Re: [Gendispatch] I-D Action: draft-halpern-gendispatch-antitrust-00.txt

[Rob Sayre <[e-mail]>]

On Tue, Sep 7, 2021 at 3:35 PM Brian E Carpenter <
[e-mail]> wrote:

> On 08-Sep-21 06:06, Eliot Lear wrote:
> > They are related Pete.  The real question is whether this is advice that
> > should be given by the IETF.  As I have access to anti-trust experts, I
> > thought I would ask one.  I have done, and am awaiting his response.
>
> On that question, I've got email back to 2006 suggesting that we need to
> do this, as many other SDOs do, and I haven't seen any argument that it's
> a mistake.


Well, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, there is this:
https://www.ietf.org/blog/ietf-llc-statement-competition-law-issues/

That post was published just a year ago, and I sincerely doubt it was
published without being reviewed by a lawyer.

That post seems to say that the IETF's existing structures are
sufficient, and this draft does delegate many concerns to existing BCPs. I
understand that competition regulation is a bit more active than it
recently has been, but this activity ebbs and flows, and the IETF has never
needed anything like the recommendations in Section 5 of this draft.

I think the implications of many messages are that "we're skating on thin
ice", a question to be left to the lawyers, for sure. But, I'll note that
it hasn't mattered for many, many years. 15? 20? I think I subscribed in
2005 or so. Maybe the ice isn't that thin. Or, something major has changed,
and no one has explained what that is.

thanks,
Rob