Meeting notes: Governance, Aug 28 2018

Governance
1

Apologies for getting to this only now, vacation mode FTW!

Meeting notes

Governance meeting held Aug 28 @ 3PM UTC in grin/Lobby on Gitter, full chat transcript here.

Grin Council attendance:
antioch
hashmap
igno.peverell
jaspervdm
lehnberg
tromp
quentinlesceller
yeastplume

Agenda points & Actions

1. Action point follow ups from previous meetings

Mu-sig wallet

  • Not yet set up
  • To be followed up separately with Grin Council members.

Risk mgmt document

  • Grin council members have inputted feedback
  • Received feedback from community member @RiskyMan who is experienced in the field.
  • Also suggested we outline the possible tools in our arsenal as part of the document. Suggested list:
    • write code / re-release / patch
    • bounties
    • peer reviews / audits
    • emergency funds
    • fund raising mechanisms
    • documentation / communication
  • [ ] Action on @lehnberg to work with @riskyman on improving the document.

2. Audit

  • It’s desired to get an audit initiated ASAP, and then aim to schedule these in a regular interval.
  • Due to expected costs of hiring professionals, and the expected challenges around fund raising ahead of launch, we should aim to contact security researchers / labs and enquire whether they would be willing to take on an audit as part of their ongoing research.
  • Was suggested to also consider Monero Research Lab and Zcash foundation.

Actions:

3. Formal specification for Grin

  • Discussion about approach for formal Grin spec for implementations to adhere to.
  • Main options are the ETH approach (colored paper) vs BTC approach (where main software is canonical).
  • Question is relevant as there’s already a Go implementation effort for Grin (albeit it appears to be dormant).
  • Each approach has drawbacks, it will be a challenge to keep documentation up to date, and it can be quite opaque to interpret the reference implementation. Add to this that current state is in flux and changes rapidly.
  • There’s already a documentation effort underway as part of https://github.com/mimblewimble/grin/blob/master/doc/toc.md, while not a formal coloured paper, it might act as an in between solution for now.

Decision

We will use TOC.md for the reference implementation spec for now. Anyone who wishes is happy to contribute. Once this is stable/polished enough, it can then be converted into a formal “coloured paper”.

4. Proof of Work discussion

  • As per @tromp, the minimum is now changed from Cuckoo30 to Cuckoo32, motivation here.
  • In absence of strong argument against current proposal / for a better alternative, it was thought that we should start looking to move forward based on current approach, with the caveat that we reserve the right to make further changes as necessary.

Note: After the conclusion of the meeting, @Taek / David Vorick joined the discussion and debated the approach with others in the community for several days. Please see the chat following the meeting to catch up on the details of this.

5. Logos

  • It was deemed useful/desired that we begin adopting a logo & design guidelines for the project now that there’s a GUI for the wallet.
  • In no way does this prevent others from using whatever other look & feel they want to, and we do not intend to trademark the logo or enforce a specific use.
  • We’re free to update / improve on whatever we end up using, but a baseline is desired.
  • Rather than announcing a design competition and a community vote, the council thought the existing forum logo thread to suffice, given the significant time it’s been running, and opted to just pick one and move forward with it for now.

Decision

  • After debating in the meeting, majority of council members were ok with using one of @0xb100d’s contribution as the logo for now, with font style and text etc still to be determined.

Note: Following the meeting, there’s been several additional contributions to the logo thread, including by @0xb100d. These are all noteworthy, but have failed to gather as broad of support as the logo that was favoured in the meeting. A logo is never permanent, and improvements, new suggestions are always welcome as the project matures.

5. Miner controlled emissions

Relevant post in the forum was highlighted but not discussed in any greater detail.

–END–

Feel free to raise suggestions / thoughts / comments and requests for future meeting agenda topics below!

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2

Are you taking applications for Grin council?

3

So far it’s been more of a meritocracy. But we’re very open (or at least strive to) as to what sort of contribution you can get merit for. What are you interested in helping with?

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