[OSGeo-Conf] conflict of interest

[Dave Patton]

In BC if you buy an apartment or townhouse, your
rights & obligations are covered by legislation
(the Condo or Strata act).

There is a non-profit association, CHOA
http://www.choa.bc.ca/
that, amongst other things, runs seminars for
owners of 'condominiums'.

Some years ago, I attended one of those seminars.
The seminar instructor owned one of the local
property management companies. One of the first
things he said at the start of the seminar is that
because we as students were taking this seminar that
he was instructing, his company would not accept any
business from our respective strata associations.

He did this so that there would be no possibility
of any perceived conflict of interest - he was there
to teach the seminar, not to improve his business.

It wasn't just talk either - some time after the seminar
was over, our association asked him to bid on being the
management company for our association, and he refused
to prepare a bid for us, a group of 55 owners, simply
because one owner (me) had taken the seminar that he taught.


The moral of this story is that there is true "conflict of
interest", but there is also the perception of conflict of
interest, and sometimes that may be just as important.


It's not clear to me whether or not people may perceive
there to be conflict of interest within OSGeo with
regard to policies and/or decisions about "teach-ins",
but it is worth considering the possible perceptions
before coming to any decisions.

Perhaps input from the Discuss list would help, and/or
a vote by the Charter Members.

-- 
Dave Patton
CIS Canadian Information Systems
Victoria, B.C.

Degree Confluence Project:
Canadian Coordinator
Technical Coordinator
http://www.confluence.org/

OSGeo FOSS4G2007 conference:
Workshop Committee Chair
Conference Committee member
http://www.foss4g2007.org/

Personal website:
Maps, GPS, etc.
http://members.shaw.ca/davepatton/