Revised Cardano dOSPO and OMF Program Proposal

The need for this approach is clear from projects such as Charli3, Taptools, and others. My goal is not only to provide stipends to open source projects, but also to actively help them transition toward sustainable Go-To-Market (GTM) and commercial open source business models where appropriate. Open source is essential, but it cannot rely solely on treasury funding indefinitely.I will work with LFDT and other multi-chain open source experts through a two-council model to develop an automated system for identifying critical investment paths. The objective is to build sustainable open source infrastructure that the entire ecosystem can rely on, while encouraging commercial activity on top of that foundation.
While this proposal involves establishing councils and operational roles, I believe the initiative can be executed with a lean team. For reference, the entire open source operations at Intersect were successfully run by a two-person team for most of its existence. If you’re looking for proof of efficiency, that experience serves as a clear track record. I plan to work collaboratively with key institutions across the Cardano ecosystem, but the core operations must remain deliberately independent to ensure the model’s success and to properly demonstrate proof of execution.Cardano must evolve beyond research, development, and tooling.
This is an area where I have direct expertise and hands-on experience. For those concerned about handing funds to a structure that does not yet exist, everything is already outlined and ready to execute. There are 90 pages of whitepapers, vetted by experts, detailing exactly how this structure will operate. I encourage anyone with questions to review those documents or watch the YouTube explainer.
I have shortened the request to one year specifically to prove the model works in practice. With several ecosystem partners already aligned and the public charity status in progress, this initiative is also expected to generate positive external visibility for Cardano.The model is designed to be decentralized and fully under the control of Cardano’s governance. I will operate strictly within a defined charter, which will be published within one month of proposal approval. The two councils will be established within two months, and the legal entity will be operational within three months.
To prevent manipulation by bad actors, I will retain administrative and financial control of operations during this period. However, the community ultimately owns this role. If governance is unsatisfied with progress, an Info Action can be passed to replace me or shut down the initiative and return any remaining funds.

The administrative costs represent essential operating expenses required to execute the program effectively and responsibly. While we anticipate that a significant portion of this budget may not be fully utilized, it includes built-in safeguards and contingency capacity to address unforeseen needs should they arise. This level of operational funding is proportionate to the scope of work. At its maximum, it supports a lean team of two full-time and two part-time staff, along with necessary tooling, automation development, part-time expert consultation, and legal support. For context, Intersect’s running at $6-7 million opex a year with approximately a 30 person headcount. In comparison, the operational expenses proposed here are modest and well-justified with defined community delivered outcomes.
My reputation in this ecosystem is well-established and can be verified by many. I played a significant role in developing Cardano’s governance framework and in embedding open source practices that have since taken root. My intention is to restore genuine independence and open source stewardship to this work, and to prevent any actor from blocking community-approved allocations that help projects survive — particularly those transitioning to fully open source public goods, where previous programs designed to support them failed due to administrative politics.
Everything I have built is behind this effort to turn the focus back toward unification and sustainable growth. This proposal is designed to both give projects the support they need today and teach them how to sustain themselves long-term.

Four programs: (1) a Maintenance Fund providing long-term retainer funding for the highest-risk infrastructure, selected by dependency data; (2) a Maintainer Development program building structured mentor–mentee pipelines; (3) a CodeForUs bounty program for targeted delivery work; and (4) an Ecosystem Activation Reserve funding contributor entry programs. Selection follows published dependency centrality data, not relationships. Reporting is public and quarterly. All programs carry explicit sunset criteria. The operator is replaceable by community governance.

Total: 4,094,000 ADA over 12 months.

Administrator and Auditor Designation

Article II.7.5 Compliance: The administrator is designated at the point of this submission. Christian Taylor / Open Source Cowboy Consulting is the sole Article II.7.5 administrator effective at the moment of treasury withdrawal. Mill Law Firm serves as independent financial auditor for the full term.

Role	Designation	Effective From
Funds Administrator	Christian Taylor / Open Source Cowboy Consulting	Moment of treasury withdrawal through 12 month period
Financial Auditor	Mill Law Firm (independent)	Month 1 — quarterly cadence through Month 12
External Open Source Advisory Council	Advisory only — allocation feedback published before each disbursement	Constituted by Week 6 (M1.1)
Technical Community Advisory Council	Advisory only — allocation feedback published before each disbursement	Constituted by Week 6 (M1.1)
dOSPO Legal Entity (501(c)(3))	Operational transition target	Month 6 (M1.2, subject to governance)
Oversight	DReps	From insurance, on chain info-action to replace administrator or shut down program.

The advisory councils and the dOSPO legal entity are additional governance and oversight infrastructure. Their formation is a program deliverable, not a precondition for the administrator to exist or act. At the moment of treasury withdrawal, all funding authority rests with Christian Taylor / Open Source Cowboy Consulting. No disbursements are made unilaterally — each allocation is preceded by a published record of advisory council feedback — but final allocation authority resides with the designated administrator.

Cardano has grown into a large-scale public infrastructure, yet the operational systems needed to keep that infrastructure healthy and sustainable have not kept pace. Critical tooling, libraries, governance tools, developer infrastructure, and ecosystem services continue to rely on fragmented coordination, volunteer effort, short-term grants, or the stability of individual organizations.This proposal introduces a decentralized Open Source Program Office (dOSPO) together with an Open Maintenance Framework (OMF).

The goal is to create a neutral, dedicated operational layer responsible for coordinating and sustaining Cardano’s open source infrastructure as a long-term public good. This is not an attempt to replace governance or concentrate power. Instead, it is designed to execute governance decisions in a consistent, transparent, and accountable way.

This approach builds directly on lessons from the Paid Open Source Model (POSM). Programs such as Maintainer Retainer, Tooling Sustainability, and Developer Advocates showed strong demand for ongoing maintenance funding and operational support. However, they also revealed clear limitations in how existing structures can deliver that support reliably over time.The dOSPO and OMF model is the next step.

Governance retains full oversight and direction, while the dOSPO provides the focused operational capacity needed to carry out sustainability mandates effectively and without constant political friction.

Track Record

I am the Founder and Chief Open Source Officer of Open Source Cowboy Consulting. I previously served as Senior Manager of Open Source Governance and Head of OSPO at Intersect, where I built the open source governance function for the Cardano ecosystem from the ground up. This included designing the OSPO, creating contribution governance frameworks, developing the initial maintainer support model, and shaping the ecosystem-wide policy that led to the Paid Open Source Model.Open Source Cowboy Consulting operates independently of IOG, the Cardano Foundation, and EMURGO, with no contractual ties to any of the founding entities. The OMF and dOSPO whitepapers (March 2026) are the direct result of this work. They were developed in collaboration with experts from Bitergia, CHAOSS, the Apache Software Foundation, Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust, Intersect, Andamio Platform, Modus Create, Leadingbit Solutions, and the Chinstrap Community.

Verifiable history: github.com/thatguyllc | opensourcecowboy.com | OMF v1.0 | dOSPO v1.0

SECTION 2 — Vision Alignment

Strategic Pillars

• Pillar 1: Infrastructure & Research Excellence

• Pillar 4: Community & Ecosystem Growth

• Pillar 5: Ecosystem Sustainability & Resilience

Pillar 1 — Infrastructure and Research Excellence

Cardano's security and reliability depend entirely on the open source infrastructure beneath it. Protocol clients, cryptographic libraries, wallet SDKs, developer tooling, and indexers are not peripheral — they are what makes Cardano function. Harvard's D3 Institute (2024) found 96% of commercial codebases depend on OSS with fewer than 10 contributors. The Linux Foundation (2023) found vulnerabilities in a small number of high-centrality projects can cause massive global disruption. dOSPO/OMF establishes the first systematic, data-driven program to identify, prioritise, and sustain the infrastructure Cardano's security depends on.

Pillar 4 — Community and Ecosystem Growth

Long-term ecosystem health depends on growing the contributor pool. Tidelift (2024) found 60% of maintainers work unpaid and 59% have considered quitting. The Contributor Pathway program establishes structured mentorship pipelines modelled on CNCF's LFX Mentorship, which produced 25 new maintainers since 2020. On-chain attestation against Cardano Stake Keys connects completions to the Builder Profile architecture, creating verifiable portable credentials.

Pillar 5 — Ecosystem Sustainability and Resilience

Sustainability requires operational architecture, not just funding availability. Cardano has treasury capacity and community governance. What it lacks is the layer that translates governance decisions into sustained, accountable maintenance programs. dOSPO/OMF provides that layer. The two-council advisory structure — with public feedback records, evidence-based renewal, and administrator replaceability via on-chain DRep Info Action — ensures the program itself cannot become a sustainability risk through institutional capture.

KPI Alignment

Critical dependencies with active funding: 15+ high-centrality projects funded by end of Month 12. Ecosystem health metrics: CHAOSS-aligned quarterly reports tracking maintainer attrition, bus factor, contributor conversion rates, and vulnerability response times. Reduction in single-maintainer infrastructure: bus factor 2+ for all top-20 centrality projects targeted by end of program term.

KPI	Target	Measurement
Dependency Centrality Coverage Rate	40% top-50 dependencies funded by Month 12	Quarterly portfolio review
Contributor Conversion Rate	5% minimum Trusted Committer within 18 months	On-chain attestation records
Maintainer Attrition Rate	Below 15% annually	CHAOSS dashboard
Security Response Time	Under 48 hours (disclosure to assessment)	Incident logs
Transparency Rate	100% (4 of 4 quarterly reports)	On-chain publication

SECTION 3 — PROPOSER

Field	Details
Display Name	Christian Taylor / Open Source Cowboy Consulting
Website	opensourcecowboy.com
GitHub	github.com/thatguyllc
LinkedIn	linkedin.com/in/christian-taylor-766b01b1
X	@deopensourceguy
Contact Email	ct@opensourcecowboy.com

SECTION 4 — PROPOSAL DETAILS

ADA / USD Rate

Not applicable. Funds will only be withdrawn at ADA values; conversions may happen at administrator discretion.

Work Package 1 — Operations and Governance Infrastructure

Administrator clarity: WP1 does not create the Article II.7.5 administrator — that role is filled by Christian Taylor / Open Source Cowboy Consulting at withdrawal. WP1 constitutes the advisory councils and with most ops transitioning to the dOSPO public charity. Both are additive governance improvements, not preconditions for fund administration.

Description

WP1 covers the institutional infrastructure that makes all other work packages possible. Four components run in parallel from Month 1:

• Standing up the dOSPO operational team and program management systems

• Constituting two independent advisory councils — which will formally record their feedback before any WP2-WP5 disbursement is made, providing a transparent advisory record without conditioning administrator authority

• Forming a dedicated dOSPO legal entity — structured as a 501(c)(3) public charity in the United States — by Month 6 or much earlier, (subject to US legal processes), transitioning operational accountability from Open Source Cowboy Consulting to an independent governance entity.

• Establishing the quarterly public reporting cadence that keeps governance accountable to DReps for the full 12-month term.

Advisory Council Role — Constitutional Clarification

The advisory councils are not the Article II.7.5 administrator and are not required to exist before the administrator can act. Their role is advisory: before any program disbursement is made, the relevant council's written feedback is published on-chain. The administrator — Christian Taylor / Open Source Cowboy Consulting — then makes the allocation decision within published parameters. This structure provides full transparency and community accountability without creating constitutional ambiguity about who holds administrator responsibility at withdrawal.

Milestones — WP1

Milestone	Deliverable	Acceptance Criteria	Weeks
M1.1 — Council Constitution	Both councils chartered; members named; COI policies signed; first meeting held. Advisory status confirmed in charters.	Both charters published on-chain. Zero founding entity employees. First meeting minutes within 72 hours. Charters explicitly state advisory (not administrator) role.	6
M1.2 — dOSPO Entity Formation	Legal entity constituted as 501(c)(3) public charity; governance documents published; operator agreement executed.	Registration confirmed. Documents published on-chain. Agreement executed. Upon formation, either or both advisory councils may recommend an administrator transition to the dOSPO entity; any such recommendation is advisory only and takes effect only if DReps pass an on-chain Info Action approving it.	24
M1.3 — Quarterly Reports	Quarterly outcome reports for all active programs published on-chain throughout the term.	Reports published within 14 days of each quarter end. All active programs covered. Mill Law Firm financial review attached.	13, 26, 39, 52

Budget — WP1

Category	Description	Total (ADA)
Staffing	Head of dOSPO / Director of Operations; Program Manager; Contract Support; Community Manager; Part-time Legal Support	500,000
Operational Costs	Infrastructure, tooling, compliance, and administrative overhead — full 12-month term	160,000
Advisory Councils	External Open Source Advisory Council and Technical Community Advisory Council — 1,000 ADA per member per month	100,000
TOTAL WP1		760,000 ADA

Work Package 2 — Maintenance Fund

Description

WP2 is the core sustainment program, deploying 2,000,000 ADA over 12 months to provide long-term, continuity-oriented funding for Cardano's highest-risk open source infrastructure: protocol libraries, wallet SDKs, developer tooling, indexers, and shared CI infrastructure.

It opens with a full dependency audit in Months 1-3: scanning the full Cardano OSS stack, generating SBOMs in SPDX/CycloneDX format, scoring dependency centrality and bus factors, and publishing a coverage gap analysis. All retainer selection follows a published priority formula approved by the External Open Source Advisory Council before any project is selected. The administrator publishes the council's written feedback before any disbursement. This also includes COSS resource consultation to enhance self-sustainability exits post program.

Three retainer tiers:

• Tier 1 (centrality 70+, bus factor 1-2): 10 projects at 80,000-120,000 ADA/yr

• Tier 2 (centrality 40-70, bus factor 2-3): 6-8 projects at 40,000-70,000 ADA/yr

• Tier 3 (centrality below 40): up to 8 projects at 20,000-40,000 ADA/yr

A 175,000 ADA portfolio reserve funds mid-cycle additions and is returned to the treasury if undeployed.

Milestones — WP2

Milestone	Deliverable	Acceptance Criteria	Weeks
M2.1 — Dependency Audit	Full dependency map; SBOMs; centrality scores; bus factor assessments; coverage gap analysis. Retainer selection rubric approved by External OSA Council.	Audit reproducible and community-verifiable. Top-20 risk projects identified. Rubric published before any selection.	12
M2.2 — First Retainer Cohort	Published selection results with rubric scores; signed agreements; first disbursements on-chain. Advisory council feedback published on-chain before disbursement.	Results published with centrality scores. Rubric application auditable. Advisory record published.	18
M2.3 — Health Dashboard Live	Public CHAOSS-aligned dashboard tracking all funded projects.	Accessible at permanent URL. Metrics live. Quarterly update cadence confirmed.	16
M2.4 — End-of-Term Portfolio Review	Portfolio performance assessed against published centrality data; recommendations for continuation published.	Review published with rationale. Mill Law Firm financial audit attached. Published within 14 days of term end.	52

Budget — WP2

Category	Description	Total (ADA)
Retainer — Tier 1	Avg 10 projects at 100,000 ADA/yr (centrality 70+, bus factor 1-2)	1,000,000
Retainer — Tier 2	Avg 7 projects at 55,000 ADA/yr (centrality 40-70)	385,000
Retainer — Tier 3	8 projects at 30,000 ADA/yr (centrality below 40)	240,000
Portfolio Reserve	Mid-cycle additions; returned to treasury if undeployed	175,000
Data Hosting Services	Dependency audit (Month 1-3); CHAOSS dashboard build and hosting	100,000
Tooling / COSS Resources	Infra Costs, COSS resource / workshops	100,000
TOTAL WP2		2,000,000 ADA

Work Package 3 — Maintainer Development Program

WP3 establishes structured mentor-mentee pipelines within the Cardano ecosystem, retaining experienced maintainers as compensated mentors while building the next generation of contributors. Track structure is determined by the WP2 dependency audit. Both tracks use a four-stage contribution ladder (New Contributor → Committer → Trusted Committer → Core Maintainer). All completions are recorded as on-chain attestations against Cardano Stake Keys.

Budget — WP3

Category	Description	Total (ADA)
Participant Stipends — Core Track	1 cohort, avg 9 participants, 6 months at avg 17,500 ADA	280,000
Participant Stipends — Tooling Track	1 cohort, avg 12 participants, 4 months at avg 10,000 ADA	253,000
Mentor Compensation	Both tracks, all cohorts at 5,000 ADA/mentor/cohort	67,000
Technology	Contribution ladder tooling, on-chain attestation system	67,000
Program Reserve	Additional cohort capacity; succession pipeline expansion	333,000
TOTAL WP3		1,000,000 ADA

Work Package 4 — CodeForUs Bounty Program

WP4 provides delivery-oriented funding for discrete maintenance and development work: security remediations, dependency updates, documentation, test coverage, and critical feature requests. Contributors are rewarded upon successful merge with a 30-day post-integration monitoring period before final payment. Two streams: a standing bounty pool (individual bounties capped at 30,000 ADA) and a tooling sustainability stream for shared infrastructure.

Budget — WP4

Category	Description	Total (ADA)
Bounty Awards	Standing bounty pool — open competition, merged and verified before payment	125,000
Tooling Sustainability	Shared infrastructure with no per-project grant applicant	42,000
TOTAL WP4		167,000 ADA

Work Package 5 — Ecosystem Activation Reserve

WP5 funds programs that recruit new contributors and direct them toward Cardano's infrastructure needs: a Cardano Summer of Code (modelled on Google Summer of Code), targeted hackathons focused on gaps identified in the WP2 dependency audit, and developer activation events. These programs are the top-of-funnel for WP3. These are as needed for GTM strategy and gap filling, events are meant to be virtual in most cases, and lost cost- high ROI.

Budget — WP5

Category	Description	Total (ADA)
Stipends	Cardano Summer of Code — 1 cycle x avg 10 participants x avg 5,000 ADA	50,000
Events	Hackathons — 2 events at avg 20,000 ADA (prizes and logistics)	40,000
Operations	Program coordination, marketing, participant management	33,000
Reserve	Additional activation opportunities; undeployed reserve returned to treasury	44,000
TOTAL WP5		167,000 ADA

Full Program Budget Summary

Work Package	12-Month Total (ADA)
WP1 — Operations and Governance Infrastructure	760,000
WP2 — Maintenance Fund	2,000,000
WP3 — Maintainer Development Program	1,000,000
WP4 — CodeForUs Bounty Program	167,000
WP5 — Ecosystem Activation Reserve	167,000
TOTAL	4,094,000 ADA

SECTION 5 — BUDGET SUMMARY

Treasury Repayment

Yes. The 175,000 ADA portfolio reserve within WP2 is returned at program end if undeployed. The 44,000 ADA activation reserve within WP5 is also returned if undeployed. Unspent operational contingency is returned. Treasury repayment is a hard commitment.

Repayment Conditions

• Portfolio Reserve (175,000 ADA): returned at program end if annual audit refreshes do not identify new critical projects.

• Operational Contingency (100,000 ADA): returned at program end following final Mill Law Firm audit.

• Early termination: all uncommitted funds returned within 30 days of a successful on-chain DRep Info Action replacing or removing the administrator.

• M1.2 non-achievement: if dOSPO entity formation is not completed by Month 6, the portfolio reserve is frozen until the milestone is achieved or governance votes on an alternative. This does not affect administrator authority under Article II.7.5.

Prior Cardano Ecosystem Funding

For transparency: this proposal is informed by lessons learned from the OSC Paid Open Source Model, which received Cardano ecosystem treasury funding through the Open Source Committee, which went to INtersect MBO directly, not directly to Christian Taylor personally or nor did he receive any allocation of that treasury funding directly or indirectly. This new budget is intended to replace and evolve that prior work through a more decentralized structure.

SECTION 6 — BUDGET ADMINISTRATION

Administrator Designation — Article II.7.5

This section directly addresses the constitutional requirement under Article II.7.5. The administrator is named, unconditional, and operational at withdrawal.

Christian Taylor / Open Source Cowboy Consulting is the designated Article II.7.5 administrator from the moment of treasury withdrawal through the full 12-month pilot term, unless replaced by an on-chain DRep Info Action. This designation is:

• Unconditional — not contingent on council formation, legal entity formation, or any other future deliverable

• Sole at withdrawal — no other body or entity shares administrator responsibility at the point funds are released

• Bounded — all allocation decisions are made within published council-advised parameters; no unilateral decisions outside those parameters

• Transparent — advisory council written feedback is published on-chain before each disbursement; Mill Law Firm publishes quarterly financial reviews

• Replaceable by DReps at any time — DReps may pass an on-chain Info Action to replace the administrator at any time and for any reason or even to sunset this program at any time.

Month 1-6: Open Source Cowboy Consulting

Christian Taylor through Open Source Cowboy Consulting serves as sole administrator. All allocation decisions are made within council-advised parameters and preceded by a published record of advisory council feedback. Mill Law Firm conducts the Month 3 quarterly financial review.

Month 7 onward: Transition Option

Once the dOSPO legal entity is formed (Milestone M1.2), either or both advisory councils may formally recommend to the Cardano community that the administrator role be transitioned from Open Source Cowboy Consulting to the dOSPO entity. That recommendation is advisory only: it carries no binding effect and does not trigger any transfer of authority on its own. The transition becomes effective only if DReps pass an on-chain Info Action approving it. Until such an Info Action passes, Open Source Cowboy Consulting remains the sole Article II.7.5 administrator regardless of any council recommendation. Separately and independently of any council action, DReps may replace the administrator at any time and for any reason by passing an on-chain Info Action — no council recommendation is required for that route.

Financial Auditor — Mill Law Firm

Mill Law Firm serves as independent financial auditor for the full 12-month term. Scope of work:

• Quarterly financial reviews of all treasury withdrawals and program disbursements

• Annual program audit with findings published publicly within 30 days

• Review of all on-chain disbursement records against approved allocation parameters

• Audit reports attached to each quarterly outcome report published on-chain

Program Oversight Structure

Body	Members	Composition	Authority	Cadence
External Open Source Advisory Council	Max 7	External OS experts. Min 3 non-Cardano OS experience.	Advisory — feedback published on-chain before each retainer/portfolio disbursement. No veto authority.	Monthly
Technical Community Advisory Council	Max 7	Cardano technical contributors, community reps, min 1 SPO. DReps eligible for community seats.	Advisory — feedback published on-chain before each technical disbursement. No veto authority.	Monthly
Program Administrator	1	Christian Taylor / Open Source Cowboy Consulting	Sole Article II.7.5 administrator. Final allocation authority within published parameters.	Ongoing
Financial Auditor	—	Mill Law Firm (independent)	Quarterly financial review; annual audit. Reports published publicly.	Quarterly
On-Chain Governance	DReps	Cardano governance participants	Administrator replacement or sunset program at any time via on-chain Info Action	As required

Four-Layer Assurance Structure

• Financial Audit — Mill Law Firm conducts quarterly financial reviews and annual program audits. All reports published publicly within 30 days.

• Program Effectiveness Audit — annual independent assessment against all published KPIs by a party independent of the administrator and both councils. Reports published on-chain.

• On-Chain Transparency — all treasury withdrawals, disbursements, and major decisions publicly verifiable by any ADA holder.

• Advisory Council Oversight — both councils provide written feedback before each disbursement, published on-chain. Either council can request a special audit by majority vote; the administrator is required to respond within 14 days.

SUPPORTING REFERENCES

Open Maintenance Framework (OMF) v1.0 — March 2026 — opensourcecowboy.com

Decentralized Open Source Program Office (dOSPO) v1.0 — March 2026 — opensourcecowboy.com

CHAOSS Community Health Analytics Framework — chaoss.community/metrics

Harvard D3 Institute: The Value of Open Source Software — Hoffman, Nagle and Zhou, 2024

Linux Foundation: Open Source Maintainers Report 2023

Tidelift State of the Open Source Maintainer Report 2024

CNCF Mentorship Flywheel — 2025

Protocol Guild Documentation — 2023-2025 — protocol-guild.readthedocs.io

OpenSSF: Why Open Source is Infrastructure — 2023

Cardano Constitution — Article II.7.5 — cardano.org/constitution