SPP Service/R&D Split

TL;DR The temp check itself states that once SPP3 concludes, SPP in its current form will be absorbed into the Foundation's larger Grants program — but doesn't specify the funding architecture that absorption should use. This amendment fills that gap: the Service Provider Program has never cleanly separated "meaningful ongoing service delivery" from "exploratory R&D," and both get funded and evaluated as if they were the same thing. This amendment specifies the funding architecture the absorbed Grants program should use: a Service Pool that funds only committed, accountable service delivery, and a separate R&D Pool — its own DAO-ratified annual tranche with its own quarterly caps — for exploratory work, plus a published graduation path so R&D work that proves out can convert into Service Pool funding instead of sitting in permanent ambiguity. PROBLEM / DIAGNOSIS SPP1 through SPP3 have never drawn a hard line between service provision and research/exploration. SPP3 made real progress — some providers were selected specifically because they deliver ongoing services — but funded activities still included clearly R&D-flavored work evaluated against service-provider expectations it was never designed to meet. The cost of this conflation isn't hypothetical. An independent delivery audit against the SPP2/SPP3 commitment record checked 251 of 513 tracked commitments so far and found a 37% delivery rate among the items checked, with 96 instances of unsanctioned scope creep — work substituted or expanded well outside what was originally funded, without going back to the DAO for approval. Some of that gap is ordinary execution slippage. A meaningful share of it is structural: when "service" and "R&D" share one funding channel, there's no clean way to hold a provider to a service-level commitment, because the categories that should define what "delivered" even means were never separated in the first place. There's a second-order problem this creates: contributors doing genuinely valuable exploratory work have no defined path to become an accountable, ongoing service provider. Right now that transition happens informally, if at all, which pushes people to either dress R&D up as a service commitment to get funded through SPP, or stay permanently outside the program regardless of track record. PROPOSED MECHANISM 1. Two pools, one Foundation-administered Grants program, hard definitional line. The absorbed Grants program splits into a Service Pool (ongoing, contracted, accountable service delivery — the kind of work SPP was originally meant to fund) and an R&D Pool (exploratory, experimental, no fixed deliverable). A submission is scoped into one pool or the other before funding, not reclassified after the fact. 2. R&D Pool gets its own DAO-ratified annual tranche. Not a discretionary carve-out inside SPP's existing budget — a separate annual allocation with its own quarterly caps, released and renewed the same way any tranched treasury allocation would be. This gives exploratory work a legitimate, bounded home instead of forcing it to compete for service-shaped funding it was never built for. 3. Service Pool funds only what can be held to a service-level commitment. Defined deliverables, defined cadence, defined accountability — the same standard a delivery audit could actually score. Work that can't be specified to that level goes to the R&D Pool, full stop. 4. A published graduation path from R&D to Service. R&D Pool work (or an anonymous/pseudonymous contributor's track record) that demonstrates real, repeatable delivery gets a defined, public process to apply for Service Pool status — removing the ambiguity that currently exists around whether a given piece of work is a one-off experiment or the start of an ongoing commitment. This is the mechanism that makes the R&D/Service split livable instead of just a harder wall. 5. Quarterly caps and pre-ratified category rules for both pools. The DAO ratifies, in advance, what kinds of activity each pool can fund and at what ceiling per quarter — so scope disputes get resolved against a pre-agreed rule instead of case-by-case after the money is already committed. WHY AMEND RATHER THAN LEAVE AS WRITTEN The temp check's own case for the Foundation rests partly on there being no real accountability mechanism for grant recipients today. That's correct — but it's a description of SPP's current state, not a property that disappears once the Foundation takes over the same undifferentiated funding pool. Without this split, the Foundation inherits the exact conflation that produced the 37%/96-scope-creep numbers, just with a more efficient signature on the checks. Splitting Service from R&D doesn't slow the Foundation down — it gives the Foundation's own delivery accountability something concrete to measure against, which is the accountability story the temp check needs in order to hold up. GUARDRAILS, RED-LINES, REVERSIBILITY Service Pool and R&D Pool are separately capped and separately reported — no cross-subsidizing one from the other's headroom. Category rules for each pool are DAO-ratified before the first quarter, not written by the Foundation after funds are committed. The graduation path is a published process with defined criteria, not a discretionary Foundation decision — so contributors can plan against it. Existing SPP3-selected providers already delivering services are grandfathered into the Service Pool without re-application; this amendment governs how new and R&D-track work is classified going forward. OPEN QUESTIONS THIS AMENDMENT ANSWERS 1. Does the Foundation's grants operation need a delivery-accountability mechanism, and what does it measure against? A hard Service/R&D split, so "delivered" has an actual, auditable definition. 2. What happens to exploratory work that doesn't fit a service contract? A dedicated, annually-tranched, quarterly-capped R&D Pool, instead of forcing it through service-shaped funding. 3. How does a contributor go from unproven to accountable service provider? A published graduation path from R&D Pool track record to Service Pool status — replacing today's ambiguity with a defined process. Remaining open for the DAO to size with its own data: exact R&D Pool size relative to the Service Pool, and the minimum track-record bar for graduation. THE ASK This is submitted as an amendment to the temp check's own clause absorbing SPP into the Foundation's Grants program — specifying the funding architecture that absorption should use, not a competing proposal to the Foundation's formation. The ask is for the Service/R&D split, the R&D Pool's annual tranche structure, and the graduation path to be written into that absorption clause before it takes effect.