Re: [antitrust-policy] Who enforces an Antitrust Policy for the IETF

[Russ Housley <[e-mail]>]

John:

>> If you observe behavior in violation of these guidelines at an IETF
>> meeting, please do not be silent; formally object.
> 
> What does that mean?  Let's say I hear two guys in the next row
> talking about product pricing.  I say, hey, you can't talk about that.
> They laugh at me and continue.  Now what?
> 
> Or if this instruction or something like it goes into the Note Well,
> it's making every IETF attendee responsible for the behavior of
> everyone else.  If someone's hauled into court, they're going to say
> well, gee, the IETF specifically tells people to police anti-trust
> violations, nobody said anything to us about it, so the IETF agreed
> with what we did.
> 
> I have trouble imagining a problem this mess is supposed to solve that
> is anywhere near as ugly as the swamp it's leading into.

I'd like to think that we do not need to assign someone to enforce the antitrust policy.

I see them a guidelines for proper behavior.  When we see someone do something surprising on a mail list (such as posting a job opening) they person gets a lot of private messages to stop.  If they continue, public messages follow.  This usually gets the behavior corrected.  This is in like with the story shared by Brian.

Russ