Now that Grin is safely beyond the final scheduled HF, it is no longer necessary for the council to continue to act in its original capacity and it would be helpful to continue to clarify its role going forward.
With this consideration, I am proposing the following as the continued evolution of the council to move closer toward the shared goal of removing it as a point of failure in the Grin ecosystem, as well as providing a few clarifications of existing circumstances:
Original Council (OC) will refresh multisig key holders after fund split with Community Council (CC) to ensure keyholders are currently active
OC will publicly provide quarterly proof of spendability to ensure sufficient keyholders are active and able to spend funds going forward
Gov/Dev meetings become the responsibility of community Individual Contributors (ICs). Meetings are no longer a place for “council decisions”, they are now a place for “community decisions”. OC will no longer take funding decisions in these meetings going forward and so will not organize the meetings. Meetings may be continued by ICs/CC if desired
Community acknowledges that /mimblewimble/ org repo ownership and community management is the responsibility of teams of ICs and not OC. While some repo owners and community admins may be in OC, OC is not responsible for directing their actions as ICs (as per RFC0016, simplify-governance, which “reverts the core team to the original technocratic council structure, whose sole responsibility is managing the general fund”)
In cases where a consensus is needed between ICs (like rules around merging PRs for a /mw/ repo, community ban decisions etc), it would be up to the teams of ICs following established policies like RFC0016, not OC, to collaborate to determine how they will reach a consensus in contentious decisions
OC actions continue to be restricted to only responsibly and efficiently disbursing remaining funds, everything else is up to teams of ICs and the decentralized Grin network (as per RFC0016 which states “The main purpose of the council is to manage the keys to the Grin General Fund and have final say in spending decisions. The technocratic council does not have a say in the matters of other teams.”)
(1) Does this mean adding new members? There are currently only 3 OC members active with the project, so creating a new 3-of-5 using only OC members means giving keys to 2 inactive OC members. I understand contributors are limited, but worst case scenario, maybe we can pull 1 from the CC and drop it to a 3-of-5 also?
EDIT: I’m assuming this also includes the Grin funds?
(2) Does this mean all 5 keys will be used, or just a quorum? Simply proving a quorum only allows us to recognize a problem when it’s too late to do something about it. Proving possession of all 5 would give great confidence that the funds will not be lost.
(3) I would like to see dev meetings continue in some capacity, preferably in a more informal way that allows a bit more time for devs to discuss topics, and perhaps less emphasis on decision making. I don’t know if I’m the best person to lead this, but I can try if there is enough dev interest.
(4) More people should be owner of the mimblewimble repo (to ensure continuity), and inactive members should be removed (for improved security). Can we figure out the current ownership hierarchy and have a (public?) discussion about who all should be owner of that?
I think that would be nice to see and something that people are open to, including myself. I do also think that just because a member is not active day to day, it doesn’t mean that they still can’t participate in funding decisions and be available to sign transactions. Obviously the more active the members the better, and if people are not engaged at all, even in funding decisions, it probably doesn’t make sense for them to stay a keyholder. At the end of the day I think the council has to figure out what level of activity they want to see beyond key ownership ceremonies.
I’m assuming this also includes the Grin funds?
I think so, yes.
Does this mean all 5 keys will be used, or just a quorum?
While the details are still open, I think it is best for the proof to show that all keyholders of the multisig can sign.
I would like to see dev meetings continue in some capacity
It would be great to see that activity continue!
More people should be owner of the mimblewimble repo (to ensure continuity), and inactive members should be removed (for improved security).
The asset audit that was recently published (apologies I don’t have the link handy) should describe the various repo ownsership statuses. It could be helpful to review everything to see if anything needs to be updated based on activity etc. I think Quentin was recently added as an owner as well.
Can we figure out the current ownership hierarchy and have a (public?) discussion about who all should be owner of that?
Of course, that is up to us as a community and the existing ICs. I’m not sure the best way to go about that, whether it is in a forum post or a meeting.
