ISOC and PIR board analogies (Was Re: Draft IAB conflict of interest policy)

[Andrew Sullivan <[e-mail]>]

Hi,

I'm speaking wearing my ISOC hat, and just for information so that
people can evaluate the implicit analogy in Randy's question.

On Thu, Jan 16, 2020 at 01:41:14PM -0800, Randy Bush wrote:
> would being on the board of one or both pir and isoc, and be the exec
> dir if ietf (paid from pir money), be a conflict?

The conclusion in the reviews that the various boards made was that it
was not a hard conflict under the rules.  That is not to say everyone
was completely comfortable and I don't know what would have happened
had other events not been going on.  Note that it is not the case that
the IETF's money all comes from PIR.  Not all of the ISOC funding
comes from PIR (though of course most of it does), and the fact that
the PIR money is filtered through an intermediate organization seems
to make this strictly speaking ok under the existing conflict rules.
 
> would being on the board of of both isoc and pir be a conflict in this
> messy deal?

It's hard to see exactly how, given that the PIR board is appointed
and serves at the pleasure of the ISOC board, but it would certainly
raise eyebrows.  Fortunately, we don't have to deal with that because
ISOC has not historically appointed a member of the ISOC Board of
Trustees to the PIR Board.  (I'm a liaison to the PIR Board but I have
neither a vote on the PIR Board nor on the ISOC Board.)

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
President & CEO, Internet Society
[e-mail]
[phone]