Thanks everyone for your comments and feedback. In summary, the Balancer Foundation Board and Executive register the following sentiment:
- Continuing OpCo in its role for the ecosystem infrastructure makes sense.
- Continuing to host the OpCo Front-end/Product team makes sense, however the community believes the costs to be high in the current market.
Some additional context that may not be obvious to new community members: OpCo is not a third-party service provider, nor is it controlled by a tight group of insiders, it is DAO controlled entity with direct oversight from community directors who are fiscally aware and responsible, and in regular contact with the broader community. There is also no profit component in its operating structure - any unspent amounts remain at the disposal of the DAO.
To help make this a little clearer we’re going to split this proposal into its two main components as new and separate proposals: one being the “Administrative & Operations” element, which is DAO ecosystem-wide infrastructure, a required element of operating a decentralised Ecosystem. This proposal will be for 12 months.
The second proposal being the “Product Development Workstream”, formerly the Front-end and Design, and being evolved/developed in real time. This proposal will be trimmed down to a 9 month period. Calling out a relevant item from the proposal - the Product team are employees/contractors under OpCo. Should the needs of the DAO change during the period covered by the proposal, the team can adapt. In addition we are revisiting the budget to tighten it where possible and remove the option to offer increases in January (which were never locked in under the current proposal). The team are also revisiting the larger software line items to see if there are alternatives. For example, the TRM contract renews in May 2024, allowing time to explore options before committing.
A couple of other points to emphasize - the proposal process is intended to allow for discussion and feedback. The description of the outcomes of a yes/no vote in the proposal is to clarify the impact of the choices under the initial draft of the proposal. It does not mean the proposal cannot be changed before going to a vote.
Finally, given the depth of the discussion on this forum BIP, it would lose context if the initial proposal was heavily edited to only show one or the other element, so I plan to leave it as is and create two new proposals that will reference this proposal and all the discussion with it. These new proposals will be a continuation of the discussion and will each have separate votes.