What is the Foundation, what is it's moral and legal obligations and to whom?

I am seeing more and more… poorly thought out ( as politely as I can put it ) …posts about what the foundation should do. ‘Burn their Tezos,’ ‘Fire the board and have the community vote on who replaces them,’ ‘Become a constitutional republic!’… whatever the hell that means in decentralized/blockchain terms.

I wish these people would have a little more intellectual humility and curiosity. That they would work up from first principles and definitions. That they would ask more questions before acting with some certainty that they know what’s going on and what to do.

On that note, I don’t actually know what the foundations contractual ( moral and legal ) obligations are and even to who. That’s my fault, I chose not to find those kinds of things out prior to participating in the fundraiser. Largely because modern organizations are a lot of legal fiction and cover your ass necessities and have little to do with voluntary relationships and contracts.

As far as I was ( and still am ) concerned all obligations ended at providing me the agreed on proportion of Tezos and that was satisfied long ago.

So, would anyone be able to tell me what exactly the foundation is and what it’s moral and legal obligations are and to whom?

Opinions are fine but arguments are preferred.

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It was my understanding, as a bystander, that the foundation was A) only supposed to run baking nodes until the network stabilized, and B) provide funding resources in terms of grants to developers wanting to develop software/docs/videos/tools on the chain.

I’d love to see TF stop 1/2-3/4 of their baking nodes and return all those rolls to the bakers. The funds in those accounts could be turned into a smart contract for more public-facing grants using a simple voting system.

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“It was my understanding, as a bystander, that the foundation was A) only supposed to run baking nodes until the network stabilized, and B) provide funding resources in terms of grants to developers wanting to develop software/docs/videos/tools on the chain.”

Do you recall how you came to those conclusions?

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We’ll always have trolls on the internet, many of those posts are from people who has never had any real interest in Tezos, just saw a quick way to make some dough and when it failed they’ve become disgruntled.

I understand why Foundation keeps away from Twitter (and Reddit perhaps, wouldn’t know since I couldn’t stand it) since it often the least constructive posts and sentiments that get the most engagement.

That said, I distinctly also remember:

  1. Work for the good of Tezos
  2. Help secure the network until their involvement was not needed

I have to say that I’ve taken offense by the council members who doesn’t seem to even support Tezos. But that’s based only based on their public interactions (Twitter, crypto media), and with the overall lack of interaction with the community it’s hard to say if this is how it is or just an impression I have.

This lack of interaction has also meant that I don’t know what their strategy or direction is, and that leads back to your original qustion. It’s impossible to know if they act in accordance with the moral and legal obligations of the foundation. I have to assume that they do, and also that it’s probably what in some ways are holding them back.

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A) hearsay from other bakers back when mainnet first launched; can’t recall any direct evidence unless it’s in the whitepaper. Have you read it?
B) This is well known behavior of TF. I myself have been the direct recipient of 2 grants that I applied for. There are many projects that have received TF grant funding. TF makes announcements on these as do most projects.

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Before we ask if they are meeting those obligations we have to know what they are.

A) Not thoroughly, thank you for pointing that out, I should brush up on it.

B) I know the TF issues grants, etc. I am curious about the questions I asked not what they are currently doing. What they are currently doing may or may not be what they should be doing but we can’t know till we figure that out.

All very good questions. Once we determine said requirements, I’m not sure if it’s productive to calibrate our community expectations to just meeting the bare minimum required by Swiss law. Many good executives are good because they exceed bare requirements and deliver significantly measurable results.

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Gauging expectations is another matter, I also included moral, not just legal obligations. By knowing the obligations ( or lack thereof ) we can better strategize about how to get what we want.

With yourself for example, you don’t owe me anything ( zero obligations ), that does not mean I can’t get things from you. I just have to reason and negotiate with you, not appeal to obligations.

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