Re: Funding model question — unpaid exploratory work at intake

Nic has interacted with several grant administrators who operate within the Bitcoin ecosystem and discovered a unanimous stance that such exploratory framing is expected to be unpaid. This is because funding decisions are typically made after an applicant has already outlined, scoped, or even partially completed their proposed project. This approach prompts Nic to question the viability and fairness of expecting unpaid preliminary work from contributors seeking grants.

Nic raises critical inquiries regarding the sustainability of this grants model for open-source ecosystems. He is concerned about the potential drawbacks of this approach, including the risk of selection bias, the possibility of wasting contributors' time, and the tendency towards receiving shallow proposals due to the lack of upfront compensation for initial exploratory efforts. These factors could deter talented individuals from contributing valuable insights and innovations, thereby affecting the overall growth and development of the open-source community in the Bitcoin sector.

Furthermore, Nic is exploring alternative funding structures that could more equitably compensate contributors for their early-stage intellectual contributions without necessarily turning the grants into venture capital investments or simple bounties. The goal is to find a balanced model that recognizes and rewards the effort involved in the crucial early stages of project development, thereby encouraging more robust and thoughtful proposals.

This inquiry aims to gather insights from experienced members of the Bitcoin and open-source communities on how to address these challenges. Nic emphasizes that the request for perspectives is not an attempt to provoke defensive responses from any organization but rather a genuine effort to understand how the current model affects the ecosystem and explore possible improvements.