Compensate ETCDEV work from ETC Community fund

[splix]

Proposal

Compensate ETCDEV work from ETC Community fund

Background

ETCDEV was working on Ethereum Classic core projects for more than 2 years. During that time ETCDEV made 28 releases of Classic Geth with more that 2000 commits since ETH forked from the ETC mainnet. ETCDEV has also created a new ETC-native desktop wallet from scratch and a Javascript framework for 3rd party developers to build Dapps on ETC. And launched SputnikVM, a new implementation of Ethereum Virtual Machine.
All of these work significantly helped Ethereum Classic growth and proved it as a sustainable blockchain. Ethereum Community is a main beneficiary of all ETCDEV work done by that moment. Though ETCDEV didn’t take funding from the community during that time.
This work was sponsored by internal ETCDEV funds, but at the November 2018 ETCDEV had financial problems which lead to team collapse by December 3rd, 2018. Some of team members did a great work for ETC before official announcement, and some amount of work was left uncompensated.

Solution

As an appreciation to the work developers did during past 2 years, it’s suggested here to compensate only small amount of work they did during several weeks after ETCDEV got into financial problems.

Specifications

Transfer 6485 ETC in total to the following addresses of ex-ETCDEV members:

 ... removed ...

(list doesn’t include splix and external expenses, just the team)

[phyro]

I’m not a holder of the keys but I support this. I’m not sure why the list doesn’t include you though, but that is up to you.

[a.s]

Hi Igor!
I am for for supporting the team members! You and your team contributed on really essential parts of development and those are great!

Thank you and your team!

[ClassicIsComing]

I’m a bit confused as to what Donald has said about team’s funding. Stating that team’s need to figure out their funding for themselves and it should not be the community’s concern and we should not socialize development.

How is this any different than a proposal to a treasury system? (not necessarily layer 1)

[splix]

Donald, if you’re trying to dox yourself, don’t do that
I don’t know which address is which, address mentioned by Donald may not belong to him, so I insist in keeping original list

[D34D]

Hi Igor,

Thank you for your service to ETC.
I’ve only “joined” early 2017 but I’ve heard from Etherninja that when shit hit the fan after the fork, you were the main dev responsible to keep the chain out of trouble. Your dedication and work was invaluable, hence why I’m so disgusted at the way DFG/ETCLabs/Foxconn/whatever screwed you over.

Having that said, your post here is quite too “simple” and if a community decision is to be made then everyone should be better informed. Feel free to fill any gaps or add relevant info.

• ETCDev has always had zero transparency about it’s funding and it raised concerns among people in the community for a long time. These concerns were always dismissed by you and unfortunatelly time has proven that there was a motive to be worried about.

• You’re still being secretive, not wanting to detail who is owed money, how much and what for.

• Mid 2017, when asked about “who” was funding ETCDev, you stated in Slack

“Do you want to fund the development team? Then it’s none of your business”.

• ETCDev was a self-proclaimed non profit company with unknown funding but working and fulfilling roadmaps, which kept “everyone” happy.

• Mid 2018, your non profit officially becomes a private company, ETCDev GmbH - https://bit.ly/2QWicNC - and keeps recruiting brilliant people to work on ETC. Also a marketing / PR guy and a designer. Clearly ETCDev was “well backed”.

• About 1 month ago, another concerned user started a Reddit regarding ETC Funding. - https://www.reddit.com/r/EthereumClassic/comments/9wd28v/etc_funding/ - and in your reply you point out how the community funds should be spent to atleast hire 1 more full time engineer to work on Classic Geth.

• Your ex-“biz dev” replies that ETCDev is well backed, boasts how you went from 1 employee to 14, in 1 year and your goals were to increase 2x or 3x in the next 12 to 24 months.

• Today you’re asking the community to pay what your company owes to these devs and honestly, looks like you are asking for a bailout so you can save face with these devs to which you never disclosed anything about funding.

• A week ago or so Donald disclosed that the original funding came from a donor who wanted to remain anonymous and that he requested for all funds to be kept in ETC. Today you claim “this work was sponsored by internal ETCDEV funds”.

Question #1 - Has ETCDev GmbH officialy filed for bankrupcy?

Question #2 - Why are you being secretive once again? Please detail who is owed money and exactly how much.

Question #3 - At which rate did you calculate the ETC compensation? Was the work agreement valued in ETC or another currency?

Question #4 - Donald has replied that he has no intention to receive payment from the community fund. Why do you think the community funds should still be sent to him anyway?
(I see that Donald has deleted his reply after you told him to but please do answer this question anyway)

Question #5 - Have you informed the other people who are owed money, that you are trying to repay them with a community bailout, or there’s a chance that more will post here like Donald did ? (before he deleted it).

Question #6 - Why should the community funds now be spent paying your company debts, and not on hiring a full time engineer or two, like you suggested before?

Question #7 - If IOHK shutsdown their ETC team and don’t pay their devs, do you think the community funds should be spent bailing IOHK out too?

My simpathy goes to all the devs who are owed money by ETCDev management, no one should ever be in that position but keep in mind that the fund originated in donations along the years, with the intent of benefiting ETC Network, not specific individuals or companies.

[splix]

Hi D34D,

Thank you for writing your concerns, I know you were very interested in my finances for a long time, which probably fine, you have a right to ask people about anything. Though I don’t see myself obligated to report to everyone who asked, because in my opinion there should be mutual agreement on something that includes such obligation. So I may even answered like you said, though I don’t remember exact that phrase, but what I wanted to mean that we didn’t make such agreement with you and if you don’t like some aspect of my work, I’m not forcing you to use it if the requirement is to report to you personally. So it’s not secrecy, just how life works. If you want to come to some agreement, when you provide something in exchange for reporting on all internal operation and it seems on some aspects of my private life, we could discuss it separately.

Anyway, all of it is unrelated to the proposal in this topic, I’d suggest to start a separate topic to avoid mess.

Regarding doxing people on their addresses, I don’t think it’s good idea. Even if someone will decide to dox himself, I don’t recommend it. Maybe you don’t care about others, but for your information there are many people who were sending death treats for past 2 years, so it’s simply dangerous.

I’m not big fan of spending ETC Community funds on such things, and clearly stated that to Cody Burns some time ago, before I stopped activities, only later I asked about possible help from the community. At that time when I was saying that I was sure I will resolve the issue with finances, but unfortunately Darcy did what he did, cutting me from bridge financing and having no option to continue. Here are we now, so I’m not even asking to solve my problems, but asking to appreciate developers who had been worked for ETC for a long time, and asking for just a small donation, negligible compared to the amount of work we did.

[D34D]

If you want to convince an entire community to bailout your company debts then you should be ready to answer some questions.

It’s up to you of course, as always have been.

[D34D]

Also, you’re the one with this “doxing” bullshit. No one asked for anyone’s wallet addresses. For the interest of knowing where these funds are to be allocated, I asked for specifics of who is owed money and how much in dollar value.

If you really want the community funds to be used to repay your debts, then you should really be open about it otherwise everyone will be assuming whatever runs in their mind. Is that what you really want?

Also you dodged every single question which to me shows no real intent to get these devs paid.

ps: for those who missed it, Donald specifically asked not to be paid (from the community donation funds, I’m sure he would stil like to be paid by his employer). Then splix told him to remove his post and so he did, but here’s what he wrote.

[splix]

No, I’m not trying to convince community, I don’t know why you think so. I’m also sure that it’s not community responsibility to do anything at that case.
That’s the problem that you don’t understand it’s quite opposite. In a situation when community needs new developers, it’s a chance to show that community respects developers. If you’ll continue to think that developers are slaves and should report to you on everything just because you bought some ETC when it was cheap, it’s not going to work anymore and will alienate people who maybe still consider to spend some of their time to help you.

[Okhm]

D34D has valid points, but these Devs were working for ETC interests and Igor is also a big reason why ETC survived. I also understand that ETC doesn’t owe anything to anyone, but maybe we community members should pay respect to these people who worked hard for these past 2 years and pay the money which is owed by ETCDEV.

[phyro]

I also see NO reason whatsoever why they would need to report on anything. I have no clue where the idea that this is something to be expected came from. If people like the idea of the blockchain, fine, invest. But it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the dev teams have any obligations towards the community. Unless the community gave money to them under the condition that it has to be shared.

[yazanator]

I think we need to set a deadline for debating this topic, after which this can come to a vote by the community. Otherwise, leaving it as an open-ended discussion won’t help solve anything. Maybe 1 month or end of January 2019 as a deadline?

[a.s]

Yes, one month should be suitable.

[masaha]

I agree, a deadline is a must to conclude the discussions. Last of January is fine.

I think both splix and D34D has valid points. I’m no fan of using community funds for bailout but I’m leaning towards seeing the value ETCDev has brought to ETC through their work. I’m absolutely for rewarding that. Maybe a compromise is the way forward? I’m thinking we could reward the developers with at least some of the ETC asked for? And if (or when) splix gets his business sorted out he perhaps can repay the community fund?

[splix]

I’ll also add that initial discussion was started at the end of November. Just for future historians.

[stev]

I am 0x6def45b0047277401f2d8f4d93b2ce54e97e37d5, Unpaid labor is an obligation of the company, not the customers [community] they serve. To my knowledge Igor is the owner of the company [ETCDEV].

[D34D]

and

[splix]

I know Stev you’re getting paid now to attack me, but it’s not going to work as you expect

[splix]

Regarding missing addresses, and to answer questions why the list is smaller that the team size. It’s because the list doesn’t include persons who started to work on DFG interests and secretly receive money long before the public events.

PS Zach’s address is in the proposed list btw, because to my knowledge he didn’t participate in that.

PPS whole team did know that such proposal will be made, was ok about that when it was discussed in November and first time proposed to the community. Even provided all these temp addresses. But suddenly changed their mind and “forgot” about it after joining ETC Labs.