[FFmpeg-devel] [RFC] clarifying the TC conflict of interest rule

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Le tiistaina 20. helmikuuta 2024, 10.22.57 EET Anton Khirnov a écrit :
> Hi,
> in the 'avcodec/s302m: enable non-PCM decoding' thread it became
> apparent that there is wide disagreement about the interpretation of
> 
> this line in the TC rules:
> > If the disagreement involves a member of the TC, that member should
> > recuse themselves from the decision.
> 
> The word 'involves' in it can be intepreted a variety of very different
> ways, to apply to TC members who e.g.:
> 1) authored the changes that are being objected to
> 2) are objecting to the changes
> 3) have any opinion on the changes, either positive or negative
> 4) have previously voiced an opinion that would apply to the changes
> 5) authored the code that is being modified
> 6) have a financial or other similar interest in a specific outcome of
>    the disagreement
> 
> I believe the best way to address this is to make the rule more
> explicit,

The sentence in question can hardly be called a "rule". It is a 
recommendation. Maybe the author did not mean it that way, but what matters is 
the text that people agreed upon, not a post-facto originalist interpretation.

> so I propose that people with an opinion on the matter submit
> their preferred wording, and then we can have the GA vote on it.

It is completely normal, and even expected, of TC members to have opinions. 
The TC is a, well, Technical commitee, not a court room. The TC is making 
technical assessment, not determining guilt and giving sentences.

Of course, in principles we want to avoid biases of non-technical nature, 
including but not limited to financial or material conflict of interests. But I 
fail to see how such a constraint can be enforced in practice, and it is not 
even really a clear-cut and objective constraint either.

Furthermore, I don't think that a vote could *practically* be deemd invalid 
after the fact. I mean, One Does Not Simply revert the code that was merged as 
a consequence of a TC decision.

I however think that technical biases are totally acceptable, and even 
expected. Afterall, I certainly expect TC member to more or less agree with 
the subjective technical leanings of FFmpeg, as well as its "open-source 
political" leanings so to say. For example, FFmpeg favours C over C++, and 
outline SIMD assembler over intrinsics, and of course LGPLv2.1 over other 
licences.

All in all, I more or less agree with option 6, but that's assuming that the 
text retains the "should" modal. I don't think we can make a hard "must" rule 
here. In the end, if we are worried about conflict of interests, the most 
effective way around them is to keep diverse membership in the TC to counter-
balance conflicted members.

-- 
Rémi Denis-Courmont
http://www.remlab.net/