Conflict of Interest policy, 1 March 2012 draft

[Chris Leonard]

Comments and questions in-line with relevant COI language.

cjl
Member, Sugar Labs Oversight Board (PLC)


On Thu, Mar 1, 2012 at 6:24 PM, Bradley M. Kuhn <bkuhn at sfconservancy.org> wrote:

> === General Policies for Conservancy Persons

. . .

> * *Conservancy Conflict Disclosure Form.* Every six months, each
> Conservancy Person shall complete a Conservancy Conflict Disclosure
> form <<Exhibit-A,attached as Exhibit A>> and submit it to the Board and to
> Conservancy's General Counsel.

Out of curiosity, why every six months for Conservancy People and
annually for PLC members?  I'm reasonably familiar with COI and
disclosure policy for Federal (and federal contractor) employees and
typically disclosure forms are filed annually.

Is there a benefit to the SFC (or the projects) to have more frequent
filing by Conservancy People?

Should there be a provision for amending a COI form (midterm) should a
new circumstance arise (e.g. change of employment, etc.) with either a
Conservancy Person or PLC member or is it sufficient to notify the PLC
and SFC?

. . .


> === General Policies for PLC Persons
>
> * *No Compensation for PLC Persons.* No PLC Person shall receive
> any salary or other substantial benefit from Conservancy as compensation
> for his or her duties as a PLC Person.

I believe it is important to be very specific about reimbursement for
travel as this is probably one of the moret common forms of financial
transactions in many projects.  It would be unfortunate if PLC members
were made ineligible (or unduly burdened) in requesting travel funding
on an equal footing with other project members.

. . .

> * *Participation in Discussions and Votes Regarding Conflicted Matter.*
> A conflicted PLC Person shall not participate in or be permitted
> to hear the PLC's or PLC sub-committee's discussion of the matter
> where he or she has a conflict of interest, except to disclose material
> facts and to respond to questions. The conflicted PLC Person shall
> not attempt to exert his or her personal influence with respect to
> the matter, either at or outside the meeting.

As a practical matter, this one is difficult may be difficult for
Sugar Labs to achieve (particularly, "permitted to hear") as our PLC
discussions are held in an open IRC forum and openness is a
philosophical position within our project.  Can we narrow this
restriction for PLC members to "participate" while allowing "hearing"
on an equal footing with all project members?

. . .

> === Procedures for Conservancy Retaining PLC Person's Services
>
> Notwithstanding the above, Conservancy acknowledges that many PLC
> Persons are software developers who can provide professional services
> useful to advance computing and contribute to Conservancy's mission.
> In many instances, a PLC Person will have the strongest mix of credentials,
> experience, and available bandwidth to fulfill a software development
> contract desired by Conservancy and/or a Project. To address those
> instances, Conservancy requests Projects to follow the following procedures.

While "available bandwidth" is common enough jargon in our community,
perhaps this should be changed to "interest and availability".

>
> * *Drafting the Software Development Proposal.* PLCs must draft
> a written proposal for every software development project their Project
> wishes to fund. During the drafting process, if a PLC Person (or his
> or her family member), a PLC Person's employer and/or a fellow employee
> of PLC Person's employer wish to be considered a candidate to fulfill
> the funded software development contract, that PLC Person has a conflict
> of interest and must recuse herself or himself from the proposal drafting
> process and abstain from any vote to approve that proposal. All other
> procedures as outlined in <<Procedures-PLC-Persons,_Conflict Resolution Procedures for PLC Persons_>> shall still apply. The PLC must
> document the PLC Person's abstention from the proposal drafting process
> in the minutes of the next PLC meeting.

In theory, engagement in the proposal drafting process might allow a
conflicted person to "tip the scales", thereby justifying their
exclusion.  However; in practice, it may be that the conflicted person
is the only PLC member with the requisite technical expertise or
situational awareness to draft a suitably detailed proposal.  Is it
possible to acknowledge that the rest of the PLC should generally be
capable of taking advantage of the conflicted persons special
knowledge and contributions to the drafting without allowing the
creation of "an uneven playing field".

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