Funding my work on fedeproxy and the ongoing DAPSI grant

Bonjour,

By chance I no longer need to get funding to work on fedeproxy until the end of 2022. I privately secured enough funds (i.e. from my own pocket) to keep going, starting this month. This is not only good news for me, it’s also potentially good news for community members who would like to work on fedeproxy but need funding to do so. I’d be happy to pass on the remaining 12,400€ of the ongoing DAPSI grant to whoever is willing to take over. There is presumably some administrative details but it should work out. @pilou on paper each of us is paid part time (2.5 days per week) and there would be no blocker for you to make that a full time position.

If nobody is interested in taking over my seat for the ongoing DAPSI grant by Monday November 22nd, 2021, I’ll notify the organization managing the grant.

Cheers

P.S. Just to clarify: this changes absolutely nothing to what I’m set to do on fedeproxy, this is exclusively an administrative change. If someone takes over with the DAPSI grant, they are more than welcome to reuse whatever I’m doing since it matches most of the deliverables.

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Hi @dachary, this once again shows your great attitude on ethics and dedication to the commons. It is admirable, and I commend you :pray:

What you might make clearer is what such a take over of the DAPSI seat might entail. What are the expectations and deliverables that come with this? What are the freedoms - given consent from the community - to spend this on one’s own initiative in ways that benefit FedeProxy as a whole?

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The devil is in the details, indeed, great question. The long answer is the ~200 post long DAPSI topic which has all the required information, down to the last detail. Someone can figure out what it entails after digesting all of it: I don’t have more information myself. If someone was to say: “what the hell, I’ll give it a try!” the next step would be to reach out to Zabala (the organization governing the grant) and ask them what steps are required to make it happen at the administrative level.

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The third payment is not guaranteed, it is conditioned by the evaluation of phase 2. The final review of phase 2 section of the third parties monitoring and assessment document details this review:

50% Technical validation + 20% Business Validation + 10% Commitment validation + Final event
participation (20%)


Do you intend to keep the DAPSI coordinator hat?

The subgrant agreement mentions:

If the MoU is amended so that I’m no longer involved and someone else is a beneficiary, I don’t think it would be possible, even if I wanted to.

Would not it be easier not to perform any administrative change and for you to create a grant?

Could you expand on what it would be? I don’t quite understand what you mean by “create a grant” nor why it would be simpler than transferring my seat.

Today I took some time to re-read the 67 pages (:fearful:) memorandum of understanding governing the DAPSI grant. It’s a lot to take in but it’s the only document that was signed which makes things a little simpler: no need to collect a number of other documents, it’s all included.

Here are the parts that seem relevant to me regarding the transition of my involvement to someone else (company or individual).

5.3 Internal arrangements between beneficiaries — Consortium Agreement
The beneficiaries must have internal arrangements regarding their operation and co-ordination to ensure that the action is implemented properly. These internal arrangements must be set out in a written ‘Consortium Agreement’ between the beneficiaries…

@pilou and I overlooked this obligation and there is no such ‘Consortium Agreement’. However, there are numerous public discussions regarding our agreements (distribution of EU funding, obligations related to background and result, …). They are not labeled as such but are a good enough substitute should they be required formally. It would just take a little effort to collect them from this forum, I’m not worried.

11.2. Information and communication among the Contracting Parties
Any notice to be given under this Contract shall be in writing to the addresses and recipients listed above. Any change of persons or contact details shall be notified immediately to the Contractor. The address list shall be accessible to all concerned.

And those already mentioned by @pilou

Article 13 – Assignment and subcontracting
The beneficiaries shall not assign or transfer in whole or in part any of its rights or obligations under this Agreement without the Contractor express prior written consent.
[…]
Article 15 – Amendments
Amendments or changes to this Contract shall be made in writing and signed by the duly authorized representative of the Contracting Parties. Nevertheless, in the event the EC modifies the conditions, the Contractor will amend the Contract accordingly.

It looks like it could be as simple as amending the current memorandum to include a new beneficiary and appoint a new coordinator among the beneficiaries. The new beneficiary will have to submit a number of information to the organization governing the grant. It will likely take them a few weeks to process the change as they presumably are required to do minimal background check to verify the person / legal entity actually exists.

I sent the following mail today to the contact in the organization governing the grant to prepare the ground for this change:

Subject: Fedeproxy - Amending the MoU - change in beneficiaries and coordinator

Dear [redacted],

I would like to amend the memorandum of understanding to change the beneficiaries and the coordinator for the fedeproxy project. Would you please be so kind as to let me know how to proceed? I read the memorandum of understanding but it does not contain anything specific. It only mentions (Article 15) that amendments shall be made in writing.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Cheers

As mentioned in the the sub-grant agreement (section 5.2), the responsibilities of the coordinator are:

I disagree. There is no written agreement because as friend we trust each other, we discussed these internal arrangements orally, hence it is obvious to me there is no need to write it down.

Since your goal is to increase funding of the fedeproxy project, you can redistribute your money however want (without involving the DAPSI contractor) and donate directly as you did before. You could even donate to the Fedeproxy project :)! An interesting side effect: it would allow the community to define how to handle available funds.

How can you disagree with the fact that section 5.3 reads “These internal arrangements must be set out in a written ‘Consortium Agreement’ between the beneficiaries”? I’m confused. It is a moot point however because there are numerous traces, in writing in this forum, of our mutual agreement. It is not just a verbal agreement.

What you suggest is significantly more work on my part, in addition to what I’m currently doing. Passing along my seat as a DAPSI beneficiary is a single administrative step. While I’m ok with not getting the 12,400€, having to work hard to pass it along to someone else during an extended period of time is not something I’m prepared to do :slight_smile:

Could you please let me know if you want to take my seat? You would then be the only beneficiary of the DAPSI Phase II (i.e. the full 24,800€). I need a yes / no answer so I can move forward. Note that I’m not asking if it is possible for you to take my seat, I’m asking if you want to take my seat, in case it is possible from an administrative point of view.

I don’t have time to look it up now, but I thought I found some stuff saying that subcontracting significant amounts of the grant money is not allowed in DAPSI. It got my attention because because I was playing with an idea to have solve some project parts by setting out bounties for devs/researchers to pick in areas where I’m weak.

You remember correctly. What @pilou is suggesting is not to subcontract the DAPSI work but that I use the money I get from DAPSI to further fedeproxy to setup other projects, unrelated to the DAPSI deliverables. Similar to what was done for the 5000€ to further federation in Gitea, reason why I know first hand how much work it entails. It’s significant.

What would they be? As I mentioned earlier, I’ll keep working in the same direction as today and therefore fulfill most deliverables, including the technical parts anyways. There should be no need for development activities, the deliverables will just be there. Not subcontracted to me. As a beneficiary you’re not allowed to subcontract but if a deliverable just happens to be completed even though you were not involved that’s perfectly fine. The intent of the non-subcontracting clause is not to prevent non profit cooperation, it’s to prevent companies taking a cut of the EU funds while not doing any of the work.

It seems pointless to me to consider it if it is not possible. I will wait for the response of the DAPSI contractor (the organization governing the grant).

Can you please answer the question so I can move forward? It is not pointless: it is blocking me.

Actually it is not blocking me: since you did not answer positively to the proposal, I can only assume it means you’re not interested. If you were interested you would have said so in the past ten days. I tend to expect straight answers (yes/no) to avoid any misunderstanding. But in this case your lack of interest is, in itself, a straight answer. Sorry for being a little pressing, there was no need.

Mail sent to the Contractor today:

Subject: Fedeproxy - Stepping down - Phase II

Dear [redacted],

In the name of the fedeproxy project I express our gratitude for the support to get it off the ground in the Phase I, financially and with expertise. It would have not come to existence otherwise. We were honored that our report on the Phase I was positively graded, this is an important validation of the work we’ve done, at the technical and organizational level.

The fedeproxy project evolved and I’m now in a position to formally announce that I will not be needing the support of DAPSI to keep working on fedeproxy. I therefore step down as a beneficiary and coordinator and renounce all claims regarding Phase II of the grant, financial and otherwise.

Pierre-Louis Bonicoli has not expressed an interest in taking over my position as a coordinator at this point in time.

Would you be so kind as to let me know about the administrative steps I should follow to formally step down?

Cheers

I was referring to my own project ideas here, not FedeProxy. Wrt the community building DASPI participation I stated earlier that I will pass the opportunity. Sorry if there was confusion about that or insufficiently clear.

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Received a confirmation from the organization that I’m no longer invovled in the ongoing DAPSI grant. It was surprisingly simple.

Dear Loïc,

I am sorry to hear that you do not continue in DAPSI for the second phase.
This email is enough to confirm it.

I wish you good luck in your future projects.
Best regards,