more support from ZF starting Friday. ML replied that she doesn’t know what skills this new person has and they need more than just available human labor. Hudson stated that they need to know how much money they deserve for how much they accomplish as he gets the feeling Hanh is a 10x engineer that is fast and accomplishes something for the same amount of money. ML replied that is the amount of work involved; someone needs to see how valuable and difficult the work is and if this is a fair estimate. Hudson replied that he can kinda do it but he’s not going to spend that many hours on grants. ML clarified that her frustration is a long-term problem stretching across other grant applications. Hudson shared that he plans to do more when they get more ZF support in place. ML asked if it’s reasonable to expect he will have the time to do so given that his time has been limited even before he took on his new full time job. Hudson replied that he also left a few things when he left his old job so he feels he has the bandwidth to contribute.
• Holmes brought up that the process that Alex had them look at with RFI and RFPs; they can solicit interest in evaluating things like this; they can have a circle of people available to provide that service; a full time person can help marshall that when ZOMG needs that and they can start that now for exactly this thing. Alex said that is 100% accurate. The ZF support that starts Friday and will also be able to do legwork to bring in ZF and ECC expertise, in addition to tapping into the roster (once it’s created).
• Shawn asked ML if she would like to restructure the milestones for Hanh. ML replied that she is using it as an example to propose a problem. Shawn asked if it is better if the first milestone wasn’t 75% and if 25% upfront, based on work already done, would be better. ML said it would feel better. Shawn stated that this time around, it’s not unreasonable to ask him to restructure milestones. ML volunteered to reply on the forum.

ECC Acceleration using GPU Compute on Mobile devices

• Shawn reminded them that they asked for more clarification in the last 2 meetings.
• Chris said his understanding was that Hanh was going to shift to BTCPay. All members said they were okay with that.
• Holmes asked if they should make it clear he can reopen when he finishes the BTCPay grant.
• Chris asked if someone was supposed to talk to ECC about viability. Hudson confirmed that didn’t happen. Holmes reminded them that it’s not a large grant ($15k); he wants to be clear on saying no to the grant or no to having 2 concurrent grants.
• Chris replied that they need to understand how necessary the work is; who will use it and how.

Elemental ZEC – UI Component Kit and Payment Processor

• Hudson reminded the group that this grant was submitted right before the last meeting and informed them that 1337bytes has connected with Hanh, he has had communication with them, and 1337bytes showed up in the Gardening call. He would give a yes based on the previous conversation.
• Shawn asked, “if this person can team up with Hanh, should ZOMG wait to approve?” He understands that they have been in connection and their projects complement each other; he has demonstrated his components are usable to what Hanh is doing so anything in connection would be useful but it’s not a show stopper if they can’t collaborate since the components are usable. His only hesitation (previously) was an overlap of work; ZOMG already has Hanh shifting gears to BTCPay and it seems they would complement it well; they can be 2 complementary grants.
• Hudson agreed that they are already talking to Hanh so collaboration may happen outside the grant; he volunteered to talk to the Elemental ZEC person and talk to Hanh further if the other members wanted. Shawn replied that they know of each other and are in the same sphere and agrees that it will probably happen naturally; part of the reply could be we are excited to see UI and that they are working with Hanh on his proposal.
• Hudson agreed and volunteered to respond and gather more info. He asked if anyone was opposed to approving the grant in its current form. No member was opposed. Hudson said he will approve.

Zcash Thorchain Bridge

• Hudson said that Hanh brought up a good point on the forums that Thorchain’s core architecture is forking off the main client so the changes to make Zcash compatible might be much smaller than what they are describing.
• Shawn stated that he has the same question and if it only applies to transparent addresses; if it includes shielded then it would be significant. Hudson replied that he doesn’t think it can work with shielded. Shawn brought up that he thought it was so expensive because it will include shielded. Hudson said it’s possible it will support z-address but there’s no guarantee unless they haven’t updated the form.
• Shawn shared that he doesn’t want to make a decision this week but if he’s forced to do a hard yes or no, it would be a no; he doesn’t see a big benefit for the end user but he’s still willing to be swayed.
• ML brought up that she still doesn’t know how good they are as a team so she still doesn’t have an answer. Hudson said he had learned they deliver; they have a team that is technically competent but he thinks they have had some issues with security in the past; they lost money when they got hacked. Chris added that it is an edge case people get to learn from; they have a strong social army which is a benefit and they compensate with tech that is leading up to the talk; they are additive to the Zcash community but the grant is tricky from a tech perspective.
• Hudson stated that there have been a number of bridge tokens from architecture stacks so this is not a new frontier; he still doesn’t think the number is appropriate, even if they add shielded support; ZOMG should let it ruminate more.
• ML voiced that they can’t let it sit in its current form because Aditya wants to start on Oct 1st.
• Holmes said that they should ask for transparency about rate; it’s reasonable to say we need to give people on the forums 72 hours to review new information before approving. He asked the committee if there was some set of criteria that would allow the committee to decide in between meetings.
• Shawn asked about the Oct 1st deadline. Holmes explained that it was their proposed start date. Hudson shared that he is okay telling them that they are not going to have a decision until the next meeting and volunteered to post on the forum addressing the details on cost, the projected time (given Hanh’s point), and ask if they can commit to Z-addresses. Holmes said they shouldn’t require them to support shielded because he’s not sure how much benefit it provides to users so he doesn’t want to make it a requirement. Hudson agreed but thought it was good to ask.