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

[Christian Huitema <[e-mail]>]

On 9/6/2021 10:38 PM, Pete Resnick wrote:
> On 6 Sep 2021, at 21:01, Rob Sayre wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Sep 6, 2021 at 6:57 PM Mark Nottingham <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>
>>> Great. BTW for the dispatch question, I agree that AD-sponsored is 
>>> the way to go here.
>>
>>  I think Mark's interpretation makes sense, from my perspective.
>
> I have not yet consulted with my co-chair, so I'm not concluding the 
> dispatch discussion itself, but I believe I also heard in the 
> discussion "AD-sponsored is the way to go, with advice to the AD that 
> discussion of some issues is still required, perhaps before Last Call, 
> and therefore a forum of discussion should be identified." You should 
> probably speak up if I didn't get that right. 


Yes. It is nice to have a document summarizing potential anti-trust 
issues, and this draft is a good basis for it. However, the bullet list 
in section 5 is hastily worded, and could be either misinterpreted or 
used to curtail useful discussions. For example:

* We definitely do not want to see the IETF used by companies as a way 
to coordinate pricing of their products. But we know that in many case, 
the inclusion of some complex features in a standard might make products 
more expensive to product. Suppose an engineer objects that "If we pick 
option B, the product development will last twice longer and the product 
will require twice as much memory and CPU." Is that really a discussion 
we want to prohibit?

* We don't want companies coordinating their product launch strategies, 
which I think is what lies behind the "specific market opportunities" 
product. But then, a big reason for developing standards is precisely 
the need to enable development of new products that serve identified 
needs. Do we really want to prohibit discussion of such topics?

* We definitely do not want companies using the IETF to coordinate their 
compensation policies and establish some kind of employers' cartel. But 
if some participants want to compare their salaries, are we going to try 
prevent that?

I think the current bullet list format is too terse and does not convey 
the necessary nuances.

-- Christian Huitema