Dear TF, I’m a tezos baker and I rely on tools such as Kiln by Obsidian Systems, and tezos-reward-distributor (TRD) for my operations.

In correspendence with engineers there I’ve learned Kiln’s funding has dried up and is currently in maintenance mode, and TRD’s inital grant proposal was rejected.

Could you please shed some light on how funding decisions are made?

What funding models are used? It appears like ‘one and done’ deals and not enough ongoing partnerships to develop software beyond an initial release. Eg. Tezbox and Kiln.

By what metrics are you gauging the performance of fund recipients? How are milestones and quality assessed? How do you ensure you’re spending the money wisely and giving the community what they want?

Lastly, as a priority can you please reactivate Kiln’s funding? This tool is tezos’s crown jewel in that it’s an easy to use graphical interface. It promotes decentralization by allowing non-technical users to run tezos. And the Obsidian Systems team have been impeccable professionals in their delivery. Frankly, I am shocked and dismayed to hear you haven’t been treating them well. And there seems to be a pattern forming given the state of other tools.

How are you going to improve in this respect?