🏛️ Decentralize SDF specification explainer

[JFWooten4]

What problem does your feature solve?

Many Docs pages reference the SDF, which receives only a Glossary entry at most.

While a number of other blockchain networks employ foundations with varying levels of control over the network, Stellar seems unique due to its lack of mining. 🌐

In this light, might it help to clarify for new users the difference between Stellar and the SDF more explicitly?

What would you like to see?

A standalone page extending the small footnote detailing the history of the SDF from early SF startup days to global changemaker status. 🤝🏾

As much transparency around operations as might be prudent and not already available on public sites (which could be helpfully linked).

An explicit detailing of the SDF's role in Tier 1 operations and the communication methods used between its trusted validators.

What alternatives are there? 🔍

We could leave this documentation scarce and vague, opening the door for legal structural scrutiny.

While this is an easier option, I respectfully submit that further community-centric development explainers might best serve ongoing decentralization efforts. 💡

Alternatively, we might create a separate site hosting internal publications and such, as presently shared by certain core devs through their personal blogs and such.

[briwylde08]

Heya @JFWooten4! While this is interesting, I'm not sure it belongs in the developer docs. Happy to continue the discussion but we hope to keep the docs as straightforward as possible for developing on Stellar!

[JFWooten4]

Hi @briwylde08! Thanks for all the recent cleanups, getting the action items for the docs in order recently! I appreciate the focus on developer transparency and activity throughout. Nothing more punctual or centered than explaining important development concepts.

That said, there is a relative lack of an official organizational activity timeline, especially related to blockchain operations. It's my current understanding that the majority of operational disclosures exist in a scant few blog posts over the last ten+ years. Might a singular archival page explaining some of these important ongoing facts best serve the community?

As it stands, there is effectively no definitive source to visit when it comes to the exact operative roles of the SDF. This concerns me given the relative centralization of key data points on ongoing functions implicated in the response here. Could a simple page¹ help act as an authoritative source?

The present alternatives rely on either extensive work parsing through block explorers or relying on secondhand summaries from non-SDF or community-audited public sites. This just makes it challenging for outside scrutiny, which I'll argue matters greatly given our present distribution status of the remaining lumens.

Footnotes

1. Either in an archive or standalone page (should be the simplest to implement) or perhaps in the SCF docs. I asked @ankeliu if we were open-sourcing that site last Structure meeting, and everything seemed to be rolling along to get that achieved. Notwithstanding, grants are such a small (but innovative and impactful!) part of ongoing operations between the hundreds of employees, that again more of that core data likely needs retrieval. ↩

[briwylde08]

@JFWooten4 Hi! Just want you to know that we're not ignoring you, just at a team offsite and it's been super busy. Will respond to everything when we're back!