Meeting Minutes August 20, 2025
Attendees:
Name
Attendance
Role
Voting Seat (Y/N)
Term
Kevin Hammond
Yes
Chair
Y
October 2025
Adam Dean
Yes
Vice Chair
Y
October 2025
Terence ‘Tex’ McCutcheon
Yes
Secretary
N
N/A
Lorenzo Bruno
No
Secretary
N
N/A
Markus Gufler
No
Member/Seat
Y
October 2025
Nicolas Biri
Yes
Member/Seat
Y
April 2026
Duncan Coutts
No
Member/Seat
Y
April 2026
Jonathan Kelly
Yes
Member/Seat
Y
October 2025
Sebastian Nagel
Yes
Member/Seat
Y
April 2026
Benjamin Hart
Yes
Member/Seat
Y
October 2025
Neil Davies
Yes
Member/Seat
Y
April 2026
Alexander Moser
No
Member/Seat
Y
April 2026
Community/Other Attendees
Christian Taylor
Recording: Technical Steering Committee - 2025/08/20- Recording
Transcript: Technical Steering Committee - 2025/08/20 - Transcript
Chat Transcript: Technical Steering Committee - 2025/08/20 - Chat Transcript
Intros
Adam: OSC, TSC, CIP Editor, DripDropz LLC Alex: TBD Ben: TBD Duncan: TBD Johnny: Non-Custodial Co-Management SysOps Engineer (Tech Janitor) for 3 Mainnet Cardano SPO Clients. Keystone Ambassador. Voting Seat Member on Technical Steering Committee and Open Source Committee. Kevin: TBD Lorenzo: TBD Markus: TBD Neil: TSC, Network Params, PNSol Ltd Nicolas: TBD Sebastian: TBD Tex: Terence 'Tex' McCutcheon: Open Source Program Manager (Intersect), GMC/MCC/OSC Secretary, Committee Liaison
Agenda 8.20.25
Follow-up from last week
ISC survey
Maintainer retention programme
VRF tiebreaker (carried forward)
Hard Fork WG Reactivation (carried forward)
Budget Committee Survey
Update on Stipend Discussion
2030 Vision - regular discussion with other committees
Decisions/Actions
ISC Survey: TSC members to provide comments on the draft by Friday.
Maintainer Retention Program: Continue to finalize consultation of the assessment and structure of the program.
VRF Tiebreaker: Postpone the decision until next week. Johnny will research if a Cardano Improvement Proposal (CIP) for this issue already exists.
Hard Fork Working Group: Plan to reactivate the working group in September or October to prepare for a 2025 hard fork event.
TSC Chair: Members who are not up for re-election are asked to consider if they're willing to step up as the chair.
Budget Committee Survey: Complete the survey.
2030 Vision Document: Adam will attend a meeting on Thursday, September 28, on behalf of Kevin. Other interested members are also welcome to join.
Topic
Discussion
Notes
Attendance and Absences
Kevin, Johnny, Sebastian, and Neil are in attendance. Neil confirms that Duncan is still on holiday. Kevin notes that Alex sends his apologies. Kevin expects Sebastian to be present but has no information about Marcus. Christian and Adam join later.
Sebastian and Adam are expected. Duncan and Alex are absent.
Meeting Agenda
Kevin pastes the agenda into the chat. The main items are the follow-up from last week, which includes the ISC survey, the maintainer retention program, and the VRF tiebreaker.
Kevin will pin the agenda in the chat for latecomers.
Hard Fork Working Group
There is discussion about reactivating the hard fork working group. Neil believes a relatively urgent decision is needed. Kevin suggests that the group is not needed for at least two months as the hard fork is tied to a future release (10.8 or later). The next hard fork is expected to be an intra-era hard fork, focused on Pluto upgrades (V3 parameters to V2) and bug fixes.
Group should be reactivated in September or October for a 2025 hard fork.
ISC Survey
Kevin reminds TSC members to provide comments on the ISC survey draft before the end of the week. An agreement was reached to move forward with the survey, with final wording being completed.
Final comments on the draft are due by tomorrow or early Friday.
Maintainer Retention Program
Johnny provides an update on the program. He has been working on a draft application form and assessment process. Jeff from IO has offered to help with the interview process. The program aims to provide stipends for maintenance work, with a focus on core repositories. There is concern from the dev team about the mentoring effort involved.
Program details are being finalized, including assessment criteria and the level of input required from mentors.
VRF Tiebreaker
Johnny explains the historical issue of a bias favoring smaller pools in slot battles. This was changed to a fair 50/50 chance, which has caused community upset. Neil asks for a quantifiable analysis of the previous bias. Nicholas and Neil note that an analysis has been done, showing a small percentage change (1-2%). The discussion shifts to the security implications of reintroducing a bias.
The group agrees the issue is a community/product question, not a technical one. A CIP with a security analysis would be needed to propose the change.
Next Steps for VRF Tiebreaker
The consensus is that reintroducing a bias would require a formal proposal via a CIP (Cardano Improvement Proposal) that includes a security analysis. This would be a community decision. Johnny volunteers to investigate whether a CIP on this topic already exists.
The discussion will be pushed to the next meeting after Johnny researches existing CIPs.
TSC Chair Election
Tex raises the issue of electing a new TSC chair. He suggests that current members who are not up for re-election should be primary candidates, as the chair needs to serve until April. The vice chair will be selected from new members elected in October.
Tex is available for questions regarding the responsibilities of the chair.
Budget Committee Survey
Kevin asks members to complete a quick budget survey. Johnny reports that it took him less than five minutes to complete.
Members who have not yet responded are encouraged to do so.
Stipend Discussion
Kevin provides an update on the stipend proposal. The proposed stipends are 500 ADA per committee member and 1,000 ADA per chair per month, running from June 2025 to June 2026. Members of multiple committees would receive a stipend for each. The group will not impose rules on who can accept the stipend. There is a minority opinion to backdate the stipends to January, which would need to be funded by Intersect.
The stipends will not be performance-based. An unresolved issue is whether co-chairs will both receive the higher stipend.
2030 Vision Document
Kevin shares a document for a joint 2030 vision from all Intersect committees. He invites members to provide input. A joint meeting is scheduled for next Thursday, to which any committee member is welcome to attend.
Kevin will not be present at the meeting. Adam volunteers to attend on his behalf.
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