Decentralized protocols need governance systems that can make decisions about protocol evolution, moderation, design, and other topics. The purpose of this document is to review how existing projects govern themselves. As all the protocols and applications covered are open source, we will look into general open source governance as well.
ActivityPub was developed by the Social Web Working Group (SWWG), which ran 2014-2018, and culminated in the recommendation of a set of social protocols including ActivityPub. It has reached W3C recommendation status, and is currently stewarded by the W3C.
Matrix was [initially developed within Amdocs](<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_(protocol)>) by developers building a chat tool. Amdocs funded development from 2014-2017. In 2017, the core developers started a company, [New Vector](https://vector.im/), which now drives development. The Matrix protocol and specification is stewarded by the [Matrix.org Foundation](https://matrix.org/media/2019-06-10%20-%20Matrix.org%20Foundation%20CIC%20Rules.pdf). There is an annual vote of confidence in the project lead.
Most blockchain protocols, like other open source projects, operate through rough consensus, guided by companies and foundations that direct resources towards development. Bitcoin has a [lead maintainer](https://blog.lopp.net/who-controls-bitcoin-core-/), who has oversight over all aspects of the project and coordinates releases. The role has been voluntarily passed along through the years. Companies such as [Chaincode Labs](https://chaincode.com/) and [Square Crypto](https://medium.com/@squarecrypto/what-were-building-lightning-development-kit-1ed58b0cab06) contribute to funding protocol development.
A few projects have experimented with on-chain governance, in which funding and decision-making is executed in a decentralized manner linked to the blockchain itself. Dash allows masternodes to cast votes for how to [allocate a "treasury"](https://www.dash.org/2017/09/07/dashdecentral/), consisting of ten percent of the block awards, to pay for projects that benefit Dash. Decred has a similar treasury allocation process, and uses a [blockchain-anchored proposal system](https://decred.org/adaptability/) to submit and vote on proposals.
[How the Node.js Foundation Utilizes Participatory Governance to Build Its Community](https://thenewstack.io/node-js-foundation-utilizing-participatory-governance-models/) - more about opening commit rights to the repo earlier and more quickly?
[Roads and Bridges](https://www.fordfoundation.org/work/learning/research-reports/roads-and-bridges-the-unseen-labor-behind-our-digital-infrastructure/)
