Meeting Minutes August 13, 2025
Attendees:
Name
Attendance
Role
Voting Seat (Y/N)
Kevin Hammond
Yes
Chair
Y
Adam Dean
Yes
Vice Chair
Y
Terence ‘Tex’ McCutcheon
Yes
Secretary
N
Lorenzo Bruno
Yes
Secretary
N
Markus Gufler
No
Member/Seat
Y
Nicolas Biri
Yes
Member/Seat
Y
Duncan Coutts
No
Member/Seat
Y
Jonathan Kelly
Yes
Member/Seat
Y
Sebastian Nagel
No
Member/Seat
Y
Benjamin Hart
Yes
Member/Seat
Y
Neil Davies
No
Member/Seat
Y
Alexander Moser
No
Member/Seat
Y
Community/Other Attendees
Christian Taylor
Recording: Technical Steering Committee - 2025/08/13 - Recording
Transcript: Technical Steering Committee - 2025/08/13 - Transcript
Chat Transcript: Technical Steering Committee - 2025/08/13 - Chat Transcript
Intros
Adam: OSC, TSC, CIP Editor, DripDropz LLC Alex: TBD Ben: TBD Duncan: TBD Johnny: Non-Custodial Co-Management SysOps Engineer (Tech Janitor) for 3 Mainnet Cardano SPO Clients. Keystone Ambassador. Voting Seat Member on Technical Steering Committee and Open Source Committee. Kevin: TBD Lorenzo: TBD Markus: TBD Neil: TSC, Network Params, PNSol Ltd Nicolas: TBD Sebastian: TBD Tex: Terence 'Tex' McCutcheon: Open Source Program Manager (Intersect), GMC/MCC/OSC Secretary, Committee Liaison
Agenda 8.13.25
Report from Rare Evo (Duncan C/Markus)
ISC Survey - Feedback Requested
Maintainer retention programme
Product Committee Vision Document
Hard Fork Working Group Reactivation
AOB
Decisions/Actions
VRF Tiebreaker Discussion: Postponed until a future meeting with better attendance to ensure a full discussion.
Repository Naming: It was decided that a heavyweight approach to repository naming is not needed. If there are suggestions for new repositories that might appear dubious, they should be run past the committee for input and validation.
ISC Role and Identity Survey: The committee was encouraged to review the survey proposed by Phil Lewis and provide individual comments to him.
Remit Review: The discussion about the committee's remit will be handled asynchronously to avoid a "continuous loop" of self-definition during meetings. The documents will be placed in the committee's shared Google Drive to ensure proper access for all members.
Product Committee Vision Document: Kevin will create a Google Doc to collect feedback from the committee on the vision document. Individual members are also encouraged to submit their own PRs with specific comments or suggestions. The collected feedback will then be provided to the product committee.
Hard Fork Working Group: Kevin plans to raise the topic of reactivating this group again next week to begin preparations for a hard fork later in the year.
Maintainer Retention Program: Jonathan will lead a follow-up meeting with IOG and repository leads to define the roles and levels of engagement for maintainers, aiming to find a compromise on the program's structure.
Committee Stipends: A collective position on the proposed stipends will be formed and presented to the ISC. The general sentiment was that those already being paid by their employers for the work should not accept the stipend, and that performance-related payments are not a good idea.
Topic
Discussion
Notes
Welcome and Attendance
The meeting started with greetings between Kevin and Nicolas. Attendance was light, with Kevin, Nicolas, John, Lorenzo, Ben, Terence, Christian, and Adam present. It was noted that Neil was absent due to the heat, and Sebastian was on PTO.
Nicolas and Kevin discussed the warm weather and humidity. The lack of quorum and low attendance at recent meetings were acknowledged.
Overlapping Meetings
Nicolas mentioned he had to leave the meeting at the top of the hour due to an overlapping meeting.
Attendees discussed the difficulty of finding a meeting time that works for everyone.
Rare Evo Recap
Adam, Lorenzo, and Terence gave updates from the Rare Evo event.
Adam was tied to a vending machine demo and missed workshops. Lorenzo and Terence attended the IOG governance workshop, where they discussed budget, strategy, and DREP opinions. The Intersect booth was successful, with many people showing interest in the committee's work.
Product Committee Vision Document
Lorenzo presented an updated vision document for the Cardano ecosystem, not just the product committee, and requested feedback.
Kevin noted that the vision document lacks technical detail, "grit," and that some KPIs, such as the $200 million target, are vague. Attendees agreed that the document should clarify technical strategies, such as how to address scalability and finality without compromising security and performance.
Hard Fork Working Group
Kevin proposed reactivating the hard fork working group to start preparing for a hard fork later in the year.
This topic will be brought up again next week for further discussion.
Maintainer Retention Program
Jonathan gave an update on the Maintainer Retention Program. There was pushback from repository leads concerned about the time it would take to mentor new developers.
The program aims to keep experienced contributors engaged and onboard new talent. The goal is not to bring on new engineers to core teams but to have maintainers help with community contributions, documentation, and issue triage. A meeting is scheduled to define these roles and levels of engagement.
Committee Stipends
Kevin discussed the proposal for committee member stipends, which would be funded by the recently approved Intersect budget.
The proposed stipends are 500 ADA per month for members and 1,000 ADA for chairs. A concern was raised about the potential for double-claiming if a member is on multiple committees. Attendees discussed whether stipends should be accepted by those already paid by their institutions or if they would create conflicts of interest.
Committee Remit and Elections
Lorenzo stressed the importance of reviewing the committee remit since elections are approaching. Adam and Kevin preferred to discuss this asynchronously.
It was decided to handle the remit discussion "out of band" to avoid a "continuous loop" of self-definition during the meeting. The documents will be moved to the official Google Drive to ensure proper access and management.
Intersects Role and Identity Survey
Kevin shared a survey proposed by Phil Lewis to clarify Intersect's role and identity.
The survey asks questions about Intersect's role as a budget facilitator, the autonomy of committees, and potential changes to the committee structure. The survey will be sent to members soon, and early feedback from the committee would be welcomed.
Google Drive Document Access
Terence raised a point about the importance of using a shared Google Drive for committee documents to ensure all members have access and that communications are protected.
Kevin acknowledged a previous issue with access, which led to a document copy being made, and agreed to resolve the issue.
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