FAQ Archived

Suppose we set this up in a reasonable, safe, and logical way to mature the KERISuite first on a small technical team. And we only then start diversifying; do you see yourself in any role at any point in time in the future? We welcome your positive contributions.

The foundation is co-founded by and tailored to its BDFL, Samuel Smith. We do this not because we’re his fans but because we understand that foundations that are disconnected from their original visionaries and gatekeepers in the past were less successful than the ones that managed to keep them happy and on board. Ideally, a BDFL is a two-way commitment.

The proposal is a minimal, sufficient, practical, and simple means to a minimal enough end to meet the regulatory requirements in the domicile. Of course, our proposal will comply with the authorities and not-for-profit foundation’s requirements.

The foundation’s design is aligned with and partly inspired by the Swiss initiatives, for which we are very thankful!
A Swiss foundation, as proposed by the group’s initiator in mid-2024, may work well for the CH cases. However, it needs to be expanded.

Not thoroughly combining the design with the Swiss group may result in a more difficult start in terms of funding and the loss of a currently unknown number of supporters.

Still, we need a more practical, broader, long-term approach that keeps the KERI inventor’s vision intact. Any local group can have more urgent plans and a directed agenda.

We’ve foreseen a direct funding method within the foundation to accommodate the needs of the Swiss user group and businesses.

We invented a role-based organizational chart. So, yes, the foundation is already independent of individuals, except that the BDFL role is reserved for Dr. Samuel M. Smith.

Trying to become independent of the original inventor too early would be a significant error, especially in the KERI case and because of our stage. Not to mention the apparent lack of respect for the work done, which oozes from an approach to try and outnumber the critical roles with voting power, this setup has failed before (and will again), not only in KERI’s history but in numerous other open-source projects.

We would do everything possible to bind sponsors to us within the objectives and design of the foundation.

Who are the sponsors who are dropping out?

Please provide the name and the lost opportunity in US $.

One individual has to take up various roles at the beginning of the foundation. In this perspective, anno 2025, the answer to the question is ‘to a great extent, yes’ 🙂

But bear in mind: We developed a role-based organizational chart, an Operational Agreement, and a Memorandum of Understanding. So, it’s a consensus-critical manager-managed operation in the foundation.
Without painful consequences, no single role within the foundation could dictate or veto the operation. All competence profiles have been specified and published.

Moreover, the foundation is independent of individuals, except that the BDFL role in the KERI foundation is reserved on a personal basis for Dr. Samuel Smith.

We honestly can’t take people seriously when they complain about a compact KERI foundation, which the original inventor is totally in sync with, and a two-way commitment between the foundation and founder has been established.

The chairman and Sam could decide independently of anybody else. To gain something, you also have to give. It would not find the support of a larger community.

It’s the community foundation supported by KERI’s inventor Dr. Samuel M. Smith. Any qualified majority in the board makes decisions on all but a few topics. These topics are reserved for the technical manager with a few veto rights for the original inventor, which conforms to the well-established BDFL model.
Having stated this, we will always strive for consensus, but by all means, avoid takeovers or stalemates.

Thus, we wish to protect the original inventor’s work and future role. Furthermore, we wish to gradually develop the Foundation into a business-like, not-for-profit, open-source foundation where takeovers by narrow interest groups are impossible.

We can do this via:
A. Statutes and organizational regulations
B. Board composition

Ad A.

Statutes tend to be rigid. We create them, put them in a drawer, respect them, and only take them out when something happens. We will flexibly adjust the organization along the lines we lay out. We’ve used a standard Utah template, “Muli-Member L3C, Manager-Managed Organization Agreement”, for that.
And that’s where anyone donating and participating in the roles, tasks, and deliverables laid out has to trust what we do for the community.

Ad B.
See the organizational chart, the competence profiles, and the Memorandum of Understanding (Start 2025: status concept)

Who do you trust more to guide this process: the KERI team, including the original inventor, or some local interest group with an urgent agenda?

We aim for the more considerable support that we expect to be given to the proof of work team, the original KERI team.

History

Initially, the idea was to give all parties a voice and bring them together in one forum: the Advisory Board. The founders have reserved a seat on the board with decision-making authority for the leader of that Advisory Board.

This concession isn’t necessary for the current state of affairs, nor would it be the first choice to expand the board, but the founders expressed their appreciation by bundling advice in this board vote.
It constitutes the Best of Both Worlds: A small team can act fast and finish the work (5Ws). All stakeholders get a voice, and based on consensus in the advisory board, their chairman/leader has a seat with voting rights on the board of directors to represent the common interests of the stakeholders without slowing down the operations through endless discussions and individual interests.

A BDFL, which stands for “Benevolent Dictator For Life,” is an informal title given to influential leaders in open-source software development projects.

This term typically refers to project founders or primary creators who retain final decision-making authority over the project’s direction and development.

The concept of BDFL originated in 1995 and is closely associated with the Python programming language community. Guido van Rossum, the creator of Python, was jokingly named the “First Interim BDFL”.

Key characteristics of a BDFL include:
1. Ultimate authority on technical decisions
2. Influence over coding standards and core design philosophies
3. Veto power over proposed changes
4. Collaborative work with the community while maintaining a consistent vision

Notable examples of BDFLs include:
• Guido van Rossum (Python)
• Linus Torvalds (Linux kernel)
• Larry Wall (Perl)
• Yukihiro Matsumoto (Ruby)
• Samuel Smith (Keri)

It’s important to note that the BDFL title is honorary and based on community trust. If a BDFL were to act irresponsibly, the project could be forked.

The board selects the voting chair from the advisory board on the main board.

To align ideas and input ideas. One individual, the leader of that advisory board, has decision-making power.

For those who strongly advise against the concept of an advisory board

We would reverse the question:
What if the KERI plan and your concept are incompatible with Sam’s wish? How important is it to you to operate as a unit?

The question is whether we need an advisory board with final decision-making power over the foundation at this stage.
For us, it is a clear ‘no’ to that question. Despite that, we have foreseen the appointment of one person from that advisory board with decision-making power.

The advisory board we envision has decision-making power via its chairman having a seat with voting rights on the board of directors. Based on consensus, they should get on the advisory board first instead of slowing down decision-making and operations by having a (growing) bunch of people with individual interests and agendas that consume valuable time. It doesn’t add value or speed up the delivery of the 5Ws at this stage.

Some people didn’t like the way the KERI team group took over the initiative to design a KERI foundation.

The feeling of being surpassed without being heard is not a nice one. The European group may not have noticed that donation-based funding has been on the agenda of the KERI team for quite a while. What follows is a historical perspective on the communication.

Blockchainbird made its first donation to KERI development via GitHub in 2020. The KERI team wasn’t involved in the Swiss initiative, so we tried to unify both initiatives when we heard of it. We’re happy that this effort was received well.

When the first meeting was planned just after DICE 2024 by a European group that did not frequent the weekly KERI Zoom meetings of WebofTrust or TrustoverIP, the inventor of KERI clearly stated at this first meeting that the initiative to set up a KERI foundation is for those who put real money on the table.

You could argue about the talents and abilities needed to get KERI adopted by large companies and organizations, but here’s a significant fact:
KERI’s tooling hasn’t matured yet (status 2024), so selling it to larger companies makes no sense. The implementation will diverge from the reference implementation, which still needs to be completed, and the customers will abandon it with an incompatible codebase that must be maintained in an isolated manner.

We consider KERI’s inventor a hard-working multi-talent and should be supported in what he thinks it takes to keep KERI healthy and what the next steps in this process are: open-source foundations set up with the inventor’s blessing have been far more successful in the past than those that bypassed the inventor.

To confirm, the feeling of being surpassed without being heard is unfortunate. As this elaborate answer explains, we believe the experience is mutual. To work together, the KERI team has taken the lead because Blockchainbird (the donation vehicle of Henk van Cann) committed to initially donating 100K US$ to set up a foundation with the design principles mentioned here.

The executive team works on operational matters within the envisioned foundation framework. All the roles that are needed are included (anyone can add them if something is missing). Those roles will soon be assigned to functions/persons depending on the phase/scale of the foundation.

Members versus Managers

We think an essential function of the foundation should be to focus on technology, vision, and broad adoption. KERI founder Sam Smith should be there.

We have members of the legal entity, the L3C, and to avoid misunderstanding, we use managers for the foundation, which we run in a professional way but not-for-profit.

Our version of the foundation won’t give way to politicians and talkers, and no one will be able to buy influence. It’ll be a “proof of work” organization, not a proof of stake powerhouse.

The interests of donors are represented in other ways:

• coopetive design
• advisory board with one voting chair on the board
• directly funded projects

In this stage, we can’t allow roles representing narrower interests to outnumber the votes of the critical roles on the board.

Originally, this idea was solely to give all parties a voice and bring that together in one forum. The proposed managers of the designed board happily reserve a seat on the board for this purpose, with decision-making authority: the leader of the Advisory Board.

If anyone asks to let go of control, have you put your money where your mouth is?

The founding chairman has committed to donating to get the foundation started. So far, we haven’t seen anyone else making a similar commitment.

So, he wants to set up this vehicle to ensure that the internal processes are efficient, funds are spent effectively, and the required targets are met.  
Van Cann: “I’ll stop when I think: would I leave this system alone and trust its inner workings? And only when the answer is ‘yes’”

We’re keeping the leadership team small. Moreover, we don’t think that we make it complex. On the contrary, we avoid organizational complexity and focus on accelerating the urgently required development processes.

With the confirmed support for this setup by KERI’s inventor, we are ready to go and can focus on finishing the job (5Ws) starting today.

Please, do not to mix complexity with elaboration in details. It’s true we have a thoughtful and comprehensive setup.