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Re: Proposed IETF Trust Conflict of Interest Policy for Community Review

2016-03-29 20:44:55
- Why isn't this aiming to end up being a document subject to IETF
  consensus? I can imagine there may be good or bad reasons for
  either doing this via the IETF process or not doing it via the
  IETF process, but I wondered - it seems like this is not just
  some minor operational thing, and considering these issues and
  aiming to get IETF consensus on how/when to declare conflicts
  of interest could be useful more generally. Is there something
  substantially different about the trust in this respect vs.
  other IETF roles such as chair, author, AD etc?

IANAL, but I think the answer is yes: a Trust does have a very
specific legal status, in a way that the IETF or IAB don't have.
So I think it's normal that the Trust enacts its own CoI policy,
and of course correct that the Trust asks for community input
first.

- Some trustees are selected by nomcom or other bodies. Wouldn't
  those proposing themselves for selection need to say something
  about known conflicts to selecting bodies like nomcom, so that
  we don't select folks who are conflicted out of being useful?
  And doesn't that mean that the list of conflicts needs to be
  public? And why shouldn't it be public? (Or did you intend it
  to be public? I wasn't sure.)

I think it would be good practice to make it public (even if certain
details were kept private). But it isn't just at selection time;
a new CoI could arise anytime, e.g. due to a change of job.

    Brian