Rocket Pool Release Process RPIPs
General Information
What is the nature of the proposed bounty?
To create either a single RPIP or a set of RPIPs that describe how upgrades to the Rocket Pool protocol should take place. The process defined in the RPIPs should meet the following criteria:
- Well defined - The RPIPs should make it clear to everyone involved what they need to do, when they need to do it, and why they are doing it in this manner.
- Open - The process should be accessible to anyone who can demonstrate they have the skills to contribute.
- Resilient - The process must not rely on a single actor or set of actors that have not been elected by the DAO (ie, the core team.)
- pDAO Centric - The process must empower the pDAO and allow it to determine what upgrades take priority over others.
- Low Complexity - The process must be as simple as possible given the other requirements.
Why are you writing this bounty proposal?
The current release process isn’t great, mostly because it doesn’t meet the criteria above in its current form.
- Well defined - It is unclear how the current process is supposed to work in practice. The pDAO can’t ensure things happen when they are supposed to, because the requirements are so vaguely defined.
- Open - The process does not allow other development teams to substitute for the core team.
- Resilient - The process relies on the core team.
- pDAO Centric - The process is not led by the pDAO, or centered around its needs.
- Low Complexity - While the existing RPIP is not complex, it hides the complexity that is present in the process by defining requirements and responsibilities in vague terms.
The core team has made efforts to include the community and appears to be wanting to move towards a more decentralized process in good faith. However, they don’t have limitless resources to define processes and structures and are (rightly) more heavily focused on the development of the protocol.
A DAOs longevity depends on activating entities and procedures that can carry on past the founding team’s involvement, and it is part of the DAOs responsibility to facilitate this development.
Benefit
| Group | Benefits |
|---|---|
| Potential rETH holders | Indirect benefits as protocol and DAO matures. |
| rETH holders | Indirect benefits as protocol and DAO matures. |
| Potential NOs | Indirect benefits as protocol and DAO matures. |
| NOs | Indirect benefits as protocol and DAO matures. |
| Community | These sorts of process RPIPs empower the community in a similar way to the GMC. By putting power and responsibility in the community’s hands, participation should become more attractive and meaningful. |
| RPL holders | A more open and resilient development process reduces the risk to the protocol due to its reliance on the founding team. Less risk in the protocol may translate to an increased valuation of RPL. |
Which other non-RPL protocols, DAOs, projects, or individuals would stand to benefit from the bounty being successfully completed?
None directly. Protocols may benefit indirectly due to the open source nature of RPIPs, and the ability to adapt the output here to their own DAO.
Work
What steps would be entailed in completing the bounty? Do successful examples of such work exist elsewhere? What skillsets or knowledge will be required?
- Serious discussion and debate between the core team and the community. Both the core team and the community will need to separately lay out their recommendations for such a process clearly and unambiguously.
- Ideating and discussing a development process that meets the criteria listed above. The focus should be on having many different ideas without worrying too much about quality at this stage.
- Narrowing the field of ideas for this process. Focus on the ideas where the tradeoffs are favorable both to the DAO, and those involved in the process.
- Drafting the required RPIPs. Lower-level debate on the wording and rules included.
- Successful ratification of the RPIPs or set of RPIPs.
- Completing a protocol upgrade using the developed process.
I’m unsure if successful versions of this process exist elsewhere where they meet the criteria laid out. I’ve not encountered one, but there any many DAOs. I suggest this should be an area of research for bounty hunters taking up this bounty.
What advice would you give a bounty hunter working on this bounty?
This is not a trivial task. It’s incredibly important that we get buy-in from all the stakeholders involved in this process. A process that the pDAO ratifies, but that the core team is not able to work under is a costly failure. The reverse is also true, a process the core team is happy with but that the pDAO won’t ratify is also a failure.
This needs to actually work in the real world. To ensure that happens, you’ll need input from many sources.
In an ideal world, other external development teams would also be consulted. The goal is that this process can work for anyone with the required skills, not just the core team.
Should the output of this bounty be available under an open-source license?
Probably. An argument can be made that something of this nature is generally useful and that it could be adopted by competitors. Ultimately, I still think it’s worthwhile for items of this nature to be open source and available to be adapted by future DAOs.
Costs
How much do you think the completion of this bounty is worth to Rocket Pool (in USD)?
Up to $100,000. I can’t stress enough how valuable it is to the DAO to have a process like this that meets the criteria above. To explain the benefits in the context of the criteria:
- Well defined - Reduces uncertainty in the DAO. Increases transparency. Can increase efficiency because there is a larger group of people able to analyze weaknesses in a given approach.
- Open - Having a process able to support auxiliary development teams means we can have work taking place in multiple areas of the protocol at once.
- Resilient - Reduction of risk. If the core team disappears the upgrade process is not lost with them.
- pDAO Centric - The pDAO can have meaningful and transparent input into the direction of development work.
- Low Complexity - Easier to understand and communicate about the process, easier to run the process, etc.
How much work will be needed to verify this bounty has been completed? What skillsets or knowledge will be required?
A moderate amount of work. Various skill sets will be required to verify various areas.
Some verification will be done by the pDAO itself. Acceptance of the RPIPs, acceptance of the first upgrade made under the process, etc.
Structure
How would you structure this bounty, and why?
Not a single payout to a single team. I would expect this to be split into milestones. I would expect multiple bounty hunters to claim partial credit for each milestone. Done properly, this effort should involve much of the community.
This could be broken into multiple bounty definitions, but care needs to be taken that the DAO is not rewarding full payout on each part of this bounty until the final result is achieved: A ratified update to the protocol delivered under this new process.
I believe the major ‘finish lines’ here are:
- A consensus vision of what such a process should achieve in general terms, taking into account stakeholder feedback.
- A set of draft RPIPs implementing a process that meets the criteria and the vision.
- Acceptance of a set of draft RPIPs by the pDAO and the core development team.
- An update to the protocol is delivered using the new process.
I’m prepared to put together bounty definitions for this proposal, but I would like first to see the proposal accepted by the GMC. It’s a fair amount of work that isn’t required if the GMC is not interested in the initiative.
Is this bounty repeatable?
Not for this specific thing. It may be we can develop a template from this for bounties that solve other hard problems.
Are there any reasonable circumstances under which this bounty should be withdrawn? Should it expire?
It should be withdrawn if the pDAO accepts a set of RPIPs from the core development team where those RPIPs meet the required criteria laid out in this bounty.
Conflicts of Interest
Does the person or persons proposing the bounty have any conflicts of interest to disclose? (Please disclose here if you are a member of the GMC or if any member of the GMC would benefit directly financially from the successful completion of the bounty).
No, I’m not on the GMC, nor do I expect GMC members to directly benefit from its completion. I would like to contribute to the completion of the bounty, but I would rather not take a leading role.
Will the applicant, or any protocol or project in which the applicant has a vested interest (other than Rocket Pool), benefit financially if the bounty is successfully completed?
In practical terms no. There is a chance that if Rocket Pool develops an effective and generally applicable process that solves this problem I will attempt to implement similar processes in other protocols, likely hoping for compensation from those protocols.