Want to discuss or change something about the EOS Constitution?All are welcome to join video conference calls, now with a cap of 62 participants per call.

— Week 4 Call Schedule —

Call times are the same in Week 4 as they were in Week 3.

New! Find call schedules on our website.

Call #1: Chinese & English

Monday, September 10 at 9:00pm Beijing & Shanghai Time / 13:00 UTC.

75 minutes - Register Here.

Call #2: English

Tuesday, September 11 at 7:45pm EDT / 23:45 UTC.

75 minutes - Register Here.

Call #3: Korean & English

Wednesday, September 12 at 9:00pm Seoul Time / 12:00 UTC.

75 minutes - Register Here.

AGENDA: Small group discussions about Articles X to XX of the current EOS Constitution: what can be changed, discarded, or improved.

Prepare by reading:

EOS Constitution — https://github.com/EOS-Mainnet/governance/blob/master/eosio.system/eosio.system-clause-constitution-rc.md

Design Principles — https://forums.eosgo.io/discussion/424/design-principles-of-my-v0-1-draft-eos-io-constitution

Ask yourself: what problem is being addressed in each Article? What can be improved? Notes and prepared thoughts welcome along with off the cuff remarks and opinions. Everyone should have a voice in EOS.

Week 3 Constitution Series Recap

Three calls happened this week to host discussions about Constitution Articles I — X, with an interlude in one group to discuss the contentious Article XV — Termination of Agreement.

Call #1 welcomed 36 Chinese & English participants, with a turnout of ~65% Mandarin Chinese primary speakers.

Video recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2wLQSitSBw

Martin Breur of EOS Nation again offered an excellent summary of the events, including 2–4 bullet points from each Article discussed, I to VII. Below is a sample from his summary, with link below to the rest of his recap:

Thank you Martin for the excellent summary of Call #1 — please read his recap to get the full report of group discussions about Articles 1–7.

Call #2 was English only, on Tuesday at 7:45pm EDT. Turnout was smaller and the breakout groups continued discussions where call #1 left off, focusing on Articles VII–IX.

Article VII — Open Source

Each Member who makes available a smart contract on this blockchain shall be a Developer. Each Developer shall offer their smart contracts via a free and open source license, and each smart contract shall be documented with a Ricardian Contract stating the intent of all parties and naming the Arbitration Forum that will resolve disputes arising from that contract.

Group 1 agreed the language is too broad and brief for an article that may affect business adoption of EOS chains. Large business may want to keep their contracts proprietary on a tuned sidechain; Article VII is unclear about such cases.

“Developer” is capitalized and undefined; the group wished to see a better statement about who, or what, could be a “Developer”.

Enforcement of Article VII seems unlikely — a successful EOS dapp with closed source contracts seems an unlikely case for being forced to open source its code.

Article VIII — Language

Multi-lingual contracts must specify one prevailing language in case of dispute and the author of any translation shall be liable for losses due to their false, misleading, or ambiguous attested translations.

Group 2 agreed their biggest sentiment was the understanding that a stated prevailing language could put other language communities at a disadvantage.

The group also felt it important to note - the burden of verifying correct translation and understanding of a contract should be on the user signing transactions, not the entity writing contracts. Language for Article VIII should change to reflect this.

Article IX — Dispute Resolution

All disputes arising out of or in connection with this Constitution shall be finally settled under the Rules of Dispute Resolution of the EOS Core Arbitration Forum by one or more arbitrators appointed in accordance with the said Rules.

Group 3 believed this Article is misunderstood by a large portion of the community — arbitration is the usual focus but actually a last ditch effort, after attempts at mediation and automated dispute resolution (for more examples, see the Dispute Resolution & Arbitration video calls recap listed below).

The entire group agreed the Rules for Dispute Resolution (RDR) specified in Article IX need to be re-written. They refer back to ECAF in many aspects but ECAF itself lacks the referenced documents from RDR, such as the unwritten Handbook. Chicken and egg problem.

Once other Articles are more clear with their language (Article I definition of “violence” for example), this one can be better re-written.

Call #3 was in Korean & English, taking place on Tuesday morning at 1200 UTC. Two breakout groups decided to discuss Articles that had already been covered, and one group tackled the contentious Article XV.

Article VII — Open Source

Each Member who makes available a smart contract on this blockchain shall be a Developer. Each Developer shall offer their smart contracts via a free and open source license, and each smart contract shall be documented with a Ricardian Contract stating the intent of all parties and naming the Arbitration Forum that will resolve disputes arising from that contract.

Korean group 1 agreed the scope should be more narrow. Open source may make it harder to bring big business onto the blockchain; forcing everyone into either open or closed source won’t work.

To help remedy this, the group suggested replacing the title of this Article from “Open Source” to “Transparency”. This would allow for individual interpretation of the intent of Article VII.

Article XV — Termination of Agreement

A Member is automatically released from all revocable obligations under this Constitution 3 years after the last transaction signed by that Member is incorporated into the blockchain. After 3 years of inactivity an account may be put up for auction and the proceeds distributed to all Members according to the system contract provisions then in effect for such redistribution.

Group 2 decided to cover this Article due to its contentious status inside and out the EOS community. They agreed it is in direct contract with the rights of property otherwise protected in other parts of the Constitution.

When the groups came back together, nearly every individual on the call agreed this Article should be discarded entirely. Some believed it to be a last minute inclusion to the Constitution and a mistake that would cause a lot of problems were someone to actually lose their property.

Other Community Calls

The Dispute Resolution & Arbitration group held three open video calls this week. Check outthe week’s recap from Amy Wan, head of the group and CEO of Sagewise, about the calls:

Community Call with Moti Tabulo, Head of ECAF (Mandarin/English) Community Call with Jongsoo (Jay) Yoon — Attorney, Internet Dispute Resolution Expert & Board Member of Creative Commons (Korean/English) Community Call with Colin Rule — Former VP Dispute Resolution, Ebay/Paypal and ODR expert (English)

EOS Ignite hosted its second weekly governance discussion call, offering an advanced and in-depth dive into discussions about the Constitution (video link).

Next Thursday, September 13 at 6:00pm EDT, EOS Ignite will begin discussions about Daniel Larimer’s v2 Constitution proposal.

We look forward to further community discussions next week — let’s dive a little deeper and determine what’s important to the community in an EOS constitution.

— — — — — — — — — — — —

EOS Alliance — Empowering EOS For All.

We seek to inform the community and provide a platform for collaborative decision making. Everyone should have a voice in EOS.