Hey everyone, this is a Big Announcement

Back when I was recently in the Bay Area, talking to everyone blockchain, dfinity offered us a large grant to fund ssb development for a while: 200k USD. This is not an equity investment - it's just a grant, we have basically total freedom to spend it how we like, we just keep track of what it is and send them invoices!

Now, because of Conway's Law was a little wary of suddenly having a big bag of money - I don't want to make our decentralized community less decentralized, as much as I'd like ssb to be sustainable, i'd like it to be sustainable in via various ways (and indeed those buds are sprouting).

The idea I came up with was to split the grant into many small grants! so, 200k, becomes 40*5k grants. Because it wasn't a sure thing yet, I started a private thread with some of the most commited ssb contributors who I knew and trusted the most - @cel @mixmix @andrestaltz @matt @dinosaur and well, sold them on this grant idea. I didn't discuss it in public because it wasn't a sure thing yet, and wanted to avoid a massive bikeshed.

This is what we came up with in the end: grants.md

basically:

• make proposals for something that you think needs to happen to push ssb forward.
• you should make proposals for things you want to do. (or maybe find someone who could do it and help them make a proposal)
• grants are fixed at 5k usd for 1 month worth of full time work (but you can work part time if that suites you better)
• we discuss the proposals as community then pick the best looking max 4 each month.
• keep a dev-diary so everyone can see what's happening.
• grants are open to everyone, and even I will also be applying for the same grants!

see grants.md for a few more edge cases!

There is obviously lots that needs to happen for ssb to grow. Developer tools, documentation, protocol improvements. This grant from dfinity, well, now means some people may be able to take some break from other work and work full time on this for a bit!

Questions, thoughts, ideas you want to propose as grants?

Yes, this is great news! Let's make use of it while believing that more grants and donations and opportunities will come.

Practical question: when will be the first grant month? So people can plan their proposals in time.

My first submission is away!

What you did in that private thread with trusted contributors is what I call governance. I'm interested in co-designing a governance structure and facilitating it if/when the community thinks it would be useful to have a repeatable /accessible /transparent /efficient /prudent path for decisions like this.

This is great news! Huge props to dfinity.

This is awesome.

Thank you @dominic and co. for organizing this grant in a way that will give a lot of people an opportunity to contribute to ssb development. Also thank you to dfinity for being willing to sponsor ssb dev!

I also want to echo what @andre said about this leading to more opportunities. Now that there is some money flowing around, it will be easier to talk to additional sponsors and potential clients.

Now what am I going to propose? Hmmm...

Is it possible for multiple people to work together on a proposal? I can imagine some proposals needs people of different skills.

Also I hope this will be a positive experience for the community of working together and growing I would hate seeing people get envious with a limited number of spots each month.

@lzlr I think the main thing is does it help the ssb ecosystem? So I think you could indeed propose integrations and if the community agrees, then sure!

@arj asked: can multiple people work together on a proposal?

Of course! once you receive the grant you can use the money however you like. Since the process is quite informal, it's very flexible. Two people working part time for a month, would also be cool. Or even apply for two grants? this might be a bit more tricky next to other appealing proposals, though.

@andrestaltz asked: Practical question: when will be the first grant month? So people can plan their proposals in time.

Well, november I guess? that is next week. There is one proposal already underway. It says grants are agreed "first week in the month" but I think that is just a guide, we can fudge that if we agree.

@serapath also see #ssb-show-and-tell where people are sharing little things they are have made with ssb (nothing is too small!) This lets people taking the first steps gain feedback and encouragement and also learn from each other!

I'm looking forward to (me or someone else) writing about this whole grant setup. @dominic s commitment to investing in ecosystem and start as you mean to continue doesn't seem that common to me. As in he could have take $200k for himself or some organisation, and instead he's investing in community and diverse approaches.

There's a story in the why which I think speaks a lot about this community.

@nate the typical arrangement for freelance software development is as a contractor. They'd do the work, send you an invoice you'd pay it, then they are responsible for their own taxes etc at their end - working like this as an employee is very rare.

@nate how is your 'company that starts companies' in Vanuatu coming along?

OK cool, and is it acceptable here to offer bounties or something similar? or is it just a case of presenting an idea and seeing if anyone is available to work on it?

I suggest use a different channel for this, like #jobs or #bounties. The idea of SSBC Grants, as I understand it, is that people propose work they are willing to do.

@tunabananas the funder is dfinity and the process (which they came up with) is we'll just send them invoices (their suggestion) and it's okay if they address is to someone overseas.

(sorry to bump but) that is great news! Congrats @dominic and everyone else involved!