[ghc-steering-committee] Please review #540: parallelism semaphores, Shepherd: Adam

[Adam Gundry]

On 09/11/2022 21:33, Joachim Breitner wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Am Mittwoch, dem 09.11.2022 um 21:04 +0000 schrieb Adam Gundry:
>> I'm not sure if we have explicit guidelines regarding conflicts of
>> interest (should we?), but I think I should declare a conflict in this
>> case. The authors of this proposal work for Well-Typed and have proposed
>> and implemented this feature on behalf of a client, which might give the
>> impression of potential bias.
>>
>> I am happy to take the advice of the committee on how to handle this
>> situation. While I don't think I need to recuse myself from discussion
>> of the proposal completely, it seems like it would be better for it to
>> be shepherded by someone else?
> 
> we tend to have multiple well-tyists or tweagers on the committee, and
> so far we mostly worked under the assumption that committee members
> manage to do their committee work unencumbered by their jobs. So unless
> you, say, personally tasked someone with writing that proposal, or
> genuinely (and not just formally) _feel_ conflicted, I’d say don’t
> worry. We are all just trying to make GHC better, not govern a country
> or something like that :)

I've talked this over with my colleagues, and I think I am sufficiently 
conflicted that I shouldn't shepherd the proposal. In particular, I've 
have had frequent discussions of the work with the authors and our 
client, so it would be difficult for me to make an objective 
recommendation for acceptance or rejection.

More broadly, I do think in general it would be preferable for a 
shepherd not to be from the the same company as or a close collaborator 
of the proposal author(s). I accept that in a small community this may 
not always be desirable as a strict rule, not least because the shepherd 
is "merely" making a recommendation to the committee rather than 
formally deciding the fate of the proposal. But I think it is helpful 
where possible for a couple of reasons:

(a) to avoid giving the impression that by having a representative on 
the committee, companies will have an easier time getting their 
proposals accepted; and

(b) to improve the quality of proposals by having them carefully 
scrutinized by a shepherd with a different background from the authors.

Sorry to be ducking out of this one. I'd be happy to swap shepherding 
duties with someone else if there are any proposals in a suitable state 
for that to make sense?

Cheers,

Adam


-- 
Adam Gundry, Haskell Consultant
Well-Typed LLP, https://www.well-typed.com/

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