Does that mean we should equip ourselves with a Conflict of Interest
Policy? Here is a suggestion drafted by ChatGPT.
Hi all,
we are so diverse, that when the possibility of a conflict of interest
arises in a situation, it is too late, because we are not even going to
agree on what a conflict of interest is, and how to handle the
situation, before one could conclude if there is really a conflict of interest. The disucssion on Google is not the only one, older
discussions on Canonical during some Technical Committee appeals also
come to mind.
Does that mean we should equip ourselves with a Conflict of Interest
Policy? Here is a suggestion drafted by ChatGPT.
Charles
--
Charles Plessy Nagahama, Yomitan, Okinawa, Japan Debian Med packaging team http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-med Tooting from home https://framapiaf.org/@charles_plessy
- You do not have my permission to use this email to train an AI -
- Consider potential conflicts and be transparent when a decision might
intersect with their employer’s, sponsor’s, or other affiliations'
interests.
- Refrain from participating in decisions where their neutrality could
reasonably be questioned.
[And it is somewhat ironic that this email containsI for one applaud his attempt to protect our AI overlords from model
output from an AI while your signature requests that this
email not be used to train one :) ]
I interpret your explicit mention of Canonical in your original email
as an attack
Hi all,
we are so diverse, that when the possibility of a conflict of interest
arises in a situation, it is too late, because we are not even going to
agree on what a conflict of interest is, and how to handle the
situation, before one could conclude if there is really a conflict of interest. The disucssion on Google is not the only one, older
discussions on Canonical during some Technical Committee appeals also
come to mind.
Does that mean we should equip ourselves with a Conflict of Interest
Policy? Here is a suggestion drafted by ChatGPT.
-------------------------------------------------------
Conflict of Interest Statement
Debian values transparency, integrity, and the diverse contributions of
its members. As an organization with a broad and diverse membership, we recognize that understandings of conflict of interest may vary. A
conflict of interest arises when a person’s ability to make objective decisions within Debian could be influenced — consciously or
unconsciously — by their affiliations, such as employment, sponsorship, personal relationships, or other external commitments.
Being in a situation of conflict of interest is not inherently bad and
does not imply wrongdoing. It is a natural occurrence in a community
where people bring valuable expertise and connections. However, to
uphold Debian’s commitment to fairness and trust, we ask that members:
- Consider potential conflicts and be transparent when a decision might
intersect with their employer’s, sponsor’s, or other affiliations'
interests.
- Disclose conflicts appropriately, recognizing that different people
may assess the situation differently.
- Refrain from participating in decisions where their neutrality could
reasonably be questioned.
- Raise concerns respectfully, assuming good faith and without implying
wrongdoing, to foster an open and constructive dialogue.
If unsure, members are encouraged to discuss the situation with peers or governance bodies to ensure Debian’s processes remain open, fair, and principled.
I'd not, eg, expect some Canonical employee to refrain voting a GR
because they might be biased. We all are biased.
I'd not, eg, expect some Canonical employee to refrain voting a GR
because they might be biased. We all are biased.
"Charles" == Charles Plessy <plessy@debian.org> writes:
I'm a bit dubious about a ChatGPT authored Conflict of Interest (COI)
policy because most of them that you will find on-line, and thus what
a Large Language Model (LLM) will regurgitate, are meant for
orgaizations where you have a small body of people who vote.
So for example, if you serve on the board of a church, or a non-profit orgaization like Usenix, or the Rocky Enterrise Software Foundation
(RESF), if there is a motion where you might benefit depending on how
the decision comes out, the CoI policy will mandate that you abstain
from voting on the motion. This is where the "refrain from
participating from a decision" language might come from.
Howeer, it is quite common that someone with that potental conflict of interest is often a subject matter expert. For example, if you are a
primary owner of a general contracting company, then you will know a
lot about building construction; so if the vote is about which company
should be hired, the board would *want* to hear your insights. So
typically the conflict of interest would be disclosed, the expert
would give their opinions, insights, and other expertise to the board
--- and then the expert might abstain from voting on the actual motion
if they were a board member.
The problem is that in Debian, we rarely vote when we make decisions.
This does happen, of course, such as when the Technical Committee
votes on something that might be a very close call. In that case, it
would make sense for a TC member who might have conflict of interest
to step aside.
However, many decisions take place via discussion / debates on public
mailing list --- so what does refrain from participating in a decision
mean in that context? That the people who might have the most
expertise must not participate in the debate? That
seems.... counterproductive. So there, probably the best you could do
is to make sure people should be asked to disclose conflicts of
interest up front, although in many cases, it might be obvious (for
example if the e-mail address has canonical.com....).
Another such situation is if a maintainer makes a decision as it
relates to a package where they are the primary maintainer. This case
can get quite ticklish, because very often, they *are* one of the
primary experts about the package; that's why they are the maintain
the package. And that might also be why a company decided to hire
them. For example, I got hired by Google because I was the ext4
kernel maintainer, and I did make changes that made it easier for
e2fsprogs to be built on ProdNG, which was a Debian variant for use internally at Google[1].
[1] "Live Upgrading Thousands of Servers from an Ancient Red Hat
Distribution to 10 Year Newer Debian Based One"
https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/lisa13/lisa13-merlin.pdf
The changes that I made din't compromise Debian at all (I doubt anyone noticed, since they din't cause any changes in the binary packages
generated by e2fsprogs' debian/rujles file for Debian. But this was a decision that was made that benefited Google, *and* Debian because it
meant that we got a lot more testing on thousands and thousands of
servers runnig in data centesr al over the world. Is that a "conflict
of interest"? Lots of similar scenarios happened where Debian
Maintainers were hired by Canonical, and did work while being paid by Canonical in a way that substantially benefited Debian *and* Ubuntu.
Should people in these sorts of situations be "not allowed to
participate in decisions" as the package maintainer because of some
silly ChatGPT authored policy? I think not.
Ultimately, this is a case where I think we do have recourse already,
which is if a package maintainer makes a decision which is detrimenta
to Debian, that decision can always be appealed to they TC.
So I could imagine COI policies for specific, small bodies in Debian
where decisions get made via voting, such as the TC.
However, I don't believe it makes sense for large bodies; for example, excluiding people from voting on a GR just because they might have a
conflict of interest means that we could potentially depriving people
of their franchise, which I think would be a Bad Thing. So if someone adopted this as a constitutional amendment, I would vote against it.
The final thing I would note is that our structure means that in some
cases, the ultimate authority rest with the DPL. So I'm not sure we
*can* have a COI policy that applies to the DPL without it making a fundamental change to our governance structure. The wise DPL would
delegate their authority if there wasa clear conflict of interest, of
course. And if a DPL abuses their authority, then they can be voted
out at the next election. But saying that the DPL "must not
participate in a decision", per the ChatGPT authored statement, I
would argue does't work given what trust and power we vest in the DPL.
Cheers,
- Ted
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