Introduction
I would like to throw my hat into the ring, as a potential candidate for the Grants Committee. I recently completed the Package Management Research Grant and I’ve been asking myself how I can continue to contribute to Radicle. After reading the responsibilities and traits listed above, I feel that I am a uniquely good fit as a candidate.
Qualifications
Here is a list of experiences that I feel uniquely qualify me as a good candidate for the Grants Committee:
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My GitHub Profile contains a summary of my professional work over the last five years. I have focused my work on blockchains, blockchain communities, and DAOs. I am first and foremost an engineer, and the application pointed out a desire for a candidate with a high degree of technical expertise.
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I’ve been passionate about open source software my entire life. I discovered Bitcoin in 2009 and fell in love with blockchain technology. In 2017, for better or worse, I decided to shift my career into the nascent cryptocurrency industry. When I discovered Radicle, the ideas behind it immediately resonated with me; both the technical implementation and the clear need to free code collaboration from centralized services.
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Dog-fooding: I was so motivated when I first discovered Radicle, I wrote this guide on backing up GitHub repositories to Radicle, for which I later received a retroactive grant. That then led to my work with the Package Management Research Grant. I actively use Radicle infrastructure, and I am now familiar with the Radicle grant process because I’ve been through it. Taking the next step to help Radicle further refine its grants processes feels like a good fit to me.
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I primarily make my living as a freelance software developer. I have a handful of clients and projects that I maintain. As a result, my schedule and time is very flexible. The time requirement for this position fits in nicely with my existing schedule and routine.
Improving the Funding of Open Source Work
The application requested that I answer the following question:
Answer the following: what’s something you’d do to improve the funding of open source work? Can be anything: a new process/framework, a new tool, etc.
To answer this question, I would refer the reader to the Token Economics section of the PSF governance documents. On the subject of funding open source work, I’ve spent a lot of time studying the work and thoughts from Mikeal Rogers and Nadia Eghbal. In Nadia’s latest book, Working in Public, she draws a clear distinction between intrinsic (creative) motivation, and extrinsic (paid) motivation. Viewing open source work through the lens of those two types of motivation provides an important insight on how to structure funding.
I like to visualize these two motivations as loosely coupled flywheels. It’s important to harness both at the same time, and not focus on one at the exclusion of the other. As she explains in her book, it is often detrimental to financially fund intrinsically motivated work. And at the same time, it’s critical to identify the work that requires extrinsic motivation.
So how would I improve the funding of open source work? I start by viewing any request for funding through these lenses of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Once the work requiring extrinsic motivation is identified, it can then be prioritized and the cost estimated. There is also long-term maintenance to take into consideration. Work identified as intrinsically motivated does not necessarily preclude it from financial reward, it just needs to be handled carefully. Often out-of-the-box approaches to rewarding intrinsically motivated work is more appropriate, such as social recognition, NFT badges, leaderboards, etc.
Further explanation requires descending from these high-level concepts into a great deal of nuance. Nadia points out many examples and facets of these concepts in her book. I have applied these lessons to my administrative work at the PSF DAO over the last two years. As a member of the Grants Committee, I think my contribution of this knowledge and nuance could be quite valuable to Radicle.
There is so much more I could write here, about the nuance of funding open source work. There is the whole concept of ‘free as in free-puppy’ to consider. I love exploring these ideas and look forward to having deeper conversations about it with the Radicle community.