OpenSats is in part funded by the general public – donations are solicited from everyone, and accepted via BTC and fiat. That's one reason why grants are made public: it'd be absurd for OpenSats to be spending money without disclosing who is getting it.

But it's also absurd if the _rejected_ applications are entirely private too. Which is the status quo. Funders should have some idea of what they could have spent money on, and didn't.

All I did was reveal two rejected applications. If that is enough to constitue serious drama, you should rethink what you're doing...

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nostr:npub10xvczstpwsljy7gqd2cselvrh5e6mlerep09m8gff87avru0ryqsg2g437 Got any thoughts on this one?

Revealing rejected/pending applications makes a ton of sense in principle and it could prevent VC cherry picking or reveal clear conflicts of interest. HOWEVER this might also cause an administrative/political nightmare for the operation and be lose lose. I’m sure there’s fake or disingenuous applications abound which would not be well judged by the public. My gut says let em cook but maybe there’s a middle ground here where all applications above a certain standard are default revealed (proof of x # of prior commits on FOSS projects or something? This is hard).

Also… nothing is stopping applicants from posting it here on Nostr. If their reputation/work is respected by the community then it will pressure Opensats to consider to save their own rep. Like we’re currently witnessing…

All in all FOSS contributors shouldnt feel entitled to some big daddy charity fund to help them though. That’s not the attitude that’s gonna change the world anyway

Top notch take

When they try to hide. That’s when we can truly see.

Absolutely! Not only that nut nostr:npub10pensatlcfwktnvjjw2dtem38n6rvw8g6fv73h84cuacxn4c28eqyfn34f should also publish their selection criteria. The phrase 'Feel free to apply again in the future' can feel like a bad joke if your projects have no real chance of being funded.

Take nostr:npub1v6qjdzkwgaydgxjvlnq7vsqxlwf4h0p4j7pt8ktprajd28r82tvs54nzyr and his Joinstr project, which combines privacy and decentralization, yet it didn’t receive a grant. Why? Is it because Bitcoin mixing is considered too controversial for the organization after the Samourai case?

'We have a minimum of 5 positive votes by the board for approval' sounds great but it says nothing about the reasoning behing those votes. It's like saying 'We've democratically decided to feed the cats but not the dogs', ok cool, but why?

I understand your perspective, but I feel like posting rejections could have negative impact re: social signaling.

“If they passed they probably had a good reason, maybe we should pass also”

Nothing happens in a vacuum so it could hurt the potential grantee from being funded in the future.

Seems like a courtesy on open sats part to keep things confidential.

Same issue in peer review for scientific literature, rejections aren’t public either for similar reasons

It's funny when someone obviously tries to start drama, and then acts surprised when the drama starts.