Hey Jem,
Thanks for reading. This seems like your first post in the forum so perhaps you are not aware of the RPGF rules. Your questions seem to be a bit focused on myself and rotki and not on any of the feedback or learnings in the post. I will answer as much as I can but would also like to stay on topic.
Your perspective seems notably different from the impression given by your Twitter presence,
It really is not. But as I mentioned social media, and especially twitter, propagates the posts that induce rage and hides everything else, so all nuanced takes get lost there.
Regarding the total grants (even from other DAOs) received by Rotki so far, could you share this information?
All related grants from optimism we have gotten are in the application. rotki has been operating since 2017 and is still here mostly thanks to grants and donations. I can’t really say a full amount as I don’t even know it. It’s over 6 years of operation with a team that’s been growing.
There also seems to be a potential conflict of interest in your dual role of receiving grants for Rotki and participating in grant allocation. Have you considered stepping back from the voting process, or refraining from applying for grants for Rotki, to uphold ethical standards?
Yes this is a disclosed conflict of interest. I am not voting for rotki. I am not the only badgeholder who has connections to projects in the round. In fact … every single badgeholder does as would be expected. Check the relevant post here: Badgeholder Conflict of Interest Disclosures
In your assessment of open-source projects, how do you distinguish between those that qualify and those that don’t, given the prevalence of open-source elements in the industry, such as smart contracts?
As long as it’s opensource, with a valid opensource license recognized either by the OSI or the FSF.
But just being opensource does not really mean much. What other badgeholders and myself measured is the impact of the project.
Is Rotki entirely free and open-source, or does it have a paid version?
rotk is fully opensource under AGPL version. Anyone can copy/fork us and or build upon our code as long as they also opensource. AGPL is a copyleft license. As many other opensource projects rotki is trying to monetize in various ways and has a premium subscription (which just unlocks stuff in the opensource code). Our revenue from that is about $2k-$4k per month depending on usage.
Lastly, for transparency and to address the potential conflict of interest, would you be open to disclosing your RPGF ballot?
I am under no obligation to disclose my ballot. Votes are private. I don’t need to prove that I did not vote for rotki, this is being checked for every single badgeholder by the foundation, not only for me. This is why the results are taking until the 11th of January to be produced.
I hope these answered your questions. If you have any questions about the actual round process and the suggestions for improvement next round feel free to chime in further.