Re: [antitrust-policy] Easy to quibble, so my strawman

On 01/21/2012 12:30 AM, Stephan Wenger wrote:
> Two things:
>
> On 1.20.2012 16:05 , "Stephen Farrell"<stephen.farrell@cs.tcd.ie>  wrote:
>
>>
>> I've no idea if this is very useful but in the spirit of not
>> just quibbling, here's a quick not very thoughtful strawman
>> for what I think we might usefully say on this topic.
>
> This would be an excellent starting point for an FAQ

Maybe that's all we need?

 > (minus the one issue
> below, perhaps).

We could thrash on the detail, but any good set of illustrative
examples would be fine IMO.

 > But I wonder what that insurance agent would say about
> it...  the whole discussion started with an insurance agent wanted to see
> paperwork, wasn't it?

I'll let Russ/Jorge answer that.

S

>
>>
>> S.
>>
>> There's a thing called anti-trust in the US and competition law in
>> the EU and probably other things elsewhere.  Basically, the idea
>> is to prevent some companies ganging up on others and being bold.
>> In theory, the IETF could get dragged into some dispute related to
>> that, or to some government or regulatory investigation of that
>> kind of thing. We'd rather not.
>>
>> So, please check that out and don't be bold.
>>
>> If you don't know what this means then go looking and ask your
>> boss. If you don't have a boss, there's probably no damage you can
>> do here if you're not a WG chair or something. If you are a WG
>> chair or something then ask on the wgchairs list if you don't know
>> what to do.
>>
>> For most IETF participants, someone in your organisation should
>> understand what it means to be good about this. So start by asking
>> locally.
>>
>> But remember, for the IETF its the technical content that matters
>> most, not all this policy stuff.
>>
>> Need examples?
>>
>> - A bunch of companies having a secret meeting where they agree to
>> promote or try kill some Internet-draft for non-technical reason
>> would be a bad thing here.
>
> What a bunch of companies do in a _secret_ meeting may or may not be
> anticompetitive, but it certainly does not concern the IETF.  As I
> understand it, the goal of this exercise is not to prevent companies or
> participants from being stupid (in non-IETF settings).
>
>>
>> - Saying that a WG should only work on an I-D if an IPR
>> declaration's terms are changed to 1% of net revenue would not be
>> appropriate.
>>
>> - It is ok to say "I don't understand your IPR declaration - what
>> does<that bit>  mean?" But its not ok to haggle with the IPR
>> holder.
>>
>> A mixture of common sense, reading about the topic and checking
>> with any local bosses should get you to where you know what's
>> appropriate and what's not.
>>
>> If not, then ask. Send a mail to antitrust-policy@ietf.org and you
>> may get an answer. (It won't be legal advice or anything but it
>> might help.)
>>
>>
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>
>
>