2021-12-30 Besu Contributor Call (off cycle)

10 AM ET on December 30th. 

Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/97540031823?pwd=dEJrRW1LakFlWnZPelI3VGxoVjg2dz09#success

Agenda

Housekeeping

• Antitrust notice - https://www.linuxfoundation.org/antitrust-policy/
• This meeting is being recorded
• Please Mute unless speaking
• If you have a question use the raise hand feature

Discussion:

See notes from prior call for additional context. 

1. Agenda for next call (potentially off-cycle):
   1. Incentive program (30 mins)
      1. Cost of running nodes
      2. DAO Proposal Progress
         1. DAO Brainstorming Doc: https://hackmd.io/A_iqjtVQRjSL4M9mLa0ncg?view
            1. Two open questions from Danno:
               1. We still need to figure out who is running the validators
                  1. Open question is one entity if Hyperledger could be the one holding the keys. Daniela is in discussions to see if this is possible. Of course we need there to be accountability.
                  2. What does it take to run a node pre-Merge?
                     1. It's relatively easy.
                  3. What does it take to run on a node post-Merge?
                     
                     1. Run XL instance with MVMe and T3.xl
                        
                     2. Action: Come back with detailed understanding of what it takes to run a validator node.
                     3. Note: There is a level of experience that is needed to run validator nodes. Group needs to agree on what skillset and expertise is needed by the people running the validator nodes because that is a cost and requirement in addition to the hardware requirements to run nodes.
                  4. Decision: We would not be interested in an organization running only a node pre-Merge. An organization would need to be able to run pre and most Merge nodes.
                  5. Antoine has concerns about the DAO being a good use. He would like it to be considered we decline the money and program or Hyperledger has control of the keys.
                  6. It is the EF's call and their decision how they want to distribute the keys. We need the 
               2. We need to address how it works if someone has a super majority of nodes
                  1. One idea is that we could do quadratic voting to help address super majority of nodes. Gitcoin uses this in their grants so we can explore how they run it.
               3. (less important point) We should maybe consider it forward looking it only rather than retroactive.
      3. Other Proposals
   2. Besu maintainer progress/community concerns (30 mins)
      1. There is concerns around ConsenSys owning the project. 
      2. Non-ConsenSys employees are having issues getting their PRs reviewed.
      3. Ideas for improving Besu community: 
         1. Having all contributors join monthly Contributor call
         2. Public roadmap on wiki covered in monthly contributor call needs to be up to date
         3. Discord chat channel moving forward. Targeting to make a decision in January because that would bring Besu to Ethereum 
         4. Regular call to catch up with all Besu contributors not recorded
         5. Leverage LFX analytics on Besu to review at top of contributor calls to see time to review on pull request and other metrics.

Next Steps:

1. Come back with what it takes to run a validator node (next week or two
2. Review proposed ideas for community practices above with the APAC contributor call on Jan 3rd
3. Danno to share a revised proposal around incentive program

View recording: