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I welcome this idea. I'd suggest that we need a better definition of what "acceptance" represents here. To me acceptance just means inclusion in a roadmap for future implementation. It also doesn't necessarily specify the order of the roadmap. The complication with using governance for prioritize SIMDs is the question of where we think governance should occur in the lifecycle of a proposal? Should governance greenlight a proposal at the SIMD stage or should it approve the final implementation and activation of the proposal? Having governance at both stages is likely to create an undue burden on validators and the broader core engineering ecosystem with too many votes and information overload, resulting in lower participation. I am unclear on what the current process for SIMD acceptance (PR acceptance) is, but broadly I think it would be most efficient to perhaps have some sort of SIMD committee, consisting of Anza core engineers, Firedancer core engineers, representatives from Jito and key RPC providers as well as validators, who meet once a month to review pending SIMDs and establish a priority ordering. Validator governance in that case would be reserved for approval of a completed implementation for activation/deployment. |
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Introduction
The stated goal of Solana Improvement Documents (SIMDs) "is to to standardize and provide high-quality documentation for Solana and its ecosystem."
The SIMD repository "tracks past and ongoing improvements to Solana in the form of Solana Improvement Documents (SIMDs)."
This SIMD idea, Using Governance to Prioritize SIMD Acceptance, proposes that a governance process is used to prioritize SIMDs.
It is proposed that doing this will result in a a wider breadth of Solana stakeholders contributing to the SIMD process, while making the process more transparent, predictable and repeatable.
The latter will also help keep the development process synchronized with the wider Solana communty's expectations, as well as facilitate a more streamlined process among the mutiple client development teams.
Governing the SIMD process
SIMD-0001 is intended to govern the SIMD process.
SIMD-0001 defines two SIMD types -
a process."
This SIMD idea, Using Governance to Priortize SIMD Acceptance, is a Meta SIMD.
SIMD-0001 also defines these stages of the proposal lifecycle -
This SIMD idea, Using Governance to Prioritize SIMD Acceptance, would likely happen between the Review and Accepted stages of the proposal lifecycle as currently defined.
How it works in practice
To-date, the SIMD process has been quite active. There are 39 open and 124 close PRs in the SIMD repo at the time this SIMD idea is being written.
The vast majority of these SIMDs are Standard SIMDs. Most have been contributed by the core Anza team. The Jump Firedancer team is also beginning to contribute to the process.
On its surface, the process is open to contributions from anyone and the conversations are largely transparent and held in a publicly available Github repo.
However, it's often difficult to understand how the SIMDs are prioritized to be worked on. While there may be an informal process agreed to and tacitly understood by the Anza and Firedancer teams, that process is not clear to other Solana community stakeholders.
Limitations of the current process
The current process is largey influenced by the protocol's core developers. And while there's no reason to doubt their intentions, the group is limited to their own perspectives and biases, as any group of people is.
The lack of understanding related to how SIMDs are prioritized can be discouraging to other stakeholders within the Solana community, such as validators.
Because these stakeholders are unsure whether their voice will be considered in the SIMD process, as well as what weight their voice will be given, they may choose not to participate, other than maybe voicing input or concerns via the relevant Discord channels in ephemeral exchanges. In some cases these exchanges may repeat. This repetition leads to additonal frustration building over time.
This frustration then, at times, leads to calling into question the motivations of the core developers, leaving other key stakeholders feeling left out and less aligned with the overall direction of the network.
It can also make it more difficult for client development teams to stay synchronized. For example, if one team is setting the direction, another may feel like it's in constant catch-up mode, causing frustration and hindering innovation.
What's needed and why
What's needed is a more formalized SIMD process, particularly one in which the priortization and selection of SIMDs to be worked on is more inclusive, transparent, consistent and predictable.
By including a larger number of stakeholders, more diverse perspectives will be heard and considered. This diversity will result in a Solana network that stays closely aligned with the needs of its community.
A more transparent, consistent and predictable prioritization and selection process will increase participation among stakeholders, while helping to more tightly align the diverse client team development processes.
Using governance to priortize SIMD acceptance
Solana validators have taken the lead in defining and implementing a governance process for the network. This SIMD idea proposes using this process to prioritize SIMD acceptance.
Specifically, governance votes could be used to priortize SIMDs that move from the Review to Accepted phase of the Proposal Lifecycle.
Timely vote credits (TVC), a successful example
The prioritization process suggested here has already been implemented once related to Timely Vote Credits (TVC). TVC is an idea that was first proposed by validator Shinobi Systems. It was discussed on and off for quite some time.
Eventually, as the governance process took shape, it was decided to test the governance process with a governance vote on TVC. The TVC vote passed. As a result, TVC was tested on a standalone testnet, then on the primary Solana testnet.
After the vote passed and these two testing processes completed successfully, TVC was added to the Mainnet Beta activation queue and eventually activated on Mainnet Beta.
The governance vote was fundamental in signaling to the core developer team that the broader Solana Validator community, particularly validators, felt TVC was important to improving network performance.
The vote brought visibility to the issue, while emphasizing its importance. This helped convince the core team to add TVC to the Mainnet Beta activation queue more quickly than had the vote not happened.
Continuing the conversation
This SIMD idea is intended to start the discussion related to using governance to prioritize SIMD acceptance.
Perspectives from various stakeholders such as core developers from the various client teams, validators, dapp developers and delegators feel necessary and welcome.
Questions to continue the discussion include -
1 - Would this suggested prioritization process help acheive the stated goals, i.e. a more inclusive and synchronized development process that results in a stronger and healthier network, more strongly aligned with the needs of the overall Solana community?
2 - Is the current governance process mature enough to serve the function described in this SIMD idea? If not, what changes would have to happen for the governance process to serve the proposed purpose?
3 - Are there other ways to prioritize the SIMD process which would accomplish the goals this SIMD idea hopes to acheive?
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