Here is the DM that I sent to Katie before her response referenced above. I’m sure she will post her response, after which I will also post my additional response…
Hi Katie. Would you please clarify a detail here? Are there any nodes that are currently receiving remuneration rewards that will no longer be receiving remuneration rewards within the next several months? I have this question in general for all node providers.
The fact that some node providers were operating DFINITY nodes and DFINITY is reassuming possession of the servers makes me wonder if these nodes that are currently receiving remuneration are going to be leaving the network as remuneration recipients.
If there are any nodes that will no longer be receiving rewards for any reason (e.g. DFINITY getting out of the node provider business, node providers leaving the IC, etc), then I would like to know if I can start a discussion with the community and submit a Motion proposal to the NNS to make the argument that there is a higher purpose for keeping those nodes slots in service than there is for removing them in the name of decreasing inflation. Specifically, the only reason anyone is performing technical proposal reviews is because DFINITY has been willing to provide grants. The work we are doing helps advance decentralization, but the grants offered by DFINITY are not enough. There are many people who applied for the grants who are left on the sideline because of this lack of funding. Node provider remuneration could be used to solve this problem.
We are about to see periodic confirmation implemented as well as governance canister and NNS dApp changes that will make it easier to find and choose people and organizations who are performing the work of proposal reviews, yet there is a paltry number of people and organizations that have had access to the incentives necessary to put in the work and develop credibility as a valid Followee option. I would like an opportunity to make every node position that is being given up available to help fill this gap by harnessing the remuneration to pay people for technical proposal reviews. I can do this through CodeGov. In fact, it’s the only contribution I can make to governance since I’m not a developer who can perform the reviews. However, I can recruit developers and I can administer grants. It doesn’t have to be just CodeGov.
Even if there is a time gap before new servers can be acquired and onboarded, there is still tremendous value in considering this proposition. I think there is a chance it would be well received by the NNS, especially if DFINITY is supportive. It could be community driven. It would take time to order and build these node machines. I know people who are willing to help spec the hardware, provide racking instructions, and travel to perform the networking and node setup on site. As you know, I don’t have personal funds to purchase servers. Hence, the only way to obtain servers is to raise capital. That would have to be a public effort where community members are given the opportunity to contribute to the fundraising in return for attractive returns from the remuneration. It would be a golden opportunity to find out just how important decentralization is to the ICP community. The number of nodes onboarded could be proportional to the capital raised. The funds could be used to support people and organizations that are currently active or willing to become active in roles that advance decentralization of the internet computer…technical proposal reviews, critical infrastructure development, decentralization focused tooling, node provider support, etc.
I don’t know how many nodes are being given up, but I would like to include all of them in the discussion even if there are more than 42. Of course, I would like CodeGov to be able to take over as many as possible, but it would make a lot of sense for them to go to many people and organizations. I can still coordinate the public discussion and whatever fundraising is required even if the recipients of the node slots are not just CodeGov. In fact, I could work to negotiate the data center contracts in many different geographies, but scope it such that many different node providers are slotted to the same racks in those data centers instead of it being just one node provider with many nodes in the same rack in the same data center. That way we take advantage of scale while still improving decentralization.
I wouldn’t want to start this kind of discussion unless I know it is supported by DFINITY. I’ve been around long enough to know that its a waste of time and effort pursuing ideas that are not supported by DFINITY. I think this kind of community based decentralization is what DFINITY wants, but it can’t happen without support. Hence before starting a discussion, I’d like to know if an idea like this has a chance of being supported by DFINITY.
By the way, I know I’ve been taking up a lot of your time lately on these discussions. I apologize. I just see node provider remuneration as a solution to so many problems that we face at CodeGov that are caused by a lack of sustainable funding and a dependency on grants from DFINITY. It a problem that I feel first hand as the founder of CodeGov, but I think we are just one example of a bigger problem with the path to decentralization of the IC. I’d really like an opportunity to become truly independent and to bring as many developers along as possible (CodeGov or not doesn’t matter to me). Hence, I don’t want to leave any stone unturned. I appreciate your willingness to consider my proposals.
My request also applies to these 63 unassigned nodes in the event any of them are not planning to continue as node providers and have not sold their node slots to someone else. However, I realize that you may have already addressed these 63 nodes with this comment below. Perhaps Bjoern should remove this section of his proposal if there are no nodes that need to be removed due to not being registered. Instead of being removed, I think this idea should be considered of allowing the NNS to decide if these node slots can be adopted by others who are performing work for the protocol if they can come up with new servers.
@Lorimer @sat @SvenF @paulm @bjoernek @ld-dfn1 @bjoern @Luis @mompo @lara