Jumping in to provide my two cents as I go through all the proposals.
I’ll start by saying that, like @DisruptionJoe, I feel a deep affinity with & love for KERNEL. I, too, believe education is THE fundamental public good - and I’ve seen & experienced firsthand the learning, the connection, the beauty, and the safe space that KERNEL brings to the Web3 ecosystem at large.
I would love for the DAO and KERNEL to explore means of mutual collaboration, and would even be open to exploring the idea of the DAO Treasury generously providing some funding to KERNEL.
That said, I really don’t think a DAO workstream is the right structure for a relationship between the DAO and KERNEL.
Why’s that?
-
KERNEL is already becoming its own entity
With KERNEL becoming an established entity having its own completely separate governance structure, I don’t think it makes sense for it to also be a DAO workstream. This, too, is why I am voting ‘no’ to the mintkudos.xyz proposal. As I mentioned there, all current GitcoinDAO workstreams are teams that are dedicated to the DAO at-large - rather than having the DAO as just one of many affiliations. KERNEL or mintkudos.xyz becoming their own workstreams would bring about a set of new considerations/challenges that I don’t think we are prepared to prioritize facing right now. -
I do not see it serving the Protocol DAO mission
While KERNEL is consistent with the ‘learn’ mandate within Gitcoin’s previous earn/learn/connect/fund framing, as we move intentionally towards being a Protocol DAO, I do not see a strategic fit in the context of the workstreams we are standing up in service of that mission.
(As an aside, a thought for CSDO & DAO governance consideration, generally speaking - together, this proposal and the mintkudos.xyz proposal make me question whether we might create other avenues for such requests that are not workstream formations.)
Although I plan to vote ‘no’ on this proposal for KERNEL to become a workstream, I want to reiterate my love for & support of the program. I do earnestly hope we can establish another flavour of relationship that can support KERNEL in its worthy ambitions.