Decide on governance

[liamsi]

Summary

Currently, we stripped the gov module entirely from celestia-app. We should decide on the gov mechanism if any.

Problem Definition

There is no way to vote on (parameter) changes currently.

Proposal

@musalbas proposed to only have signalling text governance proposals on chain.

The upgrade path must be clearly defined for various scenarios and what role governance should play in this if any.
E.g. should coin holders vote on a block size increase? On upgrading to a new software release? On other params? Only on non-binding signalling text proposals?

Action Items

• Decide on if we want any governance in the sense of "coin-voting" at all
• Decide on what kind of proposals governance can vote
• Summarize findings and decision in a brief ADR
• then: implement changes in app
• add a more fine-grained document about various upgrade-paths including what can be voted on but also beyond what is covered by governance

Related:

• https://www.figment.io/resources/cosmos-parameter-change-documentation, https://github.com/gavinly/CosmosParametersWiki/blob/master/param_index.md
• Define upgrade and fork activation mechanism celestia-specs#128
• upgrades: understand impact and gather requirements celestia-specs#171
• some SDK discussions and issues to keep an eye on:
  • x/gov and x/group alignment cosmos/cosmos-sdk#9066
  • Deprecate x/params cosmos/cosmos-sdk#9913
  • https://linktr.ee/cosmos_gov
• code that (currently) handles text proposals: https://github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk/blob/5725659684fc93790a63981c653feee33ecf3225/x/gov/types/proposal.go#L249-L253, code that (currently) handles param changes: https://github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk/blob/58a6c4c00771e766f37f0f8e50adbbfe0bc7362d/x/params/proposal_handler.go#L26

[liamsi]

The decision for now:

• we will add back the full governance module for the next testnet (Add back the governance module #272)
• if we want to limit anything we should figure this out between testnet and mainnet

IMHO, we should simply use the full governance module at launch. If we ever want to move away from signalling/coin-voting, there either needs to be a governance proposal to do that, or, a coordinated hard-fork. cc @musalbas @adlerjohn

[adlerjohn]

Sounds good