paid travel and COI

[Victor Drover]

Hey folks, 

I wanted to start a conversation and people's opinion's about managing the conflict of interest (COI) in our project. 

At the last leadership summit in Mexico, we discussed potential guidelines for managing COI, especially when presenting on behalf of the Joomla project. 

I'd like to revisit this in particular to those of us who have Joomla-related businesses and whose travel expenses are often covered by the Joomla project. 

For example, if the Joomla project pays your travel expenses, is it OK to give a presentation specific to your private business interests? Is it ok to wear apparel branded with your business name and logo?

Currently I don't think we have guidelines on this and would appreciate the opinions of the other LT members.

Warm Regards,

Victor Drover
Treasurer, Open Source Matters
262-309-4140
@VicDrover

[Ronni Christiansen]

Id like to expand it to also include a debate about direct vs. indirect commercial interests.

Its obvious that someone doing a session on one of their own products has a direct commercial interest - but there are also many cases where there is an indirect commercial interest at play.

I.e. someone does a session on SEO and in the coming months after they get new clients from the attendees for SEO consultancy Work.

So in my opinion it branches beyond just directly product releated interests.

Id also love to extend the debate to cover a fair policy for Joomla Days when they invite in speakers from teams etc. - whos covered and why and where do we set up the boundaries.

I think the most important thing is that there is 1 policy - 1 set of rules that applies to all and so its transparent what goes on and why.

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[Ryan Ozimek]

Hi folks,

I'm in favor of building clear and transparent systems, but knowing that we can't do everything at once, prioritizing what we focus on is important. I'm curious, are there examples (exempting specific names is fine) that is causing this topic to come up at this time? Knowing examples of what we're trying to protect against could help us stay focused rather than being more generic.

Cheers,

Ryan

Sent from my mobile device.

[Victor Drover]

The 2 items above are very specific. They each happened recently, and on at least multiple occasions for 1. But I think discussing general guidelines is more constructive than singling out specific instances.

Warm Regards,

Victor Drover
Treasurer, Open Source Matters
262-309-4140
@VicDrover

[Ronni Christiansen]

For me its more generic - thinking that with good clear transparent policies that apply to all - we prevent issues in the future and make it crystal clear to all whats expected.

Good structures create good outcomes :)

[Ryan Ozimek]

Hi Vic and Ronni,

As the guy who put together all the original roles and responsibilities documents for the Board of Directors, I think documentation like this is a great idea.  I've been spending too much time in VPN rules recently, and was thinking that it might be easier to specifically declare what the "DENY" rules are based on specific instances of concern, rather than spending too much time just trying to think of every possible situation.  Of course, we could also go the whitelist "ALLOW" route, but do we really want to be that restricting?  Maybe?

That said, let's get to business!  Here's a document the world can read but only Leadership has the ability to edit.

Leadership Guide to Representing Joomla

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lbLZ3gD8fbaAaM0L_pYGhlr7-AcDOqSuCifXGepyB7A/edit?usp=sharing

Use this as a starting point, and feel free to hack away as you see fit.  Make changes.  Call it silly.  Don't be shy, no need to only comment, make your mark and change things.  My only request is that we keep it simple and clear.  Also, note that we have about a billion things going on, so whatever we can do to keep this nice and tight in terms of energy expended relative to the importance of the issue, that would be awesome.

Considering we have no cross-team voting system, I'm not sure how we're going to ratify this, but maybe we can leave that for another debate.

Now...edit on!

Cheerio,

Ryan

[Sarah Watz]

Thanks for opening up an important discussion. I agree with Ryan that we need to keep it simple. I would also suggest to use as plain English as possible and keep it short. It makes it easier when not all of us that lead the project are native English speaking. That can avoid misunderstandings in the future.

With warmth,
Sarah

Sarah Watz
President, Open Source Matters, Inc.
http://opensourcematters.org/

[Saurabh Shah]

Just my personal thoughts :
I would keep it simple, If you are paid by Project for representing, you should  simply represent the project without any company representation at all.

If you are a business owner and also have funded/sponsored for the same event as you are going to, get a person along to represent your business. I you can not get or afford then only choose one what you can represent.

If event organizer have invited you to speak and they are taking care of travel and lodging , should be clear what they want you to talk, my believe is they will ask you to talk about project becasue they are asking from leadership. If it is about business, simply just go for business.

Regards,

Saurabh Shah

Board Member

Open Source Matters Inc.
http://opensourcematters.org/
Phone: +91 - 9561160006

[Tessa Mero]

Hi All,

First off, I'm excited to see we already have a document written up. I think Vic had something similar in his Budget Process document. (I can't remember the link to it).

Ronni, your message:

I.e. someone does a session on SEO and in the coming months after they get new clients from the attendees for SEO consultancy Work.

There's no way to really monitor this and would be a ridiculous rule. To me, as a non business owner, it doesn't bother me to see business owners in leadership get consulting work after a session. That's no big deal, unless you were loudly promoting that you are looking for work, then it really comes down to respect for the project, and that's on the individual. And as a few others said, keeping it simple at first is important so we can get a process in place.

Id also love to extend the debate to cover a fair policy for Joomla Days when they invite in speakers from teams etc. - whos covered and why and where do we set up the boundaries.

I would love to see a policy on this too. Ryan, I'm assuming this is a rough draft document that we can turn into the official policy document over time.

 

[Ryan Ozimek]

Hi Tessa,

Thanks for your feedback.  With respect to, "Ryan, I'm assuming this is a rough draft document that we can turn into the official policy document over time," my answer is, "Use this as a starting point, and feel free to hack away as you see fit.  Make changes.  Call it silly.  Don't be shy, no need to only comment, make your mark and change things." =)

Feel free to rough this doc up even more!

Cheers,

Ryan

[Tessa Mero]

Thanks Ryan.

[Ryan Ozimek]

Hi folks,

Thanks for all your feedback, it's great to hear. I recommend that we take another day or so for discussion on this topic, and then bring it up via a motion for the leadership team as a vote. I think a 50% majority of leadership voting in the affirmative would work fine.

Send in your feedback, and then we can wrap this up with a nice big bow.

Cheers,

Ryan

Sent from my mobile device.

[Robert Deutz]

Two small comments on this:

1) I think that should be common sense but documenting it seems to me not a bad idea
2) I don't think it should only apply to people in leadership positions, it should also apply to anyone in our community who is presenting on an event and is paid by the project.

Cheers,
Robert

[Sarah Watz]

Thanks everyone for a good discussion on this important topic.

I agree with Robert that this should apply to anyone that is paid by the project to travel.

With warmth,
Sarah

Sarah Watz
President, Open Source Matters, Inc.
http://opensourcematters.org/

[Saurabh Shah]

I agree with Robert here that it should apply to anyone that is paid by the project for Travel.