Re: [Debconf-discuss] "Anonymous donation" to Debconf 13

[Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>]

Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes:

> According to Moray this proposed strings-attached donation was used as
> an argument by some members of the Debconf team in favour of making the
> decision favoured by the donor.  That is wholly unacceptable.  It
> amounts exactly to the donors buying influence.

> The fact that the money didn't change hands in the end doesn't help very
> much if at all (and indeed in some ways it makes it worse - if we're
> going to be bribed we should at least get to keep the money!)

The part that I'm missing here is what you felt should have been done
differently.

Let's assume that Debian has no control over the offering of the donation
(or loan) in the first place.  I think that's a reasonable assumption.
What I would then expect is for the team to discuss the offer (since no
decision is ever going to be made out of hand), and then reject the offer
as being insufficiently transparent and posing other problems with
oversight and possible undue influence.

That seems to be exactly what happened.  So unless I'm missing something,
the reaction indicated seems to be "well done, thank you for handling this
ethically and professionally."  I'm not inclined to blame people for
temporarily discussing something, or even temporarily using it as an
argument, before thinking it through further.  Asking people to not do
that seems to be an impossibly high standard to which to hold people.  One
of the ways that high-functioning groups develop and maintain ethical
standards is to discuss ethical quandries in public.

I'm not seeing any evidence on this thread (and, indeed, directly
contrary assertions from people I think we all have reason to trust) that
the withdrawn offer had any material effect on the choice of venue.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org)               <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>