[PDB Gov] PeeringDB Transparency Request

[Daniel Golding]

Tom,

While I think this is a terrible idea, the board (or admins or cabal or
whatever) was pretty transparent about what this arrangement was going to
be when they set up Peering DB as it own organization - namely, that a
board member was going to be PeeringDB's largest vendor. AFAIK, a lot of
the work that was done occurred prior to incorporation and was "owed" to
Grizz - it may in fact, be a primary driver as to why the organization was
spun up - there was no other reasonable way to pay him for the work he had
already done.

This is a massive CoI, but I think during the debate about whether
PeeringDB should have been a separate org (which I was against), this was
surfaced repeatedly, and folks seemed to be ok with it. Whether its right
or wrong, the community went in with "eyes wide open".

As far as deleting the thread - I have no idea who did that, but I think
PeeringDB as an organization should strive to be as transparent as
possible. I can understand wanting to move such an important discussion to
a public mailing list, but that should probably have been done by whomever
deleted the thread. Otherwise, it looks a bit shady.

Dan





On Wed, Mar 29, 2017 at 1:09 AM, Tom Paseka <peskey at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello PeeringDB Board, Stewards and Governance Lists,
>
> I'd like to firstly thank the board work their work thus far and bringing
> PeeringDB forward.
>
> The concerns being raised here, were also raised on the PeeringDB Facebook
> page, a post which has since been deleted by an unknown source. A partial
> screenshot of the thread has been attached for prosperity. This deletion of
> the post isn't the concern here, however its deletion is disappointing.
>
> The issue I would like to ask the board for clarification on is contract
> issued with 20C, LLC for procurement and maintenance of PeeringDB 2.0. This
> software is a great step forward for PeeringDB and the Internet community
> in general, however there are some uncertainties as to how this contract
> was reached. A board member is principal at 20C, LLC.
>
> From the Board Meeting notes, an immaterial contract was reached with 20C,
> LLC between the boarding meetings of 8 December 2015 and 7 January 2016. As
> quoted from 7 January 2016 Meeting notes:
>
>
>
> *Discussion of when to launch.*
> *Aaron clarified a contract with 20C, LLC will be completed before launch.
> Proposal of March 1st, 2016 with announcement to be made by admins as soon
> as logical. Matt is comfortable with the schedule from a coding and release
> perspective. No motion made, but also no objections to the schedule. Matt
> and the admins will drive.*
>
> It's important to note that at this point, no conflict of interest was
> expressed in the board meeting notes, further to that conflict of interest
> declarations from the directors and Secretary/Treasurer were not received
> until 2 December 2016, nearly a full year after the immaterial contract was
> agreed to.
>
> The contract with 20C, LLC was executed prior to 6 April 2016 Board
> Meeting, without a board vote. While I understand this may be with-in the
> Chair's powers and responsibilities, such a large contract, representing a
> majority of PeeringDB's funds should have full board oversight and
> approval. Given the relationship between a board member and 20C, LLC, from
> an external party this could appear as an impropriety.
>
> As such, as part of this transparency request, I'd like for the following
> information to be disclosed:
>
> 1) PeeringDB's financial controls policy.
> 2) Confirmation that the impacted board member abstained from discussion
> and votes relating to procurement of PeeringDB software and ongoing
> maintenance contracts.
>
> Appropriate disclosure and a statement from the board can hopefully close
> this issue.
>
> I thank the Board and Stewards for their time tonight and everyones
> devotion to PeeringDB.
> --
> Tom
>
> _______________________________________________
> Pdb-gov mailing list
> Pdb-gov at lists.peeringdb.com
> http://lists.peeringdb.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pdb-gov
>
>


-- 
Dan Golding |  Global Network Infrastructure |  dgolding at google.com |   +1
202-370-5916
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