Attributes
- Author(s): Michael O’Rourke Sr. & Jorge Cuesta
- Recipient(s): Michael O’Rourke Sr.
- Category: Reimbursement
- Fulfills: None
- Related Installments: None
- Asking Amount: The equivalent to US $325,000 (using 7-day trailing average of $POKT/USD price at time of approval) to cover development costs and initial maintenance.
Summary
The Poktscan Geo-Mesh client allows all node-runners to take advantage of relay traffic worldwide without having a full Pocket Node at these locations. Implementing will improve the overall QoS of the Pocket Network while giving all node runners, small and large, the ability to compete for relays.
The Poktscan Geo-Mesh was announced and open-sourced to the community in October 2022 through a forum post.
At Poktscan we believe that providing data, software tools, and infrastructure to the community is essential for advancing Pocket’s growth and promoting collaboration. By making some of these resources widely available, community members and researchers can work together to solve some of the complex problems POKT will face in the future.
Motivation/Rationale
The need to build Geo-Mesh does not come from a community or a PNI requirement but from a network anomaly identified through our data and algorithms monitoring network fairness and behavior.
The red flag for us was that a small number of nodes were being assigned relays beyond the limits established by our network models. Till then, you could not have the same nodes at multiple locations hence traffic per node per session was limited by response times. This was an important competitive advantage that only a few had. This anomaly led us down the path of discovery and later building the product we launched last year. You can read more about this in our initial post (POKTscan’s Geo-Mesh).
Network fairness and an equal playing field are at the core of our mission, so rather than reap the benefits of the technology for personal gain we decided to share with the Pocket community.
Intended Outcomes
Since then Geo-Mesh has been deployed throughout the network. Post-production deployment, the Poktscan team has provided support, corrected bugs, and added new features to the product.
POKTscan intends to continue to enhance and support beyond V1 given that the Geo-Mesh code will not be included as part of this release.
Although we can’t accurately quantify how many node runners have deployed Geo-Mesh, we can get an idea from GitHub forks, community reported bugs and our discord survey.
Deliverable(s)
Geo-Mesh
Idea, R&D, development & testing (8/22-10/22)
Branch: GitHub - pokt-scan/pocket-core at ew-halt-integration
Community launch (11/10/22 ) POKTscan’s Geo-Mesh
Select community feedback, collaboration, & bug fixes (11/10/22 - to date)
Community survey:
Future deliverables
This proposal also includes the continued V0 development (rebases, bug fixes, etc.) of the Geo-Mesh product.
NOT part of this proposal deliverables
- Any future work on a V1 compatible version of Geo-Mesh.
- Any POKTscan.com related work.
Estimates and Funding
We decided to put forward this proposal at the request of several members of the community. Initially, I was particularly hesitant due to reasons not germain to this proposal, but was convinced otherwise due to its value.
Our proposal estimates are based on two components: 1) Cost to build, plus 2) Cost of opportunity. The cost to build is what they are and can be seen below. The cost of opportunity or benefit to the community was trickier given that there is no model to follow.
We looked at the following impact criteria: traction, benefit, and ecosystem-wide significance. We decided to use 25% of the total development cost vs ecosystem impact given the fact that it’s something unmeasurable at this time. We all concur that given the fact that Geo-Mesh provided an opportunity to compete for relays to small and large node-runners was worth at least 25% of development costs. Please note that we are requesting $325K and not $324,862.50. This will be adjusted in a final proposal to reflect the exact amount.
The path forward:
We believe that the funding request is fair, evaluated professionally and methodically.
Consensus and voting can be complex processes, especially in larger groups. While it provides a mechanism for making decisions that is transparent and democratic, it can also discourage participation and lead to frustration among members. In our particular case we welcome the engagement, however others may shy away from “town square” debate. Process guardrails may be necessary to encourage participation.
