Proposal 137683 Observations - Wenzel | CodeGov
VOTE: YES
TLDR: I am voting to ADOPT this known neuron proposal because I have direct experience working with @Gwojda in the capacity of reviewing technical proposals and I believe he will be a strong contributor to the Internet Computer as a known neuron.
Background: The CodeGov team has been searching for additional developers to add to our team and one of our team members (@ZoLee) recommended @Gwojda. Hence, I reached out to him about a month ago and asked if he would be interested in reviewing Subnet Management, Node Admin, and Participant Management since I was aware that he maintains nodes for Etragone and Decentralized Entities Foundation. During those initial discussions, I learned that he is a developer and auditor for Origyn and GoldDAO and has released public projects (here and here) recently. He expressed an interest in getting involved in other proposals that are covered by CodeGov including IC-OS Version Election and Protocol Canister Management. I was quite excited about this opportunity because @Gwojda sounded like the perfect candidate to become a team member for CodeGov. He is heavily involved in ICP projects and is willing to supplement his income by performing NNS proposal reviews for the most important technical topics. I offered to let him perform reviews on a trial basis so we could verify that his skills were a match, but also so he could verify that performing these reviews is something that he wanted to commit to longer term. Below are links to all the reviews that he performed over the last 3 weeks for CodeGov and for which he will be paid equivalent to all our other reviewers for his work as per my commitment to him.
IC-OS Version Election
Proposal 137578 and 137579
Proposal 137497 and 137498
Proposal 137345 and 137350
Protocol Canister Management
Proposal 137582 and 137583
Proposal 137499 and 137500
Proposal 137346, 137347, and 137348
Unfortunately, I learned on Monday of this week that @Gwojda had been approached by @Lorimer (and others) about joining co.delta instead of CodeGov for the purpose of reviewing IC-OS Version Election (IC-OS VE), Application Canister Management (ACM), and Service Nervous System Management (SNSM). Of course, he would have been paid more by CodeGov since I had already offered the opportunity for him to cover Protocol Canister Management (PCM) in addition to IC-OS VE, ACM, and SNSM, which are all topics he expressed an interest in reviewing. Nevertheless, I can respect his decision to join co.delta instead of CodeGov.
Since he was not offered the opportunity to review PCM, I offered to let him join CodeGov specifically for that topic. There is already precedent for participating in proposal reviews with 2 separate entities, which is not an issue in my opinion.
I also offered to pay him to continue to review IC-OS VE and PCM for the remainder of Season 1 knowing that he would be switching to co.delta if they are awarded grants in Season 2. This is in keeping with my policy with every reviewer that has left CodeGov including @lorimer and @Zane . My goal is to always keep developers incentivized to perform the work of NNS proposal reviews any time I have the funds to do so.
@Gwojda indicated an interest in both of these offers (PCM Season 2 with CodeGov and IC-OS VE and PCM for the remainder of Season 1). However, yesterday (Friday) I learned that @Gwojda had been persuaded to take a different approach again. He is not going to perform IC-OS VE and PCM reviews for CodeGov for the remainder of Season 1, but he is going to do them pro-bono. He is also going to apply for the PCM grant as an individual. Of course, this sounds like some higher level politics at play here ( @Gian @Dustin @borovan @Thyassa do any of you happen to have any insight? ), but we didn’t really discuss it further. He has repeatedly pointed out that he prefers to remain in the shadows focused solely on the technical stuff, which I fully understand.
While I am disappointed that he has been persuaded to not join CodeGov, I am very happy that there is a path forward for @Gwojda to get involved in technical NNS proposal reviews. His skills and experience are a perfect match. In the event that co.delta and/or @Gwojda do not win the respective grants for Season 2 and CodeGov does, the opportunity will still exist for @Gwojda to join CodeGov whenever we need additional reviewers. Any time I can provide an opportunity for skilled developers like him to get involved, I will at least make the offer.
This experience has made me wonder if there are other developers who work for Origyn, GoldDAO, Decentralized Entities Foundation, Cecil DAO, Bity, and other related entities who would also be of great benefit to the internet computer ecosystem if they were to engage in NNS proposal reviews. What do you think @Gian @Dustin ? Have you ever considered offering grants to any of the skilled developers that work for you (or to others in the ICP ecosystem) to get involved in NNS proposal reviews? It really shouldn’t be just DFINITY that offers these grants. ICP is a governance token at it’s foundation and the original intent of the tokenomics was to incentivize people and organizations to roll up their sleeves and actively engage in the proposal review process. The logic was that larger participants would find it important to use a portion of their maturity to pay for resources that help protect their interests in the protocol. Of course, this isn’t out of distrust for DFINITY. It’s simply about having a vested interest in making sure that the changes that are made to the protocol are consistent with your own expectations and doing your part to ensure that real work is being done to justify earning your investment returns (since ICP is not intended to be a security). Ideally, you would be putting people into a position to evaluate all NNS technical proposals and you would be following their vote on those proposals that they review instead of following DFINITY on everything. Otherwise, I would argue that we don’t have true decentralization. We need more technically skilled people performing this role. More importantly, we need more whales, founders, and larger organizations in the ICP ecosystem playing a bigger role in NNS governance. It would be awesome if you would consider using a portion of your maturity in your investments to offer grants to the community for this purpose (similar to what DFINITY is doing) or, even better, hire people to to work directly for one of your organizations who are responsible for NNS proposal reviews that are disclosed publicly. Perhaps you could reach out to @cryptoschindler @Lomesh-dfn1 and/or @Jan to learn more about how you could contribute in this way. Maybe you could sponsor some additional grants for Season 2 and an easy way to get involved.
About CodeGov 
CodeGov has a team of developers who review and vote independently on the following proposal topics: IC-OS Version Election, Protocol Canister Management, Subnet Management, Node Admin, and Participant Management. The CodeGov NNS known neuron is configured to follow our reviewers on these technical topics. We also have a group of Followees who vote independently on the Governance and the SNS & Neuron's Fund topics. We strive to be a credible and reliable Followee option that votes on every proposal and every proposal topic in the NNS. We also support decentralization of SNS projects such as WaterNeuron, KongSwap, and Alice with a known neuron and credible Followees.
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