A dedicated Entity to fill the gaps

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Proposal: A Community-Chartered Neutral Hub for Open Source & Product Support

After three years of working behind the scenes—testing models, piloting programs, and using Intersect’s structure to prove what does and does not work—I believe it’s time to ask the community a direct question:

Is Cardano ready to support a truly neutral, purpose-built open source and product support hub in the next budget cycle?

What This Is (and Is Not)

This proposal is not about creating another MBO.

It is about establishing a non-profit, community-chartered entity with a very narrow, clearly defined remit:

  • Manage open source tooling and maintenance costs at an ecosystem level
  • Support commercial adoption and accelerator pathways
  • Serve as a neutral execution layer for ecosystem-wide open source needs

The entity would:

  • Exist only as long as the community supports it
  • Operate under a sunset clause with explicit shutdown mechanics
  • Return unspent or managed funds if the mandate ends
  • Own no IP
  • Control no projects
  • Compete with no teams

Its sole purpose is execution, coordination, and enablement.

Why This Is Necessary

Intersect has been a critical proving ground. A great deal was pioneered there—but the pilots exposed structural limits that can’t be solved internally.

Key Observed Constraints

  1. Open source functioned as a lone operation
  • Despite measurable impact, open source was not institutionally understood as an operational system
  • Success depended on individuals rather than embedded capability
  1. MBO structures can be misaligned to an ecosystem level open-source mandate
  • MBOs are effective at stewarding internal initiatives, or membership driven ideas
  • They can struggle to enact ecosystem wide support that does not relate to their membership base
  1. Merited contributors can be removed for non-merit reasons
  • Contractual and political constraints can override ecosystem value
  • Continuity suffers even when outcomes are strong
  1. Approved budgets are still fragile
  • Resource constraints can stall, shrink, or quietly shut down initiatives
  • Execution risk remains even after community approval
  1. Organizational overload dilutes mission delivery
  • Too many competing priorities weaken focus on specialized initiatives
  • Open source becomes “one thing among many,” rather than infrastructure
  1. Board-level misalignment can terminate entire missions
  • If a mission’s politics don’t align upward, it can be halted regardless of ecosystem need

These are not failures of people. They are structural realities.

The Core Idea

Port the beyond the MBO open source functions out.
Keep it accountable.
Give it the authority and resources to actually deliver.

This entity would operate as a dedicated OSPO-like function or even a decentralized OSPO, but:

  • Chartered by the community
  • Governed with explicit constraints
  • Aligned to ecosystem needs, not organizational survival
  • Designed to serve, not accumulate power

It would sit alongside Intersect and other bodies—not above them—and act as an execution partner rather than a political actor.

Two-Fold Mandate

1. Unilateral Ecosystem Support

  • Offload open source maintenance and tooling costs from Catalyst
  • Provide neutral project support services
  • Establish a center for operational excellence in open source
  • Support long-term maintainers without ownership or capture

2. Pathways to Adoption & Growth

  • Partner with existing educational and venture functions
  • Fill the missing middle between grants and commercial viability
  • Support accelerator-style pathways without owning outcomes
  • Amplify Cardano’s open source brand externally
  • Build bridges to other ecosystems and institutions
  • Act as a reference model for decentralized open source best practices

Guardrails (Non-Negotiables)

  • No IP ownership
  • No project control
  • No permanent existence
  • No expansion beyond mandate
  • Minimal staffing
  • Fixed two-year remit
  • Explicit shutdown and fund return mechanisms
  • Transparent metrics and renewal criteria

If the community decides it no longer serves its purpose, it ends—cleanly.

Why Now

The ecosystem has matured.
The pilots have been run.
The gaps are visible.
The cost of not addressing them is rising.

This is not about replacing Intersect or any existing body.
It’s about unblocking execution, protecting merit, and creating a structure that matches how open source actually works at scale.

This is coming from existing realities and unfilled execution to needed gaps within the ecosystem, as projects begin to wind down, it is becoming important to build an effective structural layer to these mandated needs.

Key things for rollout, this will not replace current things in motion, but partner to bring them at scale.

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Additional Considerations behind this:

  1. Catalyst had way too many maintenance costs included for tooling within it, let’s make it a sperate operation

  2. Draper and other ideas are really cool, but they build within their own ecosystem, we need a nexus point native to Cardano to provide more than the 1 pathway and to capitalize market value

  3. This can be a truly stewarded community driven process free from politics and be a unifying arm through politics

  4. There is no control, there is adherence through incentivized programs within its budget breakdown.

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I have been vocal of how intersect has not been able to fulfill all the needs of ecosystem and we need more structures , specifically for certain issues , i have seen you work and wishing you all the best on the initiative and looking forward to success of this and guidance with your experience for the community. like the idea, will be keeping a lookout on it and when i feel theres somewhere that i can help or contribute with will be rooting for your sucess and maybe we have more structures of the community. I understand your pain .