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

[Rich Freeman]

On Tue, Feb 13, 2018 at 12:51 AM, Alec Warner <antarus@g.o> 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