Re: [gentoo-project] Gentoo Council 2014 / 2015 election

[Anthony G. Basile]

On 07/02/14 09:10, Justin (jlec) wrote:
> On 02/07/14 13:04, hasufell wrote:
>> Rich Freeman:
>>> On Tue, Jul 1, 2014 at 2:30 PM, hasufell <hasufell@g.o> wrote:
>>>> So you are basically saying a conflict of interest can happen and when
>>>> it does, everyone will actually realize it and also act appropriately.
>>>>
>>> Well, if people don't do that, then you're up the creek no matter what
>>> system of governance you come up with.
>>>
>>> SOMEBODY has to make the final decision, and they can always have a
>>> conflict of interest.
>>>
>>> Unless half the council is in on the original offense, it really only
>>> makes a difference if it is a close call.  So, avoid doing things that
>>> would tick off half the council and you should be fine.  :)
>>>
>>> This is no different than a majority of trustees being able to sell
>>> the Foundation to your least favorite IT vendor.  If you're going to
>>> vote a bunch of untrustworthy individuals into office, then you might
>>> not like the result.
>>>
>>> I don't see a practical alternative.  The kinds of skills that you
>>> need to be a decent Trustee, Council member, or Comrel member overlap
>>> significantly.  We aren't exactly a huge organization.  So, we either
>>> have to accept overlap, or put people into these roles that we might
>>> otherwise not want to.  There is also QA and Infra to consider - do we
>>> not allow anybody to be on more than one of these teams?
>>>
>>
>> Then I hope dilfridge and jlec respond to this thread, so I can make a
>> decision on how to vote.
>>
> Hi Julian,
>
> I definitely understand your worries that placing the power of Comrel
> and its controlling counterpart into the same person.
> And I thought about this before, but as said by others, there are a
> number of reason why the situation isn't as bad as it seems.
>
> Each team, council and ComRel consists of several members who should
> counterbalance any problematic situation. Two thoughts came to my mind
> here, should we regulate the number of people being in both teams? and
> should we exclude council members being in ComRel from any decision
> where the council needs to act upon ComRel? The first one would avoid
> that ComRel takes over the council and the second obviously would tackle
> your concerns.
>
> Has there been a case where a "conflict of interest" happened in
> reality? And couldn't be solved? I don't know any, but I can be wrong
> here. Nevertheless, we shouldn't forget the argument Rich came up with,
> we aren't many people and if there are persons who bring the competency
> for both jobs and are willing to spent the time, then we really should
> try to build on that rather then trying to create a problem.
>
> I am a doing recruiting, which is a subproject of ComRel and makes me to
> a ComRel member. But normally I don't feel responsible to act in the
> interpersonal cases. So in the end there are different types of ComRel
> members.
>
> In the end, I would look onto the person and not onto the tables telling
> you in which teams they are. There will be double seated ComRel+Council
> members who will be fair and objective, but there also will be solely
> council members, who will be pain when you need the council to resolve
> conflicts. So we should choose the right persons based on their personality.
>
>
> Justin
>

I think a distinction is getting blurred between lack of integrity and 
conflict of interest.  You can have a situation where everyone acts with 
the utmost integrity and there still exists a conflict of interest.   We 
vote for members of the council because presumably they have gained our 
respect by showing objectivity, integrity, fairness and good judgment.  
(Technical skill too, but that's orthogonal).  This trust, which is 
measured by voting, is what gives the Council legitimacy as the highest 
seat of power within Gentoo. However, we know that no one is above bad 
judgment, bias, self-interest, etc.  If a person is put in a position 
where the Council's interests are in direct opposition to ComRel (eg the 
Council must censure ComRel), any decision that person makes will be 
questionable --- were they really objective?  This in turn erodes our 
trust in the Council and its legitimacy.  Then we have flame wars.

Having said that, we can opt to not allow members of ComRel to be on the 
Council in which case the conflict of interest is a moot point. Or we 
can trust that the individuals involved will have enough integrity to 
recognize the conflict and abstain.  Or the rest of the community or 
council can ask them to abstain.  Etc.  As long as the decisions made 
are made by those who appear to be "untainted" by the issues we 
shouldn't have any problems.  People will respect the Council's final 
decisions.

BTW, the possibility of a conflict of interest exists between any 
project and the council,  Uts just that given ComRel's policing powers, 
we don't want too much concentration of power in a few individuals.

-- 
Anthony G. Basile, Ph.D.
Gentoo Linux Developer [Hardened]
E-Mail    : blueness@g.o
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