Re: [gentoo-project] rfc: council members and appeals

[Alec Warner <antarus@gentoo.org>]

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On Tue, Feb 13, 2018 at 12:02 AM, M. J. Everitt <m.j.everitt@iee.org> wrote:

> On 13/02/18 04:58, Dean Stephens wrote:
> > On 02/12/18 11:55, William Hubbs wrote:
> >> Hi Daniel,
> >>
> >> On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 08:53:24AM -0700, Daniel Robbins wrote:
> >>> How about if they just abstain from any votes where there may be a
> conflict
> >>> of interest? I would hate to limit the ability of people to contribute
> >>> technically just because they were elected to council.
> >> The confusing thing about this is, how would we define "conflict of
> >> interest"?
> >>
> >> Suppose that the council decides to accept an appeal from comrel. Is it
> >> a conflict of interest for a member of the council who is also a member
> >> of comrel to vote in the appeal? If it isn't, it is at least a pretty
> >> strong perception that it is.
> >>
> > Why? How? Exactly what sort of conflicting interest is supposed to be
> > present?
> >
> There seems to be two divergent schools of thinking here:
> 1) Those that think that there is, or could be, (potential for) a
> conflict of interest,
> and 2) Those that cannot conceive there even could be a conflict of
> interest.
>

I'm not aware of anyone advocating for case two (not even Rich! :))


>
> I think it would be useful for both sides to state their cases, and
> perhaps this particular issue could have its bike-shed painted once, and
> for good.....
>
>
Ultimately this comes down to a discussion about whether potential
conflicts are allowed or not.

In some fields (law, or finance for example) there are rules against having
even potential conflicts. Should Gentoo emulate those rules and produce an
organization that avoids even the appearance of conflict? In other fields,
potential conflicts are allowed. There tend to be policies about disclosing
conflicts (disclosure is typically encouraged here.) Organizations can use
the disclosures to put in appropriate controls. To use an example:

A council member is on a team (not even necessarily QA / Comrel). That
team's lead makes a decision. The council member doesn't agree with the
decision and appeals to council.
I would argue the member raising the issue has a conflict and they should
not vote (recuse / abstain).

If you believe the above premise, even if we take William's patch, its
clear we cannot eliminate conflicts of interest among Gentoo Leadership
(e.g. the above example is a conflict; but it isn't resolved by William's
patch.)

I'm also not clear on the problem statement. William's opener was: "I have
felt this way for a long time, because I think it compromises the full
council's
ability to vote fairly on appeals." So it seems that the problem statement
is about appeals being fair (or appearing fair, or feeling fair?) Maybe we
could discuss Appeals specifically; and how they appear or make people
feel. I'm not sure I have a better idea of 'fairness' than just soliciting
feedback.

-A

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