What is the purpose of the foundation?

The foundation’s charter is to be the trustee of and make decisions for the public chain and spread its adoption. Awareness is a secondary goal of the foundation because it should increase naturally as a result of (successful) adoption.

Additionally, foundation should have good enough knowledge of the underlying tech so that it can consult other organizations or people who are building or considering building projects on NEM.

How is foundation participating in catapult development?

Minimally. Foundation has established a Center of Excellence to support catapult development. Only the EU region has been active in staffing it even though it is a global initiative. After nearly two years, the foundation has hired two NodeJS developers contributing to catapult-rest and one CPP developer. Outside of the EU region, no catapult support has been provided. This is really an indictment of all the other regions, excepting the newly established NA region.

Foundation was provided technical roadmap for catapult nearly 6mo ago, but has been unable to approve it for public release in the time since. The roadmap received almost no feedback from foundation members and many did not bother to understand it.

Catapult is only moving forward because TechBureau is funding nearly all development.

What does foundation do?

It seems to spend a lot of time opening blockchain centers and traveling to conferences. No ROI of such investments have been provided. In fact, most of the foundation’s finances are too opaque.

What should foundation do?

Fulfill its charter as defined in the first answer and facilitate the public chain release of catapult, which includes defining the public chain requirements and parameters.

Are core devs foundation members?

No.