[gentoo-project] rfc: council members and appeals

[gentoo-project] rfc: council members and appeals

[William Hubbs]

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Hi all,

The council can't make this change since it is a glep 39 change, so I am
bringing it to the community for discussion -- I assume there would need
to be a full dev vote to make it happen.

I feel that council members should not be members of projects whose
actions can be appealed to the council like qa or comrel. I have felt
this way for a long time, because I think it compromises the full
council's ability to vote fairly on appeals.

As a member of the council who would be affected by this, if it passes
and I run and am elected to council again, I would have no problem with
stepping down from QA.

Attached is a patch for glep 39 which will make this change.

Thoughts?

William


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diff --git a/glep-0039.rst b/glep-0039.rst
index c458450..d3e71df 100644
--- a/glep-0039.rst
+++ b/glep-0039.rst
@@ -155,6 +155,11 @@ B. Global issues will be decided by an elected Gentoo council.
       election for *all* places must be held within a month. The 'one year'
       is then reset from that point.
    *  Disciplinary actions may be appealed to the council.
+   *  A council member must not concurrently be a member of a project
+     whose actions can be appealed to the council such as QA or Comrel.
+     Members of these projects may run for council under the
+     understanding that if they are elected they will be removed from
+     these projects until they leave the council.
    *  A proxy must not be an existing council member, and any single person
       may not be a proxy for more than one council member at any given
       meeting.
@@ -204,6 +209,10 @@ So, does this proposal solve any of the previously-mentioned problems?
 
 8. This proposal has nothing to say about GLEPs.
 
+9. If council members are also members of projects whose actions can
+   be appealed to the council, the full council cannot vote fairly on
+   appeals from those projects.
+
 References
 ==========
 

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

[Rich Freeman]

On Sun, Feb 11, 2018 at 5:42 PM, William Hubbs <williamh@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
> I feel that council members should not be members of projects whose
> actions can be appealed to the council like qa or comrel. I have felt
> this way for a long time, because I think it compromises the full
> council's ability to vote fairly on appeals.
>
> Thoughts?
>

IMO while this seems to be a popular sentiment it misses the point of
why organizations have appeals, and seems to be based on some kind of
incorrect notion that people making decisions automatically have a
conflict of interest when hearing appeals of these decisions.

The concept behind appeals is that you have a group at the top that is
most trusted to make decisions, and they generally set policy, but
this policy is first enacted by lower tiers of the organization
because it would be impractical to have the most trusted body hear
every case.

Appeals sometimes reverse decisions because these lower groups are
imperfect at enacting the policies set at the top, or they are
operating in areas where no precedent exists.  These reversals
shouldn't be seen as some kind of checks/balances system that adds
value, but an inefficiency that wastes time deliberating matters more
than once.  It is necessary only because it would be even more
inefficient to slow everything down to a pace where one small group
could deal with it all.

So, if there were no QA or comrel, and there were just the council,
and it handled everything and there were no appeals at all, this would
not lower the quality of decisions, but it would actually raise them
(since some incorrect decisions might not be appealed).  However, it
would come at a cost of a lot less stuff getting done since you'd have
reducing the pool of labor.

Some organizations find a compromise where a decision might be made by
a subset of a trusted group, and then be appealable to the entirety of
the group.  This is common in appellate courts in the US, for example,
where out of the entire group of judges a small panel is chosen to
hear each case, with the decisions being appealable to the entire
group.  In these situations the same judges get to vote again in the
full panel despite having already rendered a decision in the previous
panel.  This isn't viewed as a conflict of interest, because the
judges were not motivated out of personal interest in the first place.
There is no shame in having a decision reversed because it usually is
a result of unclear precedent.  On  the second hearing a judge is free
to either change their opinion or keep their previous one.

In an ideal world Comrel and QA appeals would always fail, because the
original body made the decision the Council would back.  Having
Council members on these bodies only increases the odds of this
happening, and IMO should be seen as a good thing.  The only challenge
is for the individuals involved to manage the workload, and that
should be at their discretion.

-- 
Rich

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

[William Hubbs]

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On Sun, Feb 11, 2018 at 06:20:06PM -0500, Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 11, 2018 at 5:42 PM, William Hubbs <williamh@gentoo.org> wrote:
> >
> > I feel that council members should not be members of projects whose
> > actions can be appealed to the council like qa or comrel. I have felt
> > this way for a long time, because I think it compromises the full
> > council's ability to vote fairly on appeals.
> >
> > Thoughts?
> >
> 
> IMO while this seems to be a popular sentiment it misses the point of
> why organizations have appeals, and seems to be based on some kind of
> incorrect notion that people making decisions automatically have a
> conflict of interest when hearing appeals of these decisions.
 
 I disagree, and since you are talking about the US court system, I'll
 use that in my arguments.

> The concept behind appeals is that you have a group at the top that is
> most trusted to make decisions, and they generally set policy, but
> this policy is first enacted by lower tiers of the organization
> because it would be impractical to have the most trusted body hear
> every case.
 
 Yes, we agree on this. I agree that the council is supposed to be the
 most trusted body that is in charge of high level policies/decisions.
 In my mind, in terms of appeals, that makes it more like the Supreme
 Court in the US.

> Appeals sometimes reverse decisions because these lower groups are
> imperfect at enacting the policies set at the top, or they are
> operating in areas where no precedent exists.  These reversals
> shouldn't be seen as some kind of checks/balances system that adds
> value, but an inefficiency that wastes time deliberating matters more
> than once.  It is necessary only because it would be even more
> inefficient to slow everything down to a pace where one small group
> could deal with it all.
 
 I agree that the higher body should not be involved in every case;
 However, I absolutely do not agree that appeals are not a
 checks/balances system. If someone appeals something it means that they
feel that the decision made by the lower body needs to be re-examined.
If the higher body then overrules the lower body, it isn't meant in a
shameful way, it is just guidance for the lower body in the future.

> So, if there were no QA or comrel, and there were just the council,
> and it handled everything and there were no appeals at all, this would
> not lower the quality of decisions, but it would actually raise them
> (since some incorrect decisions might not be appealed).  However, it
> would come at a cost of a lot less stuff getting done since you'd have
> reducing the pool of labor.
 
 Rich, I don't follow this logic at all.

> Some organizations find a compromise where a decision might be made by
> a subset of a trusted group, and then be appealable to the entirety of
> the group.  This is common in appellate courts in the US, for example,
> where out of the entire group of judges a small panel is chosen to
> hear each case, with the decisions being appealable to the entire
> group.  In these situations the same judges get to vote again in the
> full panel despite having already rendered a decision in the previous
> panel.  This isn't viewed as a conflict of interest, because the
> judges were not motivated out of personal interest in the first place.
> There is no shame in having a decision reversed because it usually is
> a result of unclear precedent.  On  the second hearing a judge is free
> to either change their opinion or keep their previous one.

I know about the appellate courts, but there are other levels as well.
You would never find a district courte judge on an appellate court
simultaneously, and you would never find an appellate court judge or
district courte judge serving simultaneously as a justice on the Supreme Court.

William


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

[Rich Freeman]

On Sun, Feb 11, 2018 at 7:12 PM, William Hubbs <williamh@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
>> Appeals sometimes reverse decisions because these lower groups are
>> imperfect at enacting the policies set at the top, or they are
>> operating in areas where no precedent exists.  These reversals
>> shouldn't be seen as some kind of checks/balances system that adds
>> value, but an inefficiency that wastes time deliberating matters more
>> than once.  It is necessary only because it would be even more
>> inefficient to slow everything down to a pace where one small group
>> could deal with it all.
>
>  I agree that the higher body should not be involved in every case;
>  However, I absolutely do not agree that appeals are not a
>  checks/balances system. If someone appeals something it means that they
> feel that the decision made by the lower body needs to be re-examined.
> If the higher body then overrules the lower body, it isn't meant in a
> shameful way, it is just guidance for the lower body in the future.

Checks and balances are when two bodies are allowed to be in
opposition, with neither body being superior to the other.  In the US
system the three federal branches operate in this way for the most
part, with each branch able to block certain actions of the others.

An appeal isn't a check and balance.  An appeal is a superior body
having the opportunity to overrule the action of an inferior one.
Comrel doesn't act as a check against the Council, nor does the
Council really act as a check against Comrel.  Council sets policies,
Comrel enforces them (with its own ability to set policy subordinate
to Council).

>
>> So, if there were no QA or comrel, and there were just the council,
>> and it handled everything and there were no appeals at all, this would
>> not lower the quality of decisions, but it would actually raise them
>> (since some incorrect decisions might not be appealed).  However, it
>> would come at a cost of a lot less stuff getting done since you'd have
>> reducing the pool of labor.
>
>  Rich, I don't follow this logic at all.

What is confusing about it?  Imagine that the Council dissolved both
QA and Comrel, and directly handled both?  The main issue with this is
that stuff would probably get neglected, but ultimately it is the same
body that is making the final decisions.

> I know about the appellate courts, but there are other levels as well.
> You would never find a district courte judge on an appellate court
> simultaneously, and you would never find an appellate court judge or
> district courte judge serving simultaneously as a justice on the Supreme Court.

As far as I am aware there is no provision in US law that prevents
this.  It is just impractical, and would defeat the point of
delegation.

Keep in mind that real-world courts pay salaries and as a result tend
to have a surplus of qualified professionals to man every post.  The
same is not true within Gentoo.

In an ideal world we'd have more people to man these posts.

As I recall there have been complaints made on the lists that the
leaders on the Council need to do more to fix problems actively vs
just waiting for people to come to them for decisions.  I think this
is the main reason why Council members ended up in lead roles on other
projects.  Some project was considered to need help, and a Council
member stepped into try to strengthen it.  I'd be careful about
banning this sort of practice, because then the only thing the Council
could do if Comrel or QA were inactive would be to whine about it on
the lists until somebody else stepped up to fix things.

In any case, that's my opinion.  I suspect it might not be a majority
opinion and that is OK.  The world won't end if a few more critical
Gentoo projects go idle...

-- 
Rich

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

[William Hubbs]

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On Sun, Feb 11, 2018 at 07:29:37PM -0500, Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 11, 2018 at 7:12 PM, William Hubbs <williamh@gentoo.org> wrote:
> >
> >> Appeals sometimes reverse decisions because these lower groups are
> >> imperfect at enacting the policies set at the top, or they are
> >> operating in areas where no precedent exists.  These reversals
> >> shouldn't be seen as some kind of checks/balances system that adds
> >> value, but an inefficiency that wastes time deliberating matters more
> >> than once.  It is necessary only because it would be even more
> >> inefficient to slow everything down to a pace where one small group
> >> could deal with it all.
> >
> >  I agree that the higher body should not be involved in every case;
> >  However, I absolutely do not agree that appeals are not a
> >  checks/balances system. If someone appeals something it means that they
> > feel that the decision made by the lower body needs to be re-examined.
> > If the higher body then overrules the lower body, it isn't meant in a
> > shameful way, it is just guidance for the lower body in the future.
> 
> Checks and balances are when two bodies are allowed to be in
> opposition, with neither body being superior to the other.  In the US
> system the three federal branches operate in this way for the most
> part, with each branch able to block certain actions of the others.
>
> An appeal isn't a check and balance.  An appeal is a superior body
> having the opportunity to overrule the action of an inferior one.

Ok, this makes sense, but my point still holds.

If enough of the members of the inferior body are members and able to
vote on the appeal in the superior body, there is no reason for anyone
to appeal, and if we are going to do that, we should kill the ability
to appeal entirely.

> >
> >> So, if there were no QA or comrel, and there were just the council,
> >> and it handled everything and there were no appeals at all, this would
> >> not lower the quality of decisions, but it would actually raise them
> >> (since some incorrect decisions might not be appealed).  However, it
> >> would come at a cost of a lot less stuff getting done since you'd have
> >> reducing the pool of labor.
> >
> >  Rich, I don't follow this logic at all.
> 
> What is confusing about it?  Imagine that the Council dissolved both
> QA and Comrel, and directly handled both?  The main issue with this is
> that stuff would probably get neglected, but ultimately it is the same
> body that is making the final decisions.
 
 This still doesn't make sense.

Another thing to consider is, 
Comrel and QA members are already expected to recuse themselves from voting on
appeals from their projects at the council level. This means the council
that votes on appeals is different than the council that votes on other issues.
Also, council members are allowed to abstain from votes, and this
shrinks the voting pool further.

> > I know about the appellate courts, but there are other levels as well.
> > You would never find a district courte judge on an appellate court
> > simultaneously, and you would never find an appellate court judge or
> > district courte judge serving simultaneously as a justice on the Supreme Court.
> 
> As far as I am aware there is no provision in US law that prevents
> this.  It is just impractical, and would defeat the point of
> delegation.
 
 Do there have to be laws that prevent it? There are no laws that
 prevent it, but it doesn't happen. If someone did try this, I'm sure
 they would be shot down because of the perceived conflict.

> As I recall there have been complaints made on the lists that the
> leaders on the Council need to do more to fix problems actively vs
> just waiting for people to come to them for decisions.

This topic deserves a totally separate thread, but I will say here that it
depends on how you feel about how Gentoo should be lead. Some have said
that the council should be treated more like a dispute resolutions body
than a leadership body. I have heard a lot of talk about how innovation
comes from the developers and the council should stay out of the way
until a decision is requested from the community.

> I think this
> is the main reason why Council members ended up in lead roles on other
> projects.  Some project was considered to need help, and a Council
> member stepped into try to strengthen it.  I'd be careful about
> banning this sort of practice, because then the only thing the Council
> could do if Comrel or QA were inactive would be to whine about it on
> the lists until somebody else stepped up to fix things.

Don't even get me started. ;-)

> In any case, that's my opinion.  I suspect it might not be a majority
> opinion and that is OK.  The world won't end if a few more critical
> Gentoo projects go idle...

This is also a completely separate subject, but imo there are several
critical tlps that are idle.

William


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

[Rich Freeman]

On Sun, Feb 11, 2018 at 9:16 PM, William Hubbs <williamh@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 11, 2018 at 07:29:37PM -0500, Rich Freeman wrote:
>>
>> Checks and balances are when two bodies are allowed to be in
>> opposition, with neither body being superior to the other.  In the US
>> system the three federal branches operate in this way for the most
>> part, with each branch able to block certain actions of the others.
>>
>> An appeal isn't a check and balance.  An appeal is a superior body
>> having the opportunity to overrule the action of an inferior one.
>
> Ok, this makes sense, but my point still holds.
>
> If enough of the members of the inferior body are members and able to
> vote on the appeal in the superior body, there is no reason for anyone
> to appeal, and if we are going to do that, we should kill the ability
> to appeal entirely.

If there is no reason for anyone to appeal then the original body is
functioning as intended.  There is no need to eliminate the ability to
appeal, because sometimes it might be necessary.

>>
>> What is confusing about it?  Imagine that the Council dissolved both
>> QA and Comrel, and directly handled both?  The main issue with this is
>> that stuff would probably get neglected, but ultimately it is the same
>> body that is making the final decisions.
>
>  This still doesn't make sense.

You need to elaborate, unless that is what the next paragraph is.

Do you think that the Council would not make the correct decision with
regard to an issue currently brought before QA or Comrel if those
bodies were dissolved?  If so, then why allow them to hear appeals?

> Another thing to consider is,
> Comrel and QA members are already expected to recuse themselves from voting on
> appeals from their projects at the council level.

While this has happened the last few times this has come up, I don't
believe it is a documented policy, and IMO it is a mistake for anybody
to recuse themselves from a decision unless they feel they are not
qualified to handle it or there is a conflict of interest.

A conflict of interest is not having an opinion on something, either
stated or otherwise.  A conflict of interest is when a decision that
would benefit Gentoo might be personally detrimental.  For example,
letting somebody set their own salary is a conflict of interest
because it is in the employer's interest to minimize salary and in the
individual's interest to maximize it.  Hearing an appeal of your own
case would probably also be a conflict of interest, assuming you were
directly involved in the case (which is usually the case when you
bring forth a case).

However, in the past the Council members who were on Comrel disagreed
with this and recused themselves.  They can do that, but I think it is
harmful.  I'm sure many reading my email think that my approach would
be harmful.  That's ok - it is fine if a majority of Gentoo devs are
wrong on something.  :)

>> As far as I am aware there is no provision in US law that prevents
>> this.  It is just impractical, and would defeat the point of
>> delegation.
>
>  Do there have to be laws that prevent it? There are no laws that
>  prevent it, but it doesn't happen. If someone did try this, I'm sure
>  they would be shot down because of the perceived conflict.

What conflict exists?  People keep using this word in situations where
it doesn't legally apply.

If a conflict of interest exists you should be able to clearly state
what the two interests are.  In what way is a judge harmed by their
decision being overturned?  This isn't something judges are
disciplined for (though if they ignore previous precedent that is
another matter).

Likewise, in what way does the head of Comrel suffer personal harm if
a decision they made in private is overturned in private?  They don't
even have a reputation at stake.  What motive would they have to stick
to their original decision if a new argument came up that might
otherwise persuade them if they hadn't made the original decision?

>> As I recall there have been complaints made on the lists that the
>> leaders on the Council need to do more to fix problems actively vs
>> just waiting for people to come to them for decisions.
>
> This topic deserves a totally separate thread, but I will say here that it
> depends on how you feel about how Gentoo should be lead. Some have said
> that the council should be treated more like a dispute resolutions body
> than a leadership body. I have heard a lot of talk about how innovation
> comes from the developers and the council should stay out of the way
> until a decision is requested from the community.

When acting in their role on the Council I agree.  However, Council
members are still developers, and they're allowed to wear multiple
hats.

>
> This is also a completely separate subject, but imo there are several
> critical tlps that are idle.
>

Well, I hope you realize that any decision made by any project could
be appealed to the Council, since that is basically what the council
was invented for in GLEP 39, so I seriously hope you don't plan to
contribute to fixing any of those...  :)

-- 
Rich

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

[Fabian Groffen]

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On 11-02-2018 16:42:34 -0600, William Hubbs wrote:
> I feel that council members should not be members of projects whose
> actions can be appealed to the council like qa or comrel. I have felt
> this way for a long time, because I think it compromises the full
> council's ability to vote fairly on appeals.

I agree with this feeling.

Thanks,
Fabian


-- 
Fabian Groffen
Gentoo on a different level

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

[Ulrich Mueller]

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>>>>> On Sun, 11 Feb 2018, William Hubbs wrote:

> I feel that council members should not be members of projects whose
> actions can be appealed to the council like qa or comrel. I have
> felt this way for a long time, because I think it compromises the
> full council's ability to vote fairly on appeals.

> Thoughts?

By the same logic, council members should not be members of _any_
project, because the council can override any project's decisions.

It is known prior to a council election if a candidate is a member
of ComRel or QA. So, leave it to the electorate to evaluate if such
a candidate is suitable for the council.

Ulrich

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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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.

-Daniel

On Sun, Feb 11, 2018 at 3:42 PM, William Hubbs <williamh@gentoo.org> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> The council can't make this change since it is a glep 39 change, so I am
> bringing it to the community for discussion -- I assume there would need
> to be a full dev vote to make it happen.
>
> I feel that council members should not be members of projects whose
> actions can be appealed to the council like qa or comrel. I have felt
> this way for a long time, because I think it compromises the full
> council's ability to vote fairly on appeals.
>
> As a member of the council who would be affected by this, if it passes
> and I run and am elected to council again, I would have no problem with
> stepping down from QA.
>
> Attached is a patch for glep 39 which will make this change.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> William
>
>

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

[Matthew Thode]

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On 18-02-12 08:53:24, 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.
> 
> On Sun, Feb 11, 2018 at 3:42 PM, William Hubbs <williamh@gentoo.org> wrote:
> 
> > Hi all,
> >
> > The council can't make this change since it is a glep 39 change, so I am
> > bringing it to the community for discussion -- I assume there would need
> > to be a full dev vote to make it happen.
> >
> > I feel that council members should not be members of projects whose
> > actions can be appealed to the council like qa or comrel. I have felt
> > this way for a long time, because I think it compromises the full
> > council's ability to vote fairly on appeals.
> >
> > As a member of the council who would be affected by this, if it passes
> > and I run and am elected to council again, I would have no problem with
> > stepping down from QA.
> >
> > Attached is a patch for glep 39 which will make this change.
> >
> > Thoughts?
> >

I've thought a similiar thing, if we go this route we also need to
ensure that a managed group does not obtain over 50% of the council
seats as that mean they can't vote if they all obstain.

-- 
Matthew Thode (prometheanfire)

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

[William Hubbs]

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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.

William


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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 9:55 AM, William Hubbs <williamh@gentoo.org> 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.


Often, "conflict of interest" is defined as "possible conflict of interest"
-- meaning, if there is simply the potential for a conflict of interest,
one would abstain from voting. There doesn't need to be a clear indication
that there *is* a conflict of interest or that someone is abusing their
position, just the *potential* for this to happen where someone *could*
benefit from the decision being made (they are voting on a situation in
which they happen to be personally involved, etc..) In these cases, those
who find themselves in this position would abstain or would be asked to
abstain, to prevent accusation that the vote was skewed.

Potentially, it might be good if a member could also request a person to
abstain if they felt there was a conflict of interest. The concept is that
if the Foundation is able to eliminate potential conflicts of interest in
votes, then the votes have much more authority (they are less subject to
being questioned) and it helps to establish trust in the decision-making
process.

Best,

Daniel

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

[Rich Freeman]

On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 12:03 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org> wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 9:55 AM, William Hubbs <williamh@gentoo.org> wrote:
>>
>> The confusing thing about this is, how would we define "conflict of
>> interest"?
>>

Well, Google supplies this which seems reasonable:

"a situation in which a person is in a position to derive personal
benefit from actions or decisions made in their official capacity"

Organizations often have specific guidelines.  For example, at work if
I'm involved in a decision to select a vendor I would need to disclose
if I have any kind of business relationship with that vendor outside
of work.  Above a certain level in the company employees are required
to disclose membership on the boards of any other organizations (which
would include the Gentoo Trustees), though this does not automatically
get considered as a conflict.  Below that level I think any employee
has to disclose membership on the boards of companies that are
vendors/suppliers/customers of the company (again, not automatically a
conflict).  And of course I cannot receive gifts/etc from vendors
other than token stuff like pens/etc.

If Gentoo actually sold products and I was involved in a project at
work that was considering buying that product, I would have to
disclose that to my boss (right now my only official role is as a
Gentoo dev but I'd still prefer to be safe), and while I'd probably be
welcome to provide general feedback/etc and my own personal
recommendations, they would probably have somebody else sitting on the
group that makes the decision, and they probably would also not share
with me the bids of all the companies.  This actually would benefit me
in that I couldn't be accused of doing anything wrong.

A situation which is closer to what you're getting at is also often a
target of company rules, though I wouldn't classify this as a
conflict-of-interest.  At work there are policies in place where
certain actions require the involvement of two different people, such
as any action that involves a payment.  This isn't about conflict of
interest so much as just generally raising the bar for fraud so that
one person couldn't approve a vendor, approve an order from that
vendor, and approve payment against that vendor's invoice (at least
not as the sole approver).  If there were an actual conflict of
interest that person wouldn't be allowed to have any of those roles
for a particular purchase, but absent a conflict there is still a
desire to have a second person in the loop for some of those steps
just to make it harder to embezzle.

To the degree that we think that it makes sense to force there to be
more warm bodies involved in a QA/Comrel decision-appeal chain I could
see the value in reducing overlap.  IMO there are already a lot of
people involved though.

> Potentially, it might be good if a member could also request a person to
> abstain if they felt there was a conflict of interest.

Well, nothing stops anybody from requesting anything, the question is
whether this is binding.  You can't just leave it up to random
individuals to decide which specific Council/Trustee Members get to
vote on which issues, for reasons that I hope are obvious.

-- 
Rich

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 10:46 AM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:

> On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 12:03 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org>
> wrote:
> > On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 9:55 AM, William Hubbs <williamh@gentoo.org>
> wrote:
> >>
> >> The confusing thing about this is, how would we define "conflict of
> >> interest"?
> >>
>
> Well, Google supplies this which seems reasonable:
>
> "a situation in which a person is in a position to derive personal
> benefit from actions or decisions made in their official capacity"


I think the definition in the world of Gentoo would be expanded to cover
non-financial benefit, since Gentoo is a very egalitarian organization
(unlike a for-profit company) and there is an expectation of impartiality.
Also, in very few circumstances are the trustees or council voting on
issues that even have the potential for financial benefit.

>
> Well, nothing stops anybody from requesting anything, the question is
> whether this is binding.  You can't just leave it up to random
> individuals to decide which specific Council/Trustee Members get to
> vote on which issues, for reasons that I hope are obvious.
>

It wouldn't be binding but could be requested, and the council/trustees
could decide whether the request is legitimate. Again, if there is the
*perception* of a potential conflict of interest, that can be enough for
someone to abstain from voting because it strengthens the legitimacy of the
vote.

Of course, the trustees/council could choose to disregard silly/garbage
requests. If they are a huuuuuge stretch, then declining them should not
undermine the integrity of the vote in any way (because they would be
pretty obviously based on paranoia or lack of true potential for conflict
of interest by anyone who seriously looked at them.)

But I think it's helpful if any member can voice concern about a potential
conflict of interest. If people have concerns about a lack of integrity in
the process, it is best for them to be able to be voiced and addressed. I
think we all want the votes of trustees and council to have weight and for
everyone to have confidence in the voting process. This is a win-win for
members and trustees/council. And as trust is built up over time, it just
puts the council and trustees in a better position to move the project
forward in a positive way and for everyone to feel good about the system we
have here.

-Daniel

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

[Rich Freeman]

On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 12:58 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org> wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 10:46 AM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>> "a situation in which a person is in a position to derive personal
>> benefit from actions or decisions made in their official capacity"
>
> I think the definition in the world of Gentoo would be expanded to cover
> non-financial benefit, since Gentoo is a very egalitarian organization
> (unlike a for-profit company) and there is an expectation of impartiality.

If somebody isn't impartial they shouldn't be involved in either a
Comrel or Council decision.

If they are impartial, then I don't see how the Comrel decision
suddenly makes them not.  Sure, it does make it less likely that an
appeal will be overturned, but that is only a problem if the original
decision was incorrect, and if the decision of the Council is correct
by definition, then having more Council members casting their votes
earlier would tend to impart correctness to the Comrel decision and
not the other way around.

> Also, in very few circumstances are the trustees or council voting on issues
> that even have the potential for financial benefit.

Honestly, this seems like saying that according to the best practices
of most organizations Gentoo doesn't have an issue, therefore we need
to create an issue where no issue would otherwise exist otherwise we
don't have a problem to solve.

> It wouldn't be binding but could be requested, and the council/trustees
> could decide whether the request is legitimate. Again, if there is the
> *perception* of a potential conflict of interest, that can be enough for
> someone to abstain from voting because it strengthens the legitimacy of the
> vote.

In the last year or so it doesn't seem like we've had an issue with
people not being able to voice concerns...  But of course they should
be free to do so.

I just want to be careful because the standard should be what a
reasonable person would perceive, not what somebody who is convinced
that Gentoo is run by the Illuminati would perceive...  :)

IMO it seems like a majority of people voicing opinions here have
non-mainstream opinions on this matter.  I don't think this is
healthy, but ultimately I guess the community gets to decide how much
tinfoil to apply...

-- 
Rich

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 11:34 AM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:

>
> I just want to be careful because the standard should be what a
> reasonable person would perceive, not what somebody who is convinced
> that Gentoo is run by the Illuminati would perceive...  :)
>

Ironically, being open and responsive to tinfoil-esque comments actually
will do a great deal to dispel tinfoil-esque paranoia going forward, so I
see it as a good thing. And yes, of course, if the concern is totally
unreasonable, then it won't have any negative impact to (politely) dismiss
it as not being relevant. At least then it was addressed out in the open.

-Daniel

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

[Rich Freeman]

On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 1:40 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org> wrote:
>
> Ironically, being open and responsive to tinfoil-esque comments actually
> will do a great deal to dispel tinfoil-esque paranoia going forward.
>

While that seems like a reasonable hypothesis, I fear that it isn't
well-established with data.

In any case I support being open just to be open, and so far the
people who have been in dual-roles have chosen to recuse themselves,
so this seems mostly like a hypothetical argument.

-- 
Rich

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

[Thomas Deutschmann]

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On 2018-02-11 23:42, William Hubbs wrote:
> Attached is a patch for glep 39 which will make this change.

I really appreciate this change and I am more than happy that this was
proposed by a current council member! Kudos to you, William!


-- 
Regards,
Thomas Deutschmann / Gentoo Linux Developer
C4DD 695F A713 8F24 2AA1 5638 5849 7EE5 1D5D 74A5


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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 11:52 AM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:

> On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 1:40 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org>
> wrote:
> >
> > Ironically, being open and responsive to tinfoil-esque comments actually
> > will do a great deal to dispel tinfoil-esque paranoia going forward.
> >
>
> While that seems like a reasonable hypothesis, I fear that it isn't
> well-established with data.
>
> In any case I support being open just to be open, and so far the
> people who have been in dual-roles have chosen to recuse themselves,
> so this seems mostly like a hypothetical argument.
>

Cool. Regarding the specific wording of William's patch to GLEP 39, I would
suggest possibly softening the wording of "will be removed" and just state
that they can only serve in one capacity. Sounds a bit violent currently :)

I'd prefer an option to opt out rather than a mandatory stepping down, but
I am not outright opposed to it. I have no gory details of naughty things
guiding my viewpoint, just trusting that if WilliamH has concerns, others
probably do too.

And yes, I know that it is not my decision to make. Just sharing my
perspective. I figure that's worth saying every now and then.

-Daniel

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

[Michał Górny]

W dniu pon, 12.02.2018 o godzinie 09∶58 +0100, użytkownik Ulrich Mueller
napisał:
> > > > > > On Sun, 11 Feb 2018, William Hubbs wrote:
> > I feel that council members should not be members of projects whose
> > actions can be appealed to the council like qa or comrel. I have
> > felt this way for a long time, because I think it compromises the
> > full council's ability to vote fairly on appeals.
> > Thoughts?
> 
> By the same logic, council members should not be members of _any_
> project, because the council can override any project's decisions.
> 

I second this. If someone appeals Toolchain team decision, do we require
the Council to have no Toolchain members?

What if the appeal is multi-step, e.g. Recruiters -> ComRel -> Council?
Does it imply that Recruiters also shouldn't be in Council?

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny

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

[Rich Freeman]

On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 2:05 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org> wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 11:52 AM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 1:40 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > Ironically, being open and responsive to tinfoil-esque comments actually
>> > will do a great deal to dispel tinfoil-esque paranoia going forward.
>> >
>>
>> While that seems like a reasonable hypothesis, I fear that it isn't
>> well-established with data.
>>
>> In any case I support being open just to be open, and so far the
>> people who have been in dual-roles have chosen to recuse themselves,
>> so this seems mostly like a hypothetical argument.
>
> I'd prefer an option to opt out rather than a mandatory stepping down, but I
> am not outright opposed to it. I have no gory details of naughty things
> guiding my viewpoint, just trusting that if WilliamH has concerns, others
> probably do too.
>

To be clear, I prefer the status quo, which is that Council members
can recuse themselves if they want to but are under no obligation to
do so.  I was just pointing out that since everybody is already doing
this who would be affected a policy change wouldn't have much
practical effect.

Personally I disagree with the decisions of these Council members to
recuse themselves, and if I were ever in that position I would not
recuse myself unless I had personal involvement in the case.  I don't
see it coming up anytime soon, not least of which because I'm
currently on none of the affected teams.

But, one of the benefits of democracy is that we get to shoot
ourselves in the foot if we prefer...  :)

-- 
Rich

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

[Thomas Deutschmann]

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On 2018-02-12 09:58, Ulrich Mueller wrote:
>>>>>> On Sun, 11 Feb 2018, William Hubbs wrote:
> 
>> I feel that council members should not be members of projects whose
>> actions can be appealed to the council like qa or comrel. I have
>> felt this way for a long time, because I think it compromises the
>> full council's ability to vote fairly on appeals.
> 
>> Thoughts?
> 
> By the same logic, council members should not be members of _any_
> project, because the council can override any project's decisions.

Yes. That sounds irritating but think about the following:

Person X is member of project Z and also in council. The majority of
project Z opposes the opinion of X. Maybe they vote on that decision and
the other opinion just won with _one_ vote. Now X sits in the council. X
has the power to overrule the project's decision by influencing other
council members. X doesn't have to participate in the council's vote on
this at all, to poisoning the pool of council members it is enough to be
around and let others know you have a different opinion and disagree
with the project's decision.

But this is getting complicated. No one wants to forbid X's opinion at
all. It is good that X has his/her own view. But it should be clear on
the other hand that just because X has the power to poisoning the pool
of council members he/she shouldn't be around. X has to respect the
project/team's decision. He/she has to acknowledge that the majority
wants a different way. A person supporting the project's decision should
be around and consulted if there are any questions. And other council
member should respect (weight) the project's decision more than the
opinion of council member.


> It is known prior to a council election if a candidate is a member
> of ComRel or QA. So, leave it to the electorate to evaluate if such
> a candidate is suitable for the council.

Remember we are talking about this now when everything is more or less
fine. But such a rule is for the future to protect the project when
things are going wrong. Do you really want to see this happen, a council
following their own agenda and nobody can stop them because they were
elected for 1y?

Like in politics, to get elected you can say "I will do A" but once you
got elected you can do the opposite... so leaving it to the electorate
sounds nice but not if council members can do the opposite of what they
said before the election without any consequences. So you want to limit
the power to limit the possible damage... just in case.


Anyways, William's proposal isn't going that far. So we should
focus/limiting discussion on William's proposal.


-- 
Regards,
Thomas Deutschmann / Gentoo Linux Developer
C4DD 695F A713 8F24 2AA1 5638 5849 7EE5 1D5D 74A5


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

[Ulrich Mueller]

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>>>>> On Mon, 12 Feb 2018, Thomas Deutschmann wrote:

>> By the same logic, council members should not be members of _any_
>> project, because the council can override any project's decisions.

> Yes. That sounds irritating but think about the following:

> Person X is member of project Z and also in council. The majority of
> project Z opposes the opinion of X. Maybe they vote on that decision and
> the other opinion just won with _one_ vote. Now X sits in the council. X
> has the power to overrule the project's decision by influencing other
> council members. X doesn't have to participate in the council's vote on
> this at all, to poisoning the pool of council members it is enough to be
> around and let others know you have a different opinion and disagree
> with the project's decision.

> But this is getting complicated. No one wants to forbid X's opinion at
> all. It is good that X has his/her own view. But it should be clear on
> the other hand that just because X has the power to poisoning the pool
> of council members he/she shouldn't be around. X has to respect the
> project/team's decision. He/she has to acknowledge that the majority
> wants a different way. A person supporting the project's decision should
> be around and consulted if there are any questions. And other council
> member should respect (weight) the project's decision more than the
> opinion of council member.

Can you provide us with an example when such a scenario has happened
in the past 12 years of council, or is the above purely hypothetical?
Because in the latter case it is not an actual problem that needs to
be solved.

It is not a game of Nomic that we're playing here, but we are trying
to run a distro. IMHO precluding council members from participating in
projects isn't helpful. Or do we really want a council that is sitting
in an ivory tower, completely detached from the daily distro work?

>> It is known prior to a council election if a candidate is a member
>> of ComRel or QA. So, leave it to the electorate to evaluate if such
>> a candidate is suitable for the council.

> Remember we are talking about this now when everything is more or less
> fine.

Right, so why do you want me (as a council member) to step down from
QA then? How would that improve the quality of the distro?

> But such a rule is for the future to protect the project when
> things are going wrong. Do you really want to see this happen, a council
> following their own agenda and nobody can stop them because they were
> elected for 1y?

> Like in politics, to get elected you can say "I will do A" but once you
> got elected you can do the opposite... so leaving it to the electorate
> sounds nice but not if council members can do the opposite of what they
> said before the election without any consequences. So you want to limit
> the power to limit the possible damage... just in case.

Finally this is a question of trust, which must start somewhere (and
this is true for most social interactions). Otherwise we would not be
able to organise ourselves in any reasonable way.

Ulrich

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

[M. J. Everitt]

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On 12/02/18 23:02, Ulrich Mueller wrote:
> Can you provide us with an example when such a scenario has happened
> in the past 12 years of council, or is the above purely hypothetical?
> Because in the latter case it is not an actual problem that needs to
> be solved.
>
> It is not a game of Nomic that we're playing here, but we are trying
> to run a distro. IMHO precluding council members from participating in
> projects isn't helpful. Or do we really want a council that is sitting
> in an ivory tower, completely detached from the daily distro work?
>
Uhm, what's the difference .. the council already live in their own land
separate from most of the developers, and definitely from the user
community at large ?

Or at least, such is the perception .. [don't shoot the messenger and
all that]


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

[Rich Freeman]

On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 6:40 PM, M. J. Everitt <m.j.everitt@iee.org> wrote:
> On 12/02/18 23:02, Ulrich Mueller wrote:
>> Can you provide us with an example when such a scenario has happened
>> in the past 12 years of council, or is the above purely hypothetical?
>> Because in the latter case it is not an actual problem that needs to
>> be solved.
>>
>> It is not a game of Nomic that we're playing here, but we are trying
>> to run a distro. IMHO precluding council members from participating in
>> projects isn't helpful. Or do we really want a council that is sitting
>> in an ivory tower, completely detached from the daily distro work?
>>
> Uhm, what's the difference .. the council already live in their own land
> separate from most of the developers, and definitely from the user
> community at large ?
>
> Or at least, such is the perception .. [don't shoot the messenger and
> all that]
>

Such is your perception.  Most developers just cast their votes, and
hence the same council members keep getting re-elected.  I doubt that
would happen if most developers considered them aloof, especially
since the Council has always attracted a significant number of
election candidates.

You can't judge something like this by mailing list posts.

-- 
Rich

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

[M. J. Everitt]

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On 13/02/18 00:13, Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 6:40 PM, M. J. Everitt <m.j.everitt@iee.org> wrote:
>> On 12/02/18 23:02, Ulrich Mueller wrote:
>>> Can you provide us with an example when such a scenario has happened
>>> in the past 12 years of council, or is the above purely hypothetical?
>>> Because in the latter case it is not an actual problem that needs to
>>> be solved.
>>>
>>> It is not a game of Nomic that we're playing here, but we are trying
>>> to run a distro. IMHO precluding council members from participating in
>>> projects isn't helpful. Or do we really want a council that is sitting
>>> in an ivory tower, completely detached from the daily distro work?
>>>
>> Uhm, what's the difference .. the council already live in their own land
>> separate from most of the developers, and definitely from the user
>> community at large ?
>>
>> Or at least, such is the perception .. [don't shoot the messenger and
>> all that]
>>
> Such is your perception.  Most developers just cast their votes, and
> hence the same council members keep getting re-elected.  I doubt that
> would happen if most developers considered them aloof, especially
> since the Council has always attracted a significant number of
> election candidates.
>
> You can't judge something like this by mailing list posts.
>
My synopsis is gathered from a number of conversations, Rich, and
definitely not the noise that emanates from both developers and
non-developers on /any/ of the mailing lists ..


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

[M. J. Everitt]

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On 13/02/18 00:16, M. J. Everitt wrote:
> On 13/02/18 00:13, Rich Freeman wrote:
>> On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 6:40 PM, M. J. Everitt <m.j.everitt@iee.org> wrote:
>>> On 12/02/18 23:02, Ulrich Mueller wrote:
>>>> Can you provide us with an example when such a scenario has happened
>>>> in the past 12 years of council, or is the above purely hypothetical?
>>>> Because in the latter case it is not an actual problem that needs to
>>>> be solved.
>>>>
>>>> It is not a game of Nomic that we're playing here, but we are trying
>>>> to run a distro. IMHO precluding council members from participating in
>>>> projects isn't helpful. Or do we really want a council that is sitting
>>>> in an ivory tower, completely detached from the daily distro work?
>>>>
>>> Uhm, what's the difference .. the council already live in their own land
>>> separate from most of the developers, and definitely from the user
>>> community at large ?
>>>
>>> Or at least, such is the perception .. [don't shoot the messenger and
>>> all that]
>>>
>> Such is your perception.  Most developers just cast their votes, and
>> hence the same council members keep getting re-elected.  I doubt that
>> would happen if most developers considered them aloof, especially
>> since the Council has always attracted a significant number of
>> election candidates.
>>
>> You can't judge something like this by mailing list posts.
>>
> My synopsis is gathered from a number of conversations, Rich, and
> definitely not the noise that emanates from both developers and
> non-developers on /any/ of the mailing lists ..
>
Although, it would be fair to say I was biased, since I'm not privy to
the ivy towers or clique that controls [sic] Gentoo ...

So far as it could also be said I was actively disliked by them already...


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

[Roy Bamford]

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On 2018.02.13 00:13, Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 6:40 PM, M. J. Everitt <m.j.everitt@iee.org>
> wrote:
> > On 12/02/18 23:02, Ulrich Mueller wrote:
> >> Can you provide us with an example when such a scenario has
> happened
> >> in the past 12 years of council, or is the above purely
> hypothetical?
> >> Because in the latter case it is not an actual problem that needs
> to
> >> be solved.
> >>
> >> It is not a game of Nomic that we're playing here, but we are
> trying
> >> to run a distro. IMHO precluding council members from participating
> in
> >> projects isn't helpful. Or do we really want a council that is
> sitting
> >> in an ivory tower, completely detached from the daily distro work?
> >>
> > Uhm, what's the difference .. the council already live in their own
> land
> > separate from most of the developers, and definitely from the user
> > community at large ?
> >
> > Or at least, such is the perception .. [don't shoot the messenger
> and
> > all that]
> >
> 
> Such is your perception.  Most developers just cast their votes, and
> hence the same council members keep getting re-elected.  I doubt that
> would happen if most developers considered them aloof, especially
> since the Council has always attracted a significant number of
> election candidates.
> 
> You can't judge something like this by mailing list posts.
> 
> -- 
> Rich
> 
> 

Rich,

Most developers don't cast their votes.  
2015-16  The turnout for this election was 30.638.
2016-17  The turnout for this election was 37.190%

Thats from email I happen to have to hand.
From memory, those two data points are typical.
 
-- 
Regards,

Roy Bamford
(Neddyseagoon) a member of
elections
gentoo-ops
forum-mods

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

[Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn]

Ulrich Mueller schrieb:
>> I feel that council members should not be members of projects whose
>> actions can be appealed to the council like qa or comrel. I have
>> felt this way for a long time, because I think it compromises the
>> full council's ability to vote fairly on appeals.
> 
>> Thoughts?
> 
> By the same logic, council members should not be members of _any_
> project, because the council can override any project's decisions.

QA and Comrel are special in that they can take disciplinary action against
non-members, which there is no recourse against except appeal to the Council.

> It is known prior to a council election if a candidate is a member
> of ComRel or QA. So, leave it to the electorate to evaluate if such
> a candidate is suitable for the council.

If everything were transparent then I would tend to agree, however it is not.
Comrel processes are often opaque, especially when it comes to the
aforementioned disciplinary actions. I think sometimes even the individual
votes are not public (only the final counts). When an appeal happens, then
Council may get briefed in secret too. So evaluating the candidate based on
public information becomes difficult.


Best regards,
Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn

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

[Ulrich Mueller]

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>>>>> On Tue, 13 Feb 2018, Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn wrote:

>> It is known prior to a council election if a candidate is a member
>> of ComRel or QA. So, leave it to the electorate to evaluate if such
>> a candidate is suitable for the council.

> If everything were transparent then I would tend to agree, however
> it is not. Comrel processes are often opaque, especially when it
> comes to the aforementioned disciplinary actions. I think sometimes
> even the individual votes are not public (only the final counts).
> When an appeal happens, then Council may get briefed in secret too.

That does not apply to QA though, where decisions are in the open.

> So evaluating the candidate based on public information becomes
> difficult.

Don't vote for that person then? Why would we need a general rule
restricting voters from electing any specific candidate?

Ulrich

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

[Rich Freeman]

On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 7:25 PM, Roy Bamford <neddyseagoon@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
> Most developers don't cast their votes.
> 2015-16  The turnout for this election was 30.638.
> 2016-17  The turnout for this election was 37.190%
>

So, even the votes are imperfect.  First, they're not voting
specifically on the assertion that the Council is disconnected from
reality.  Second, you can't really infer anything from a vote that
isn't cast.

However, even so I suspect that 37% of developers is a far larger
number of opinions than the number of developers who have made
comments on the lists.

Finally, given that few of Gentoo's projects actually operate as
cohesive teams, I'm not really sure what it even means for a Gentoo
developer to be connected or disconnected.  Most of us just do our
thing.

-- 
Rich

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

[Andreas K. Huettel]

> 
> Attached is a patch for glep 39 which will make this change.
> 
> Thoughts?
> 

William, 

the actions of all projects can be appealed with the council. So this doesnt 
make too much sense, unless you want council members to be temporarily retired 
from Gentoo. 

This is precisely why we have the listing of candidates for the council 
elections, where comrel, qa, and infra members are clearly marked. If you 
don't want any overlap, don't vote for these candidates, as simple as that.

Something else though...

Do you really think that working on comrel issues is "fun" and that this is a 
much sought-after position?

Just about the only appeal of being comrel member that I could imagine is some 
diffuse feeling of power, but believe me that is very quickly offset by the 
xxxx you have to digest. (Of course one could try to just join the team and 
not do anything, but that's not what I am talking about.) Also it's a bit like 
described in the Hitchhiker's guide, everyone who really really wants to do it 
is essentially unsuited for the job.

Food for thought...

I'm against this change to GLEP39, and challenge everyone who doesn't want me 
on the council to not vote for me in the next election. Cheers!

Andreas

-- 
Andreas K. Hüttel
dilfridge@gentoo.org
Gentoo Linux developer 
(council, toolchain, perl, libreoffice, comrel)

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

[Andreas K. Huettel]

Am Montag, 12. Februar 2018, 03:29:49 CET schrieb Rich Freeman:
> 
> However, in the past the Council members who were on Comrel disagreed
> with this and recused themselves.  They can do that, but I think it is
> harmful.  I'm sure many reading my email think that my approach would
> be harmful.  That's ok - it is fine if a majority of Gentoo devs are
> wrong on something.  :)
> 

Rich, 

on an abstract level I agree fully with you on this. There's two things 
though.

1) Had I not recused myself in the appeal case a year (?) ago, then a 
discussion like the one now would have cast doubt on the appeal result. Since 
we like to senselessly bikeshed just about everything, that was predictable. 
So the outcome was cleaner this way.

2) It was rather amusing to leisurely stand on the side for a change and see 
you all wade through the mud, without having to do it myself once more. I 
think you can appreciate that since you handled nearly all the correspondence 
for the remaining "non-recused" council in that case...

Cheers, 
Andreas

-- 
Andreas K. Hüttel
dilfridge@gentoo.org
Gentoo Linux developer 
(council, toolchain, perl, libreoffice, comrel)

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

[Matthew Thode]

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On 18-02-13 03:43:29, Andreas K. Huettel wrote:
> > 
> > Attached is a patch for glep 39 which will make this change.
> > 
> > Thoughts?
> > 
> 
> William, 
> 
> the actions of all projects can be appealed with the council. So this doesnt 
> make too much sense, unless you want council members to be temporarily retired 
> from Gentoo. 
> 
> This is precisely why we have the listing of candidates for the council 
> elections, where comrel, qa, and infra members are clearly marked. If you 
> don't want any overlap, don't vote for these candidates, as simple as that.
> 
> Something else though...
> 
> Do you really think that working on comrel issues is "fun" and that this is a 
> much sought-after position?
> 
> Just about the only appeal of being comrel member that I could imagine is some 
> diffuse feeling of power, but believe me that is very quickly offset by the 
> xxxx you have to digest. (Of course one could try to just join the team and 
> not do anything, but that's not what I am talking about.) Also it's a bit like 
> described in the Hitchhiker's guide, everyone who really really wants to do it 
> is essentially unsuited for the job.
> 
> Food for thought...
> 
> I'm against this change to GLEP39, and challenge everyone who doesn't want me 
> on the council to not vote for me in the next election. Cheers!
> 

Currently comrel is invite only, so you are not doing yourself any
favors in baring yourself off from possible aid (at least hold yearly
applications or something).  At least in the Openstack world one of the
responsibilities of being a project lead (PTL) is the recruitment of
people to the project and curation of those people into 'core'
reviewers.

I think actively recruiting to comrel would help(hopefully this helps
alter the perception that comrel is a closed body).  Further, I think
reactivating the proctors would be good as well (which is actively
being worked on).

As far as the proposal goes, this is my opinion (and only my own, not
the foundations, since this needs to be said nowadays).  In a perfect
world we'd have separate people for each position and enough people to
'man' each position.  Unfortunately this is not (even close to) a
perfect world.  Thus, this is my proposal.

Any project that governs another project that makes group decisions must
not have more than a quorum number of members in the group making the
group decisions.  Those that vote in group decisions of child projects
must recuse themselves if receiving an appeal from the governed project.

This means that if council is 7 people, they cannot have 4 people in the
group that makes group decisions within the governed child project.

More specific of an example...  Council would not be allowed to have 4
members (of 7) be members of comrel.

This would also prevent (and allow with a bylaw update) members of
Council and Trustees to 'cross pollinate' to a degree if extended to
also modify the rule that council and trustees must not have the same
members.

I'll submit this as an alternate proposal to glep39 (rfc first of
course) if people like it.

-- 
Matthew Thode (prometheanfire)

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

[Dean Stephens]

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?

> William
> 

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

[Dean Stephens]

On 02/12/18 19:39, Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn wrote:
> Ulrich Mueller schrieb:
>>> I feel that council members should not be members of projects whose
>>> actions can be appealed to the council like qa or comrel. I have
>>> felt this way for a long time, because I think it compromises the
>>> full council's ability to vote fairly on appeals.
>>
>>> Thoughts?
>>
>> By the same logic, council members should not be members of _any_
>> project, because the council can override any project's decisions.
> 
> QA and Comrel are special in that they can take disciplinary action against
> non-members, which there is no recourse against except appeal to the Council.
> 
At the very least: QA, Comrel, IRC ops (in every project specific
channel), planet/universe, forums, and wiki. Of those, since black
helicopter fantasies appear to be the order of the day, a ban on the
wiki could even, according to policy, keep a developer from joining or
leaving any projects (at least without assistance), so council members
should certainly not be allowed to be part of the wiki team since...
then at least there would be a council member who would have actual
knowledge of what the hypothetical problem that caused the wiki team to
take the hypothetical step of banning someone.

>> It is known prior to a council election if a candidate is a member
>> of ComRel or QA. So, leave it to the electorate to evaluate if such
>> a candidate is suitable for the council.
> 
> If everything were transparent then I would tend to agree, however it is not.
> Comrel processes are often opaque, especially when it comes to the
> aforementioned disciplinary actions. I think sometimes even the individual
> votes are not public (only the final counts). When an appeal happens, then
> Council may get briefed in secret too. So evaluating the candidate based on
> public information becomes difficult.
> 
> 
> Best regards,
> Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn
> 
> 

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

[M. J. Everitt]

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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 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.....


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

[M. J. Everitt]

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On 13/02/18 04:59, Dean Stephens wrote:
> On 02/12/18 19:39, Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn wrote:
>> Ulrich Mueller schrieb:
>>>> I feel that council members should not be members of projects whose
>>>> actions can be appealed to the council like qa or comrel. I have
>>>> felt this way for a long time, because I think it compromises the
>>>> full council's ability to vote fairly on appeals.
>>>> Thoughts?
>>> By the same logic, council members should not be members of _any_
>>> project, because the council can override any project's decisions.
>> QA and Comrel are special in that they can take disciplinary action against
>> non-members, which there is no recourse against except appeal to the Council.
>>
> At the very least: QA, Comrel, IRC ops (in every project specific
> channel), planet/universe, forums, and wiki. Of those, since black
> helicopter fantasies appear to be the order of the day, a ban on the
> wiki could even, according to policy, keep a developer from joining or
> leaving any projects (at least without assistance), so council members
> should certainly not be allowed to be part of the wiki team since...
> then at least there would be a council member who would have actual
> knowledge of what the hypothetical problem that caused the wiki team to
> take the hypothetical step of banning someone.
>
There is a reasonable (not necessarily shared by me personally)
school-of-thought that says that all these projects should be under the
foundation 'umbrella' because they don't impact the distribution
directly. They are all projects which allow the Project to function.
This way, there could not be any conflict between these project and
council, and foundation would remain the overseeing body ..

However, I also know that the Foundation's mere existence is found to be
problematic .. so this idea falls squarely on its knees at first glance ..

Unless perhaps WilliamH and prometheanfire can flesh out a more
acceptable suggestion based on these principles perhaps?


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

[Alec Warner]

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

[Robin H. Johnson]

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On Tue, Feb 13, 2018 at 12:51:45AM -0500, Alec Warner wrote:
> Ultimately this comes down to a discussion about whether potential
> conflicts are allowed or not.
...
> 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.)
Your argument does make a potential point that even this patch won't
eliminate the conflicts of interest. These also exist between comrel/QA
another team: Infra.

As a data point, since I've been leading Infra (and the team is overdue
for another lead election), I've asked that new Infra members NOT act in
cases of potential conflict of interest: but instead choose a path that
discloses the conflict and recurses themselves temporarily.

Infra has members that are the comrel or QA teams, and I've made it
clear internally that if they take a side on a contentious issue from
those teams AND the issue requires infra to action something, the infra
member in question should NOT action it themselves except in an
emergency.

Instead, the team member should file a bug to it for the rest of infra
(if there isn't a bug already), and ask somebody else that's NOT on a
conflicting team to action the bug instead. The paper trail here in the
bug is valuable to help dispel any concerns of conflict of interest,
real or perceived.

This isn't codified anywhere as a 'rule' that infra members HAVE to
agree to, but I believe following it improves the professional behavior
within the Infra team.

-- 
Robin Hugh Johnson
Gentoo Linux: Dev, Infra Lead, Foundation Treasurer
E-Mail   : robbat2@gentoo.org
GnuPG FP : 11ACBA4F 4778E3F6 E4EDF38E B27B944E 34884E85
GnuPG FP : 7D0B3CEB E9B85B1F 825BCECF EE05E6F6 A48F6136

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

[Rich Freeman]

On Tue, Feb 13, 2018 at 12:51 AM, Alec Warner <antarus@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
> 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?

Absolutely!

> 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).

Merely disagreeing with a decision is not a conflict of interest on its own.

A conflict exists when somebody stands to personally benefit from a
decision.  What personal benefit does a member of a team get from
appealing a disagreement?

Now, if the decision concerned them personally in some way I could see
a conflict, such as if it were about a reimbursement of an expense
they incurred, or if it were about sponsoring them to go on a trip.

I wouldn't even consider it a conflict of interest if it were a QA
decision on a commit they made, unless this commit furthered some kind
of work they were doing outside of Gentoo (the commit benefited their
employer or their consulting business).

Conflict of interest isn't the same as disagreement.  It is completely
normal and healthy for people to disagree with things.  This does not
in any way make them prejudiced or likely to make a decision that is
bad for the distro.

Again, I'm completely in favor of avoiding conflicts of interest.  It
just seems that there is a popular notion around here of what a
conflict of interest is which certainly wouldn't stand up in a court
of law, or really in any organization.  Perhaps this is why so many
seem to be paranoid that there is some kind of cabal running the show.
(One which is elected, so presumably this cabal is upwards of 30+
people.)

-- 
Rich

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

[Aaron Bauman]

On February 12, 2018 2:17:51 PM EST, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
>On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 2:05 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org>
>wrote:
>> On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 11:52 AM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org>
>wrote:
>>>
>>> On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 1:40 PM, Daniel Robbins
><drobbins@funtoo.org>
>>> wrote:
>>> >
>>> > Ironically, being open and responsive to tinfoil-esque comments
>actually
>>> > will do a great deal to dispel tinfoil-esque paranoia going
>forward.
>>> >
>>>
>>> While that seems like a reasonable hypothesis, I fear that it isn't
>>> well-established with data.
>>>
>>> In any case I support being open just to be open, and so far the
>>> people who have been in dual-roles have chosen to recuse themselves,
>>> so this seems mostly like a hypothetical argument.
>>
>> I'd prefer an option to opt out rather than a mandatory stepping
>down, but I
>> am not outright opposed to it. I have no gory details of naughty
>things
>> guiding my viewpoint, just trusting that if WilliamH has concerns,
>others
>> probably do too.
>>
>
>To be clear, I prefer the status quo, which is that Council members
>can recuse themselves if they want to but are under no obligation to
>do so.  I was just pointing out that since everybody is already doing
>this who would be affected a policy change wouldn't have much
>practical effect.
>

You make a lot of bold claims.  If only they were true.  There is definitely one council member who has said they WILL NOT recuse themselves from a council vote if a conflict arose.  They even went on to quote the lack of policy forcing them to recuse themselves.

>Personally I disagree with the decisions of these Council members to
>recuse themselves, and if I were ever in that position I would not
>recuse myself unless I had personal involvement in the case.  I don't
>see it coming up anytime soon, not least of which because I'm
>currently on none of the affected teams.
>
>But, one of the benefits of democracy is that we get to shoot
>ourselves in the foot if we prefer...  :)

-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

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

[Kristian Fiskerstrand]

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On 02/13/2018 02:43 PM, Aaron Bauman wrote:
> You make a lot of bold claims.  If only they were true.  There is definitely one council member who has said they WILL NOT recuse themselves from a council vote if a conflict arose.  They even went on to quote the lack of policy forcing them to recuse themselves.

As this is likely referring to me, it is a misattribution that is
actually more in line with rich0's statements than anything else. A
difference of opinion does not necessarily constitute a conflict of
interest, and I will not recuse myself on general grounds from a council
decision because I'm also involved (lead or not) of a project.

I explicitly said I _would_ recuse myself if there is a conflict of
interest.

-- 
Kristian Fiskerstrand
OpenPGP keyblock reachable at hkp://pool.sks-keyservers.net
fpr:94CB AFDD 3034 5109 5618 35AA 0B7F 8B60 E3ED FAE3


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

[Aaron Bauman]

On February 13, 2018 5:23:52 AM EST, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
>On Tue, Feb 13, 2018 at 12:51 AM, Alec Warner <antarus@gentoo.org>
>wrote:
>>
>> 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?
>
>Absolutely!
>
>> 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).
>
>Merely disagreeing with a decision is not a conflict of interest on its
>own.
>
>A conflict exists when somebody stands to personally benefit from a
>decision.  What personal benefit does a member of a team get from
>appealing a disagreement?
>
>Now, if the decision concerned them personally in some way I could see
>a conflict, such as if it were about a reimbursement of an expense
>they incurred, or if it were about sponsoring them to go on a trip.
>
>I wouldn't even consider it a conflict of interest if it were a QA
>decision on a commit they made, unless this commit furthered some kind
>of work they were doing outside of Gentoo (the commit benefited their
>employer or their consulting business).
>

You are focusing on purely financial or tangible gains and attempting to pander law based interpretations of a conflict of interest which are inaccurate.  Please, go read and stop spreading false information.

>Conflict of interest isn't the same as disagreement.  It is completely
>normal and healthy for people to disagree with things.  This does not
>in any way make them prejudiced or likely to make a decision that is
>bad for the distro.
>
>Again, I'm completely in favor of avoiding conflicts of interest.  It
>just seems that there is a popular notion around here of what a
>conflict of interest is which certainly wouldn't stand up in a court
>of law, or really in any organization.  Perhaps this is why so many
>seem to be paranoid that there is some kind of cabal running the show.
>(One which is elected, so presumably this cabal is upwards of 30+
>people.)

-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

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

[Aaron Bauman]

On February 13, 2018 8:51:59 AM EST, Kristian Fiskerstrand <k_f@gentoo.org> wrote:
>On 02/13/2018 02:43 PM, Aaron Bauman wrote:
>> You make a lot of bold claims.  If only they were true.  There is
>definitely one council member who has said they WILL NOT recuse
>themselves from a council vote if a conflict arose.  They even went on
>to quote the lack of policy forcing them to recuse themselves.
>
>As this is likely referring to me, it is a misattribution that is
>actually more in line with rich0's statements than anything else. A
>difference of opinion does not necessarily constitute a conflict of
>interest, and I will not recuse myself on general grounds from a
>council
>decision because I'm also involved (lead or not) of a project.
>
>I explicitly said I _would_ recuse myself if there is a conflict of
>interest.

Right, you did state that. The issue is the misunderstanding of a conflict of interest as noted in my previous reply to Rich.

-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

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

[Kristian Fiskerstrand]

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On 02/13/2018 03:41 PM, Aaron Bauman wrote:
> 
> 
> On February 13, 2018 8:51:59 AM EST, Kristian Fiskerstrand
> <k_f@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> On 02/13/2018 02:43 PM, Aaron Bauman wrote:
>>> You make a lot of bold claims.  If only they were true.  There
>>> is
>> definitely one council member who has said they WILL NOT recuse 
>> themselves from a council vote if a conflict arose.  They even went
>> on to quote the lack of policy forcing them to recuse themselves.
>> 
>> As this is likely referring to me, it is a misattribution that is 
>> actually more in line with rich0's statements than anything else.
>> A difference of opinion does not necessarily constitute a conflict
>> of interest, and I will not recuse myself on general grounds from
>> a council decision because I'm also involved (lead or not) of a
>> project.
>> 
>> I explicitly said I _would_ recuse myself if there is a conflict
>> of interest.
> 
> Right, you did state that. The issue is the misunderstanding of a
> conflict of interest as noted in my previous reply to Rich.
> 

I do find it quite curious that while some are talking about too much of
a divide between groups of Gentoo, others are proposing measures to
further increase the divide by effectively having a council that can not
participate in any other project.

What about the conflict of interest if a developer doesn't participate
in any other project? Is it really that terrible that a project gets
proper representation in a council by having an active member if they
want to get some actual work done? Is it a conflict of interest that
other projects does not get the same attention, given that the interests
are likely more in the subjects the project a developer actually
contributes to and we should require equal representation of all projects?

-- 
Kristian Fiskerstrand
OpenPGP keyblock reachable at hkp://pool.sks-keyservers.net
fpr:94CB AFDD 3034 5109 5618 35AA 0B7F 8B60 E3ED FAE3


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

[Alec Warner]

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On Tue, Feb 13, 2018 at 5:23 AM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:

> On Tue, Feb 13, 2018 at 12:51 AM, Alec Warner <antarus@gentoo.org> wrote:
> >
> > 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?
>
> Absolutely!
>

> > 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).
>
> Merely disagreeing with a decision is not a conflict of interest on its
> own.
>

> A conflict exists when somebody stands to personally benefit from a
> decision.  What personal benefit does a member of a team get from
> appealing a disagreement?




> Now, if the decision concerned them personally in some way I could see
> a conflict, such as if it were about a reimbursement of an expense
> they incurred, or if it were about sponsoring them to go on a trip.
>
I wouldn't even consider it a conflict of interest if it were a QA
> decision on a commit they made, unless this commit furthered some kind
> of work they were doing outside of Gentoo (the commit benefited their
> employer or their consulting business).
>
> Conflict of interest isn't the same as disagreement.  It is completely
> normal and healthy for people to disagree with things.  This does not
> in any way make them prejudiced or likely to make a decision that is
> bad for the distro.
>

> Again, I'm completely in favor of avoiding conflicts of interest.  It
> just seems that there is a popular notion around here of what a
> conflict of interest is which certainly wouldn't stand up in a court
> of law, or really in any organization.  Perhaps this is why so many
> seem to be paranoid that there is some kind of cabal running the show.
> (One which is elected, so presumably this cabal is upwards of 30+
> people.)
>

Ok I don't want to have a discussion about what is a conflict or not;
because I don't think the conversation solves the problems (which are
ill-specified, hoping William will use more words.) The original post
discussed appeals to the council. My understanding is that there is a
potential trust issue and William thinks removing 'conflicts' (and I use
the loosest definition of conflict here) will help improve trust. Assuming
developers have concerns about 'conflicts', having a conversation where you
say their concerns are invalid based on 'an interpretation of the phrase
conflict of interest' doesn't really address these developer concerns (and
in fact does the opposite.)

So I'd like to see the developer concerns expressed in a clearer way so we
can have a frank discussion. If there are no explicit concerns and we are
just discussing potential problems;  then I'm less likely to advocate for
policy changes based on things that have not happened yet.

-A


>
> --
> Rich
>
>

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

[Rich Freeman]

On Tue, Feb 13, 2018 at 8:59 AM, Aaron Bauman <bman@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
> You are focusing on purely financial or tangible gains and attempting to pander law based interpretations of a conflict of interest which are inaccurate.  Please, go read and stop spreading false information.
>

Whether Gentoo ought to use the standards for conflict of interest
that most organizations and courts use is one matter.  Whether or not
I'm accurately stating what these standards are is another.

If you feel that having rendered a judgement on a matter creates a
conflict of interest when hearing an appeal I'm certainly interested
in citations that support this argument, or documented policies that
prohibit these situations in mainstream organizations.

Wikipedia has a reasonable write-up of what conflict of interest is if
you're interested, and it largely agrees with what I'm saying.  If you
feel otherwise feel free to cite any portion you consider contrary and
elaborate, or any other reasonable source.

I'll go ahead and cite a reasonable summary from the top of the
Wikipedia article:
A widely used definition is: "A conflict of interest is a set of
circumstances that creates a risk that professional judgement or
actions regarding a primary interest will be unduly influenced by a
secondary interest."[1] Primary interestrefers to the principal goals
of the profession or activity, such as the protection of clients, the
health of patients, the integrity of research, and the duties of
public officer. Secondary interest includes personal benefit and is
not limited to only financial gain but also such motives as the desire
for professional advancement, or the wish to do favours for family and
friends.

Certainly in a situation where a secondary interest such as the above
exists a Council member should both recuse themselves from a Council
appeal, and from the original decision in Comrel/QA/whatever, because
the interest would be just as much a problem there.

-- 
Rich

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

[Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn]

Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn schrieb:
> Dean Stephens schrieb:
>>> QA and Comrel are special in that they can take disciplinary action against
>>> non-members, which there is no recourse against except appeal to the Council.
>>>
>> At the very least: QA, Comrel, IRC ops (in every project specific
>> channel), planet/universe, forums, and wiki.
> 
> Council, QA and Comrel are effectively the governing bodies of Gentoo,
> enacting and/or enforcing project-wide policy on their own accord. The others
> that you mention have only direct power in a very limited area.

Sorry, I meant to send this to -project but accidentally sent it to -dev
along with two other emails.


Best regards,
Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn

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

[Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn]

Rich Freeman schrieb:
>>>> 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?
>>
>> I think in Comrel vs. Council is not a conflict of interest, but rather
>> throwing the appeals process off balance. Can you expect someone to neutrally
>> review material and actions (question the authenticity of evidence, identify
>> potential misconduct, etc.) that they themselves used to build the case
>> against the reprimanded?
>>
> 
> I hope that Comrel does not consider it their main duty to build cases
> against community members.  They're supposed to investigate, mediate,
> and take action if necessary.  They aren't prosecutors.

(I'm taking this back to -project where it belongs)

But typically only Comrel actions can be appealed. Investigations or
mediation not.


Best regards,
Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn

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

[Alexis Ballier]

On Sun, 11 Feb 2018 16:42:34 -0600
William Hubbs <williamh@gentoo.org> wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> The council can't make this change since it is a glep 39 change, so I
> am bringing it to the community for discussion -- I assume there
> would need to be a full dev vote to make it happen.
> 
> I feel that council members should not be members of projects whose
> actions can be appealed to the council like qa or comrel. I have felt
> this way for a long time, because I think it compromises the full
> council's ability to vote fairly on appeals.

In most sane entities I've seen where there's a possible conflict of
interest, people remotely suspected to be biased not only refrain from
voting but also keep quiet during the whole discussion. All of this by
themselves.

I don't think we should prevent any such conflict by prohibiting people
from running from council (or forcing them to resign from other
duties). Self-discipline should be enough, but since you feel this is
not properly applied, maybe a rule to say they should not participate
to the discussion nor voting in those cases would be saner ?

Alexis.

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

[Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn]

Ulrich Mueller schrieb:

>> Council, QA and Comrel are effectively the governing bodies of
>> Gentoo, enacting and/or enforcing project-wide policy on their own
>> accord. The others that you mention have only direct power in a very
>> limited area.
> 
> At least for QA this is quite an oversimplified description of the
> team's role. Quoting GLEP 48, first bullet point of the specification:
> "The QA team's purpose is to provide cross-team assistance in keeping
> the tree in a good state. This is done primarily by finding and
> pointing out issues to maintainers and, where necessary, taking direct
> action."
> 
> The latter is meant in the sense of direct action to the tree (and
> even then, overriding maintainers is not the default). The QA team
> doesn't have the power to take any direct disciplinary action against
> developers.

Sorry for the long quote, I was unsure if I could cut out anything.

I am not concerned about times when everyone is cooperating happily, and I
think that is also not what williamh had in mind when he made the proposal.
The concern is about times when disagreement gets so bad that the Council has
to be called to resolve this.

QA has the power to make new tree policies, and enforce them against
maintainers (recent example was banning eblits I think).

QA is in some ways exempt from rules that apply to normal developers, or can
grant such an exception. The shortcuts from the last-riting process for
removing packages come to mind.

> Theoretically, in the case of continuing breakage caused by a dev, QA
> could ask ComRel to have that dev's commit access suspended. I cannot
> remember any case where such a measure was taken (correct me if I am
> wrong).
> 
> So, it appears that QA has teeth but need not use them. ;)

One incident I recall where a dev was suspended (and then retired) was a
python maintainer who caused stable to break several times. ComRel didn't
exist back then.


Best regards,
Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn

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

[Dean Stephens]

On 02/13/18 00:51, Alec Warner wrote:
> 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).
> 
Thank you for actually offering an example of a potential conflict of
interest. While I can certainly understand how such a circumstance could
be disadvantageous, not least with regard to the likely effects on the
team whose actions are being appealed by a member, I do not think that
it would reasonably necessitate entirely preventing council members from
being members of other projects (even just the limited set of QA and
Comrel).

Might I suggest that a more suitable approach to avoiding such a
conflict would be to have the next available "runner up" candidate for
council act as a council member in any circumstance where a council
member petitions the full council, taking the seat of the petitioning
member for that vote? Or, at the least, automatic recusal by any
petitioning council member?

> 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
> 

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

[Dean Stephens]

On 02/13/18 16:12, Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn wrote:
> Rich Freeman schrieb:
>>>>> 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?
>>>
>>> I think in Comrel vs. Council is not a conflict of interest, but rather
>>> throwing the appeals process off balance. Can you expect someone to neutrally
>>> review material and actions (question the authenticity of evidence, identify
>>> potential misconduct, etc.) that they themselves used to build the case
>>> against the reprimanded?
>>>
Given the interactions that I have had with Comrel members acting on
behalf of Comrel (leaving aside interactions with Comrel members acting
in other roles as I have no reason to track such interactions and they
are not relevant here); yes, I would expect that of them.

>>
>> I hope that Comrel does not consider it their main duty to build cases
>> against community members.  They're supposed to investigate, mediate,
>> and take action if necessary.  They aren't prosecutors.
> 
> (I'm taking this back to -project where it belongs)
> 
> But typically only Comrel actions can be appealed. Investigations or
> mediation not.
> 
> 
> Best regards,
> Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn
> 
> 

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

[Michał Górny]

W dniu śro, 14.02.2018 o godzinie 00∶21 +0100, użytkownik Alexis Ballier
napisał:
> On Sun, 11 Feb 2018 16:42:34 -0600
> William Hubbs <williamh@gentoo.org> wrote:
> 
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > The council can't make this change since it is a glep 39 change, so I
> > am bringing it to the community for discussion -- I assume there
> > would need to be a full dev vote to make it happen.
> > 
> > I feel that council members should not be members of projects whose
> > actions can be appealed to the council like qa or comrel. I have felt
> > this way for a long time, because I think it compromises the full
> > council's ability to vote fairly on appeals.
> 
> In most sane entities I've seen where there's a possible conflict of
> interest, people remotely suspected to be biased not only refrain from
> voting but also keep quiet during the whole discussion. All of this by
> themselves.
> 
> I don't think we should prevent any such conflict by prohibiting people
> from running from council (or forcing them to resign from other
> duties). Self-discipline should be enough, but since you feel this is
> not properly applied, maybe a rule to say they should not participate
> to the discussion nor voting in those cases would be saner ?
> 

For the record: we currently count 3 QA members in the Council. Given
their abstention, that means that for any motion to pass, all remaining
Council members would have to vote 'yes'. If we had one more QA member,
all motions would automatically be rejected by abstention.

However, I would personally lean towards changing the voting model to be
less silly and make abstention really distinct from 'no'.

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny

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

[Daniel Robbins]

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On Tue, Feb 13, 2018 at 10:53 PM, Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org> wrote:

> However, I would personally lean towards changing the voting model to be
> less silly and make abstention really distinct from 'no'.


Do not question the silliness of the ancients! We would be inviting the
silly spirits to haunt us.

-Daniel

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

[Mike Gilbert]

On Sun, Feb 11, 2018 at 5:42 PM, William Hubbs <williamh@gentoo.org> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> The council can't make this change since it is a glep 39 change, so I am
> bringing it to the community for discussion -- I assume there would need
> to be a full dev vote to make it happen.
>
> I feel that council members should not be members of projects whose
> actions can be appealed to the council like qa or comrel. I have felt
> this way for a long time, because I think it compromises the full
> council's ability to vote fairly on appeals.
>
> As a member of the council who would be affected by this, if it passes
> and I run and am elected to council again, I would have no problem with
> stepping down from QA.
>
> Attached is a patch for glep 39 which will make this change.
>
> Thoughts?

I am opposed to this change.

I vote for members of the council, and they should have the ultimate
say in making decisions. Preventing council members from participating
in QA or comrel does not seem beneficial to me.

If things go poorly, my escalation path is still to an elected
representative. If those same representatives happen to also have a
say in the initial decision (before appeal), that's fine by me; they
were elected just the same.

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

[R0b0t1]

On Tue, Feb 13, 2018 at 11:53 PM, Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org> wrote:
> For the record: we currently count 3 QA members in the Council. Given
> their abstention, that means that for any motion to pass, all remaining
> Council members would have to vote 'yes'. If we had one more QA member,
> all motions would automatically be rejected by abstention.
>
> However, I would personally lean towards changing the voting model to be
> less silly and make abstention really distinct from 'no'.
>

If the consequences of waiting are so onerous as to require an
immediate decision on the matter, people are going to choose action
anyway, regardless of any rules. If an issue does not require
immediate attention, any action may as well wait until everyone has
read and understood the matter.

In the US, there are circumstances where the sergeant at arms of the
Senate can use all executive forces available to make senators show
up. That this is possible should show something important: abstention
means neither yes nor no.

Cheers,
     R0b0t1

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

[Ulrich Mueller]

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>>>>> On Wed, 14 Feb 2018, Michał Górny wrote:

> For the record: we currently count 3 QA members in the Council.
> Given their abstention, that means that for any motion to pass, all
> remaining Council members would have to vote 'yes'. If we had one
> more QA member, all motions would automatically be rejected by
> abstention.

Huh, but we don't vote like that. For example, in the 2013-09-17
meeting we had a motion that was accepted with 3 yes votes, 2 no
votes, and 1 abstention (of 6 council members present).

> However, I would personally lean towards changing the voting model
> to be less silly and make abstention really distinct from 'no'.

The voting model is that more than half of the votes are needed for
a majority. Abstentions do not count as votes (so effectively this
means that the number of yeas must exceed the number of nays).

A motion does not pass if there is a tie. (Example in the same
2013-09-17 meeting, a motion with 3 yes votes and 3 no votes was
rejected.)

This seems to agree with the procedure used elsewhere, see for example
Robert's Rules of Order: http://www.robertsrules.com/faq.html#6

Ulrich

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

[Michał Górny]

Dnia 14 lutego 2018 08:22:31 CET, Ulrich Mueller <ulm@gentoo.org> napisał(a):
>>>>>> On Wed, 14 Feb 2018, Michał Górny wrote:
>
>> For the record: we currently count 3 QA members in the Council.
>> Given their abstention, that means that for any motion to pass, all
>> remaining Council members would have to vote 'yes'. If we had one
>> more QA member, all motions would automatically be rejected by
>> abstention.
>
>Huh, but we don't vote like that. For example, in the 2013-09-17
>meeting we had a motion that was accepted with 3 yes votes, 2 no
>votes, and 1 abstention (of 6 council members present).
>
>> However, I would personally lean towards changing the voting model
>> to be less silly and make abstention really distinct from 'no'.
>
>The voting model is that more than half of the votes are needed for
>a majority. Abstentions do not count as votes (so effectively this
>means that the number of yeas must exceed the number of nays).
>
>A motion does not pass if there is a tie. (Example in the same
>2013-09-17 meeting, a motion with 3 yes votes and 3 no votes was
>rejected.)

Oh, I'm sorry, I must have confused it with something else.

>
>This seems to agree with the procedure used elsewhere, see for example
>Robert's Rules of Order: http://www.robertsrules.com/faq.html#6
>
>Ulrich


-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny (by phone)

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

[Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto]

On Sun, 11 Feb 2018, William Hubbs wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> The council can't make this change since it is a glep 39 change, so I am
> bringing it to the community for discussion -- I assume there would need
> to be a full dev vote to make it happen.

I agree such a change would need to be done through a global developer 
vote.

> I feel that council members should not be members of projects whose
> actions can be appealed to the council like qa or comrel. I have felt
> this way for a long time, because I think it compromises the full
> council's ability to vote fairly on appeals.
>
> As a member of the council who would be affected by this, if it passes
> and I run and am elected to council again, I would have no problem with
> stepping down from QA.

I disagree with this proposal.
I don't agree with the idea that a developer that is member of a project, 
won't be able to have a fresh look on an issue when that is appealed to 
the council.
Also, I think these type of issues are best left to the electorate than to 
be set as "rules in stone".
FTR, I've disagreed since it was proposed, with the restriction in 
the bylaws of the Foundation that forbids anyone from serving at the same 
time in the council and in the Foudation. I've always felt that should 
have been left to the electorate.

> Attached is a patch for glep 39 which will make this change.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> William

Regards,
Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto
Gentoo Developer