The company where I work disallows us from using our own product because it would be considered a conflict of interest. Some co-workers say it's a federal regulation, but I've never seen that anywhere in print, so I suspect it's just a workplace rumor/justification.
I've had customers complain to my face that we tailor the products to our needs, and are surprised (and sometimes vocally disbelieve) that we don't use it, ourselves.
In certain industries, dogfooding is considered bad, and sometimes illegal.
Yeah most of the time I hear conflict of interest I don’t believe it at this point. Conflict of whose interest? If you used your own product wouldn’t you learn some issues that exist within it?
> If you used your own product wouldn’t you learn some issues that exist within it?
Isn't that the worry? Say a bug in your timekeeping software underreported hours worked and that lead to workers not being paid their agreed upon rate. When it goes to court you now have to prove that you didn't maliciously introduce the bug to save on employment costs, whereas if it is a third-party providing the software it's their problem. "Conflict of interest" is ultimately just another way to say "I don't want to assume the liability when things go sour". Nobody cares about conflict of interest when things go right.
>"Conflict of interest" is ultimately just another way to say "I don't want to assume the liability when things go sour".
No, it's not.
It's "malice is not a reasonable explanation for things going wrong". It only changes liability when it follows malice, what is much rarer than you seem to think.
It is also a way to assure people that you won't do something bad.
I'm not familiar with that definition. On the other hand, the Department of Defense explicitly says it happens "if the particular matter will have a direct and predictable effect on that interest". Predictable being "a real, as opposed to speculative possibility, that the matter will affect the financial interest".
The topic is centred around off-hand remarks made by someone as to why they aren't doing something (such as using their own product) and how, as pointed out by willio58, "conflict of interest" is used where there is no actual demonstration of conflict of interest. We're not talking about military rigor, as interesting as that subject may also be.
Again, "conflict of interest" is what people often say when they don't know if it will affect them, but don't want to take the risk. "Regulation requires it", as illustrated in the first comment, is what people say when caselaw actually demonstrates that they would be liable.
The fun thing about language is that it is fluid and can take many forms.
I've had customers complain to my face that we tailor the products to our needs, and are surprised (and sometimes vocally disbelieve) that we don't use it, ourselves.
In certain industries, dogfooding is considered bad, and sometimes illegal.