Request for funding @jaspervdm, Feb-Apr 2021

Edit: retracted for now.

6 Likes

Great, in support :+1:. How about late locking, is that already (fully) implemented or is that on @antioch to do list? If not completed yet, it would be great to add that to your or antioch’s task list

i favor your efforts and funding. Last year March you were working also at exchanges integration tools. What about it?

it seems Grin is struggling with exchanges.

I’m glad to see you’re still wanting to contribute to Grin, but I have concerns with another full-time funding request. As a full-time contributor to Grin, I would expect to see you active on keybase and the forum, making steady progress on the code, providing regular progress updates, and just generally trying to push Grin forward daily.

Instead, lackluster coding efforts have resulted in PIBD dragging on for 6 months already with no clear end in sight. You’ve gone weeks on end without any meaningful contributions on github[1]. You’re only particularly active on keybase during meetings, and you don’t participate in any discussions about ways to improve Grin. Your forum activity consists only of a request for funding every 3 months, and a brief progress update every 2 to 4 weeks[2].

While you were once a passionate contributor to Grin, it’s clear that flame has gone out long ago. I’m concerned this fund is now being seen as a reward for past effort that you and a few others can continue to draw from at will with minimal effort. That is not the purpose of the fund. If it was, then I would be owed some serious cash right now :slight_smile:

My recommendation is to withdraw your funding request, re-evaluate how much time you’re actually able to contribute, and then come back with a more acceptable part-time funding request for one month at a time that contains a clear list of deliverables for the community to evaluate at the end of that month. Considering how hit or miss you’ve been with the past 2 funding periods, I don’t think I’m making an unreasonable request.

I don’t take any joy in being the guy who speaks up against these funding requests, but it’s necessary that someone does in order to preserve Grin’s image and to protect the fund so it’s available when we really need it. And while I may be the only one who speaks up publicly about the request, these thoughts are not just my own. I’ve spoken with others before writing this who have all echoed similar sentiments.

[1] jaspervdm ¡ GitHub
[2] Profile - jaspervdm - Grin

11 Likes

Maybe it was wishful thinking, but I thought people really liked @tromp idea from last week meeting to gravitate away from salary and towards bounty payments. My suggestion would be to break down the 30k euro into bounties/goals. I suspect most would be accepting of plenty of wiggle room like rewarding for efforts that didn’t pan out or something

5 Likes

Lol, when I saw you typing your comment I was already expecting a comment exactly like this as well as expecting @johndavies24 to like it :wink:. Often a ‘negative voice’, but that also has its function in this group.

I honestly cannot judge how much work PIBD is nor did I check the amount of code committed on Github.
I do think the task lists provided is rather short, but again it depends on the amount of work it actually is to implement PIBD. So any feedback from the other Grin developers since you are in a better positions to compare and estimate how much work PIDB is, how much bug squashing needs to be done, and how much Jasper has and will contributed on other issues?

This very kind of request was discussed in last week’s meeting. I am not sure if it’s more negative to reiterate sentiments from last week’s meeting or to ignore last weeks meeting and still ask for salary type payments

1 Like

I was not at the meeting, I only red the notes quickly before. I though the idea was to put mostly additional projects and tasks on a bounty list. I did not know this was also the idea for the regular developers. In any case. It would be nice to have a bit more of a timeline for each tasks since indeed PIDB is taking longer than initially planned. Having clear defined goals and good time estimates is a good thing for any coding project.

Ha, this may come as a surprise, but I don’t actually enjoy being the negative voice at all. I’m not heartless - it really does bother me to have to say these things. I started writing that post as soon as I saw his request, but had to take a break for a day or 2 before finishing it. When nobody else seems willing to speak up against abuses of the fund though, I feel obligated to be the bad guy.

2 Likes

I actually pondered if I should say something about Jaspers tasks list being not to ambitious, but decided not to since I am no position to judge/estimate whether Jasper work load is high or not. So I refrain from making any judgement statements for now but relay these questions to others who might be able to actually judge.
Also I know it is important to have enough ‘Full time developers’ on pay roll, even if Jasper might not be able to handle a full time workload right now, so some flexibility is in the amount of hours put in is acceptable.

Yeah, I think it’s totally doable to have regular devs get paid similarly on bounties, especially if you mix some kind of effort bounty with a delivery bonus. This way under delivery would still get payment for efforts and crushing it would get one rewarded above current rate of 10k/mo. It would be best of both worlds.

I saw this zcash ledger app funding the other day and thought it was a smart way to break a longterm project into bite size funding, but we could do even better and reward efforts so it’s not all feast or famine

1 Like

I totally agree with this. The project was divided on payed milestone which is great in many ways: the community is able to see progress, there is an estimated time and there is more transparency with the funds, it is a win-win situation.

I think that is also true, but we should have a clear goal and some estimations to avoid any kind of misinterpretation.

Maybe it is just perception since there is no transparency on the amount of work required to finish the PIBD implementation. It is hard to estimate, but with regular communication we could avoid confusions.

Sounds like a plan to me… but I have some questions @jaspervdm… 3 months are enough to do that and also this: Improve the stability of both the node and the wallet? Maybe this estimation is too optimistic, would you mind to detail a bit? From your last progress update you were working on a RFC, is this the same RFC? During these 3 months, are you going to write the RFC and the implementation? or how far you think you could go? does this includes the node and the wallet?

Having a way of tracking the progress on each item from the wish list maybe it helps to keep the community posted…

I would say that this should be expected from any funded dev :point_down:

5 Likes

I don’t know much about programming and I’m glad that someone will control how much work someone has done with such big payouts for that money, it would definitely want more professionalism

1 Like

I cannot agree more with this concern.

The late locking feature is enabled on the wallet and can be used with the -l flag. There is a known limitation currently in that the transaction cant be finalized if the required number of inputs changes. This could be solved by adding a second kenrel that pays for the difference.


@david
The way I see it, there’s 2 concerns here:

  • I have not been engaging with the community much outside of the meetings – this is definitely true. There are some reasons for it, but not something I am going to discuss here. Going forward what could help me is if we add an explicit expectation here, something like “funded devs should spend roughly X% of their time participating in discussions”.
  • My output is not considered high enough – I work at the speed I do, I can’t change much about that. I do acknowledge I have the tendency to put my head down in certain periods which may make it seem like there is not much progress. However, if my output is not high enough to warrant funding and there is a candidate capable and willing to do the (pibd) work for a lower cost, I urge them to apply to the fund instead. It would be for the good of the project.

@johndavies24
While I am not opposed to bounties on principle, I didn’t think that discussion was far along yet for me to consider it an option for now. If we were to flesh the idea more out it is a possibility, yes.


Yes, it is the same RFC. And yes, during these proposed 3 months I would work on both writing the RFC and the implementation.


With all that being said, I am retracting this funding request for now. I am going to reconsider whether or not it is worth it for me to continue down this path.

Well played guys :clap:

1 Like

@mably Yes, that is also the problem. Whether we think someones output high or not, the simple situation is that we do not have an abundance of developers working on Grin.

I for one do not have the ability to implement PIBD, so what right do I have to critisize or say something is taking to much time or not.

Yes, I think if it does not come naturally to you it would be good to simply arrange some time for this. E.g. 2 days in the week use some 2 hours to browse on the forum to interact at a specified time. In this way you make sure it will not slipp your mind while not to much interfering with your normal workflow (daily checking could sucker too much time).

To sidestep the full time vs part time issue, would you be willing to request funding for completing certain tasks, such as finishing the PIBD design and implementation, which you can then work on at whatever pace best suits you?

6 Likes

Since there is an on going work on PIDB I think this makes sense:

1 Like

I’ve added a point to Tuesday’s Governance agenda about our view on funding requests, in lieu of the above.

I think there’s some valid feedback brought up, but I also think it’s being raised in a needlessly antagonistic and zero-sum way, and that’s a real shame.

Let’s think about how we can improve for the future, how can we set clearer expectations from both fellow community members and and the person raising the funding request, without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

I don’t think Jasper pulling his funding request, is a win for Grin. Who’s doing PIBD now? Did we really need fewer hands working on Grin at this stage? How is it a win for Grin if Jasper works part time now? Does this mean work will progress faster? What’s to say this will give us better value for money?

If someone thinks that Jasper being funded is unfair, that they themselves or someone else deserves to be funded instead, then why not just submit your own funding request and do a better job contributing while you’re at it? Lead by example. Be the positive change you want to see in the world.

I don’t have a strong opinion about how best to proceed.

But I do think that “just doing a bounty program like monero or zcash” is not as easy as it sounds. Zcash has been having quite a lot of trouble it seems with their grants process lately, and Monero’s funding system has yet to be replicated successfully (to my knowledge) by any other project, and we certainly don’t have a large swath of bag holders that can donate to projects for the greater good.

Similarly, from the point of the funding requestor, asking for project-based funding for doing things that have not been done before, that are heavily R&D dependent, possibly also having other people and areas on the critical path to completion, would be akin to shooting themselves in the foot. You make an open ended commitment to work indefinitely on something for the same amount of pay. No professional in their right mind would ever commit to that unless they were dead certain they could deliver within their own estimations.

My position is and remains that beggars can’t be choosers when it comes to having people contribute to Grin’s codebase. We should have demands. We should be as precise as possible with those in order to ensure we get good value for money. If we’re not getting good value, we should pause and reflect and figure out how to improve (like we’re doing now). At the same time, we should be realistic and practical. Some progress is better than no progress. At the current size of the fund, contributing is not zero sum; If Jasper gets funded, that doesn’t mean someone else will not. More is more.

Let’s not deter people from asking for funding or ask them to retract their funding requests. Let’s not call them names. Let’s not ask them to work less for Grin. Let’s welcome them and help them do a better job instead.

5 Likes