Technical Steering Committee Review:

The TSC provides the following advice as a brief summary to aid the DReps and community in forming a budget proposal. A proper evaluation would take significantly longer than the time available: the TSC anticipates that such a review will be necessary prior to agreeing any contracts. This may, for example, involve determining milestones and timelines, where these are necessary or otherwise revising the original proposal.

Overview:

This represents a compendium of 11 projects by one provider. Two projects align with clear needs. Others fill apparently sensible niches, but these need community or technical validation before serious work is commenced. Overall value for money depends on how successful each project is, and on how useful the work is.

Recommendation:

Break the proposal into individual sub-projects, which can be considered independently. Evaluate the need/demand for each sub-project. Determine all dependencies where these are unclear. Clearly identify efforts by sub-contractors, where these are needed, and confirm that necessary effort is available. Confirm the demand for work with Technical Working Groups or other users as appropriate. Clearly identify start and end SRLs for each project.

Detailed Comments:

The Tweag proposal covers $7.3M of spend at a rate of $332,160 per developer year (FTE), for a total of approximately 22 developer years of effort over an unspecified period (at least 10 months). The proposal covers part of one core roadmap item (Ouroboros Peras), one core maintenance item (Cardano node emulator), plus 9 additional sub-projects. Each of these projects is standalone and can be considered independently. The proposal uses a fixed price per milestone approach. Some gating is possible. SRLs are not clearly identified, but information is generally provided that allows goals to be judged.

Peras. The Peras sub-project covers part of the work that is needed to develop Peras, at about SRL 5-6 (initial implementation). Further work is needed to complete and deploy the solution. The proposal identifies three milestones, but doesn’t give timelines for completion. There is an unstated dependency on the Cardano network team. The work considers only “pre-alpha” Peras rather than “alpha” Peras, which is less susceptible to cooldowns, but which is still in a research stage.

Conditionally YES

The contents of the proposal should be rationally broken down, DRep should vote on each item, and the results should be reflected in the proposal. Please have the TSC review and make any overlap adjustments. In order to keep the total expenditure for 2025 within 200M, please separate items that can be spent in 2026 into items that can be spent without any problems and items that should be spent by December 2025.

From a workshop, the North American Community Hub summarized feedback on TWEAG’s proposal.

The group did not reach a clear consensus on approving or rejecting Proposal 205 for Core budget funding.

Participants were divided, with some supporting TWEAG’s strong reputation, thorough documentation, and alignment with Core needs, while others raised concerns about the steep cost, excessive scope, unclear distinction between core and value-add components, and questions about past IOG funding.

The lack of transparency on previous contracts and the high price tag ($27,000/month per FTE) fueled reluctance, with some questioning whether the proposal duplicates existing work.

While there’s cautious support due to TWEAG’s expertise, the group remains unsure, recommending further clarification on scope, costs, and funding history before a Core budget commitment.

While we acknowledge that TWEAK has demonstrated the capability in the past to execute this proposal, and that the proposal aligns with Cardano's roadmap and, according to our experts, is technically feasible, we note a significant degree of overlap with initiatives led by IOG and the Technical Steering Committee (TSC).

Our recommendation is therefore contingent upon TWEAK's participation in a reconciliation workshop to address these overlaps. Cardano's treasury—and its delegated representatives (dReps)—should not be expected to fund substantially similar proposals multiple times.

In conclusion, recognizing the past vendor relationship between IOG and TWEAK, we believe there is potential for a point of alignment and collaboration.

TWEAG's proposal aligns with the objectives of Cardano's 2025 budget, offering particular value through strengthening technical foundations, promoting decentralization, and providing clearly defined deliverables. However, the role division with IOG and potential overlaps with other proposals should be resolved through TSC review and proposal coordination workshops. With proper oversight and accountability mechanisms in place, this proposal appears to hold a justified position within the budget.

It seems to me that this proposal has some similarities to items already included in the IOG's “2025 Core Engineering Proposal” and TSC's “Cardano Maintenance and Roadmap Delivery Proposal” as well. Could you please explain how you envision coordinating and assigning roles for these items so that there is no overlap or conflict with the IOG and TSC proposals?

Also, if the TSC proposal were to be approved, it is assumed that the relevant areas would proceed under open bidding and centralized management, and we would like to ask about the background and reasons why Tweag is making these proposals independently.

Please let us know if these proposals are submitted on the assumption that they may be adopted in parallel with other proposals, and if there is any consistency and coordination system in place.

Cardano's technological development is evolving from a centralized model to a more decentralized one where multiple specialized organizations coordinate while making their own unique proposals and contributions. This represents an important step in applying the fundamental blockchain principle of "decentralization" to project management itself. TWEAG's proposal serves as a significant example within this new model, with great potential to contribute substantially to Cardano's future technological development. Simultaneously, as community governance matures, the collaborative relationships between IOG, TWEAG, and other technical contributors are expected to evolve further. While all the proposed technical elements are important, this proposal represents a new stage in the relationship between IOG and TWEAG, coming from separate positions. Could you elaborate on how IOG and TWEAG will collaborate to evolve and expand Cardano's critical core technology? I'm also concerned about potential development overlaps.

I'm not sure why subcontractors from IOG are proposing their own budgets? I would assume those things would be covered by the IOG budget?

Are there any Cardano Budget proposals whose scope may currently overlap with this proposal (especially TSC)?

Thank you I will wait for TSC's review before voting.