Re: Resignation as cloud team delegate
On Tue, May 31, 2022 at 09:30:54PM -0700, Ross Vandegrift wrote:
> Effective today, I'm resigning as cloud team delegate. I started a new job,
> and am no longer eligible due to our conflict of interest prohibition. Since
> very little of my cloud team work required delegation, I don't plan on changing
> my involvement. I've had less time for Debian in recent months, but hope
> that'll change in the future.
Thanks for your work in the past, Ross, and congratulations on the new
job.
I think now might be a reasonable time to suggest that we revisit our
ban on allowing DPL delegates to work for cloud providers. The
rationale for it is a concern over potential conflicts of interest,
which is entirely valid. However, experience over the past several
years has provided ample evidence that the opportunities for such
conflicts of interest to actually impair the judgement of a delegate are
very rare. As long as a delegate's relationship to their employer is
known ahead of time, that delegate can recuse themselves from any
specific decision making process that may be influenced by their
employer.
I believe that people who work for a cloud service provider are likely
to represent some of the most enthusiastic and knowledgeable members of
our community on cloud related topics. Excluding them from
consideration for our DPL delegations removes key members from our pool
of candidates for this role and does not provide any benefit that can't
be attained using less drastic measures.
noah
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