General fund spending guidelines

[yeastplume]

Link to rendered document

[DavidBurkett]

To avoid a repeat of the recent forum fiasco, I propose narrowing this to requests being made in USD or BTC only.

[lehnberg]

I don't think it was the change of exchange rate that led to the 'forum fiasco' as you call it, it was more a failure from my side to clearly outline in my original request that the change would result in a net raise in USD terms.

I don't mind enforcing USD / BTC (and / GRIN) only in requests, but it's not clear to me what problem it solves: In my particular example, if that would be the case, I would still state my preferred GBP amount on the request, convert it to USD according to the x-rate of that day, and then have the equivalent of that paid out in BTC amount once the request is approved. And I reckon I would then still need to field questions about "why last quarter you asked for $x and now you ask for $y", to which the answer then would be: x-rate fluctuations.

But perhaps this makes things a bit easier for the project, as it outsources fiat currency calculations to the requestor and makes it easier for people to review the amounts? I don't know if this is a big issue. If somebody raises a request in some obscure currency without some expression of what this equates to in a currency that people can relate to, it's not helping their chances getting support for their request, so there's no incentive to do so.

Perhaps there could be some sub-set of international currencies in that case (USD, GBP, EUR, JPY, CNY perhaps?), to make it clear that we're welcoming people from all parts of the world to ask in whatever (major) currency they prefer. But then it might become a question of "Hey why can't I ask in Swiss francs, or Canadian dollars, or Russian Roubles"? And yeah, why can't they? They will still only get paid in the currency of what's available in the fund, currently BTC or GRIN.

[DavidBurkett]

it's not clear to me what problem it solves

It feels more transparent. Most people in the crypto industry are already used to dealing in terms of USD and BTC (and yes, we should accept requests in GRIN).

I reckon I would then still need to field questions

Probably, yes. But at least then the questions would be about why you're asking for a salary increase, and not why you're trying to hide the salary increase. That's much better than the conversation beginning with the fundee being accused of wrongdoing. It's merely a change in salary at that point, which can easily be justified by "cost of living increase/decrease".

[johndavies24]

Maybe just something like I am requesting ______ (currency of choice) per month, which at the time of writing is equivalent to _____ BTC & $_____ USD per month. Just mandate a reference to BTC & USD at the time of writing, which might be different when paid out. I am not sure if it would help or hurt, but you could also consider paying out the entire approved sum at one time rather than monthly, which would reduce accounting headaches in a volatile market.

[HysMagus]

This is a great RFC, some points that I think may benefit the overall proposal process

• Would encouraging milestones be a good way to increase the incentive to complete projects
• Would there be a benefit to having acceptance criteria added to each Request for Funding?

My company Arcadia, does a good number of decentralized funding projects every year and we have ran into issues when there are no clearly defined acceptance criteria (or definition of "success"), and milestones in general are a good way to decrease the rate of non-delivery.

[jaspervdm]

Following discussion in yesterdays Governance meeting, and in line with our governance process, this RFC can be considered being in Final Comment Period, with a disposition to merge in two weeks time, on April 7.

Please ensure any comments are made before then!

[jaspervdm]

Following discussion in the latest Governance meeting, The Final Comment Period for this RFC has been extended by two weeks. It now closes on April 21.

[lehnberg]

A bit in the last minute, but to try and prevent situations where exchange rate fluctuations change the payout amounts, it might be worth while to add some kind of instruction that signing parties should be scheduled for payouts, where the exchange rate is sampled at that point, and the transaction is then broadcast within an hour or so after that.

[yeastplume]

Added an explicit section on the payout process, with a few other thoughts that came to mind.

[lehnberg]

Nice, makes a lot of sense. Some minor nitpicks

[i1skn]

This doc does not mention ecosystem projects, it this intentional?

[jaspervdm]

Given the fact that the words around the payout process were only recently added, I'm proposing to extend the FCP again, until May 5th

[DavidBurkett]

This doc does not mention ecosystem projects, it this intentional?

Good question @i1skn. This has been briefly discussed here: https://github.com/mimblewimble/grin-pm/blob/master/notes/20200225-meeting-governance.md

yeastplume: We only fund dev work on projects that belong to the mw org, so how does a project become a project that belongs to the mw org.
lehnberg: Do we? I need to read through that rfc again!
yeastplume: Let me read the wording in the rfc again
antiochp: Still only tangentially related - there may be cases where a project wants to join mw org without receiving funding
lehnberg:
there is scope for interpretation as to what this actually means, but the following presents (non-exhaustive) guidelines as to the types of activities that would be considered appropriate to finance from the fund.

activities related to the continuing development needs of the grin code-base and related projects under the github mimblewimble organization. this can include:
yeastplume: Okay, sorry it doesn't say that's all we fund, it's just a strong case for what's appropriate to be funded by the grin fund.
lehnberg: Yeah, it's confusing, as it can easily be interpreted as such. Which I don't think should be the case.
antiochp: It would probably be unusual to fund something outside mw org.
lehnberg: It's unusual we fund much at all beyond core grin related work right now. But not sure this will always be the case, or whether we need it to be that explicit. It's not like we're inundated with funding requests. But yeah that's probably more suited as a discussion on the rfc itself hehe.
yeastplume: Yeah, we're headed into that territory

It appears no such "discussion on the rfc itself" ever took place, but this RFC is just a semi-formal attempt to say: "The core team is responsible for approving or denying funding requests, and will try to be transparent while doing so." So with that in mind, ecosystem devs are free to request funds.

[yeastplume]

This doc does not mention ecosystem projects, it this intentional?

They're not excluded, and I want to make sure this is addressed explicitly. (In my opinion there should be nothing stopping anyone making funding requests for community projects, just want to make sure this is properly mentioned). I aim to have another revision ready in a few days.

[lehnberg]

As per the last governance meeting, FCP was extended until May 19.

[lehnberg]

As per the last governance meeting, FCP was extended until Jun 02.

[lehnberg]

@yeastplume just reviewed, I think the document is in great shape!

Minor nitpicks, a few unresolved comments from before, and a few typos, and then I think it can be merged. If you're busy with 4.0.0 betas etc, I'm happy to make the commits that fixes these myself, just let me know. 👍

[lehnberg]

I will be merging this pull request by end of this week unless there's objections/feedback to the most recent version.

[lehnberg]

🎉 Wohooo! This RFC has now been merged! 🤸‍♀️