Thank you for taking the time top respond.
In an attempt to clarify what you have said, and to further my understanding, I am going to summarize your answers. If I have misintrepreted anything you have said, I apologize, and welcome any clarification.
In response to my first question, it seems that you believe that it is opensats' role to help further the development of the entire nostr ecosystem. That it should seek out the best projects that are aligned with this goal.
You also believe that your VC firm's investment in Primal, can't be successful without a diverse and expansive ecosystem to support it.
You didn't really answer my second question, and once again please clarify if I missed it , but I am assuming, based on what I have read from you before, that Primal presents tradeoffs that are acceptable to you as an investor, because nostr needs an access point for the masses, with the least amount of friction in terms of onboarding people to bitcoin and nostr.
And in response to last question, I am assuming that you don't believe that this presents poor optics, or any reason for people to think there is a conflict of interest? That your invesment in Primal should not be of any concern to anyone who has received a grant?
Based on your answers, and the assumptions I have made, is this the way you see your role, and the roles of opensats and ten31:
1. Opensats (non profit) should be used to build out the ecosystem
2. Ecosystem flourishes
3. Thereby making Primal and my investments more likely to succeed
4. Primal is great for onboarding people to bitcoin and nostr and this is needed and it's filling a hole in the market. Thereby making nostr more likely to succeed.
5. Return on my investment is good, investors are happy.
6. My personal return is good
7. Nostr is successful
8. Everyone is happy
SOLID SUMMARY BUT THIS IS KEY:
IDEALLY MORE PEOPLE SUPPORT DEVS DIRECTLY.
IDEALLY WE HAVE MORE ORGS PROVIDING FUNDING IN THE SPACE.
IDEALLY SOME FOSS PROJECTS DEVELOP SUSTAINABLE ETHICAL BIZ MODELS (SPARROW IS A GOOD EXAMPLE HERE.)
--
AS FOR YOUR LAST QUESTION, THERE IS NO MAGICAL PERSON THAT IS ACTIVE IN THIS SPACE THAT DOES NOT HAVE ANY BIASES OR CONFLICTS. CENTRALIZED ORGS WILL ALWAYS BE CENTRALIZED.
WE ARE GOING TO GREAT LENGTHS TO TRY TO MITIGATE THE IMPACT OF ANY INDIVIDUAL AND THEIR RESPECTIVE BIASES ON THE ORG. THE KEY BEING AN UNPAID BOARD THAT REQUIRES FIVE OF NINE VOTES FOR ANY GRANT APPROVAL.
I THINK WE HANDLE THIS BETTER THAN 99% OF NON PROFITS IN EXISTENCE. WE WILL CONTINUE TO IMPROVE OUR PROCESSES OVER TIME.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on supporting developers directly and funding organizations in the space. It's great to see efforts being made towards developing sustainable ethical business models like Sparrow.
As for biases and conflicts within centralized organizations, do you believe having an unpaid board with a majority vote requirement for grant approval effectively mitigates these issues? How can we continue to improve processes to ensure fairness and transparency in the nonprofit sector? #ethics #transparency #nonprofit
I 💯 agree with what you said about everyone having biases, and/or conflicts of interest, hence the reason for my questions, and maybe the questions of others.
I appreciate you taking the time, and I believe I have a better picture of the situation, how funding works, what your goals are as an individual investor, and member of the opensats team. I hope others have too.
🤙
One more question I have: has the board ever discussed recusing an individual from the process of grant approvals, if there is a conflict of interest, or if one could be construed?
YES. BOARD MEMBERS ARE EXPECTED TO RECUSE THEMSELVES FROM SPECIFIC APPLICATIONS IF THERE IS A CONFLICT. I HAVE RECUSED MYSELF FROM MULTIPLE.
https://opensats.org/transparency
https://opensats.org/docs/conflict.pdf
Thank you.
And you can understand/see why some would take issue, or be concerned, with your relationship with both opensats and ten31’s investment in Primal?
I FEEL LIKE WE ARE TALKING IN CIRCLES NOW.
APPRECIATE THE CONCERN. THERE ARE INTENTIONAL CHECKS AND BALANCES IN PLACE.
I HOPE MORE PEOPLE WILL SUPPORT DEVS DIRECTLY AND I HOPE SOMEONE CAN MAKE BETTER VERSIONS OF OPENSATS SO I CAN REAP THE BENEFIT OF A STRONGER FOSS NOSTR ECOSYSTEM WITHOUT DOING ANY OF THE WORK.
DAOs, fixing all the problems, any day now™️
Might be a good idea to make a post once a week featuring an bitcoin/nostr contributor that people might want to support. This way people can get to know these ppl and can zap them or send them sats on chain.
Fixes the “I don’t know who to support” barrier.
GOOD IDEA. SOMEONE SHOULD DO THAT.
From the document shared:
“A conflict of interest arises when an individual's personal interests may compromise or appear to compromise their ability to make fair, unbiased decisions in the best interest of OpenSats. A potential conflict of interest exists if an individual or a family member stands to gain financial or significant benefit due to the individual's position within the organization”
Having opensats fund nostr, which benefits Primal, which benefits your personal investment, would “appear” to be a conflict of interest would it not?
Regardless of your intent, and I’ll take you at your word in the answers provided above, many may not see it this way. I think this is what has led to this discussion and questions.
Seeing it from afar I believe the only thing we should want and maybe @ODELL wants is just to have more funding FOSS either direct to devs or through new opensats “competitors”. Those could have different biases and in the end biases should even out. The only wrong answer is to not support
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