Over the past couple months we have worked hard behind the scenes to take our community to the next level. Certain changes were made and not properly reported — for that I am sorry. But I’m convinced the NEO community will be happy with the news.

City of Zion (CoZ) is not part of the smart economy movement by chance. We believe in its benefits and know how to achieve them. An important step is to build bridges from traditional forms of organization to innovative new forms.

CoZ represents an innovative new way of organizing and coordinating open-source development. We give open-source developers the freedom and support required to produce their best work. However, CoZ’s distributed, trustless and ownerless format is incompatible with our present world.

To overcome this, we have created the City of Zion Foundation. It is registered on the Isle of Man and is currently applying for a Designated Business Act (DBA) license. This will allow us to directly hire a dedicated team to work towards our goal: the development and support of the smart economy. As soon as the licenses are in place, the community will be invited to merge forces and integrate assets.

We will keep moving forward while these legal steps are completed. I am hence happy to announce that Chris Hager is joining the CoZ Council. He will replace me.

You may know Chris as “metachris”, NEO-Python contributor and now former maintainer. He will be replaced in that role by Erik van den Brink. I will continue to work behind the scenes in the Foundation and upon core aspects of community organization. However, Chris will be taking over the Council seat.

We can already feel the change within CoZ. PR voting has become faster and Chris is more available for community issues.

The first CoZ Council election solves two general issues:

We have proven our values and demonstrated to the community that we are a meritocracy. Contributors get to be maintainers and then Council members who run the community.

We have implemented a method and time frame for replacing Council members such that CoZ is as distributed and democratic as the technologies it promotes.

The following simple rules guide this process:

When it is time to leave, a Council member should suggest a list of three community members to replace them. It is the responsibility of the leaving member to guarantee that the suggested candidates agree to be appointed to the position. The remaining Council members vote within 7 days. The vote is a ranked vote and a candidate must achieve a majority of the votes. If no candidate achieves a majority, the leaving member must submit a new candidate list. After the new member is elected, there is a two-month period during which both the leaving member and their replacement are in Council.

Chris was elected two months ago, making this my last post as a Council member. It has been a pleasure and a privilege to serve on the CoZ Council. I look forward to accompanying the community during the exciting years ahead.

Next Council elections for 2018 are already in motion, with replacements planned to be announced for “totalvamp” on 10/14/2018 and “afong” on 12/13/2018. It will take in total 18 months for the renewal process and 2 spots will not be matched with replacements, decreasing the total number of members in CoZ Council from 9 to 7. This measure was established due to several considerations of workload of Council members and financial health of the CoZ community.

Thank you all for your support! I will continue to be around but you will see more of my work in the efforts I make in the CoZ foundation, my main project and my advisory positions. Chris will be updating the community with the delayed reports following the publication of this article.

Best regards,

FCC