Re: [Gendispatch] I-D Action: draft-halpern-gendispatch-antitrust-04.txt

[Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]>]

On 24-Jan-23 12:26, Stephen Farrell wrote:
> 
> 
> On 23/01/2023 23:22, Mark Nottingham wrote:
>> Authors -- this looks very good, thanks for your efforts. I think
>> it's ready FWIW.
>>
>> Stephen -
>>
>>> On 24 Jan 2023, at 9:59 am, Stephen Farrell
>>> <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>>
>>> I'm not really aiming to water the text down so much as trying to
>>> ensure it can't easily get used to close down conversations that
>>> should be ok, e.g. discussions about centralisation or protocol
>>> changes that mostly benefit a widely-deployed "encumbent" etc.
>>
>> How would that happen? The document is proposed to be Informational,
>> and proposes no enforcement mechanism. 4.1 is in the context of
>> "recommendations for IETF participants" not process rules.
> 
> Not everyone pays much attention to the class(es) of RFC. I
> could see it happening. Moreso the more the text gets close
> to saying that discussion of x, y & z is forbidden.

But it doesn't say that. It does say that if you are unsure of
things, be careful and ask for advice (ultimately from your lawyer).
I really don't see anything in this document that would ever have
changed my behaviour, especially at times when I was an academic with no
industrial affiliation. It would definitely have *guided* my behaviour
while working for industry or consulting for industry, except that
I was already guided by essentially identical advice from employers.

    Brian

> 
> S.
> 
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>>
>> -- Mark Nottingham   https://www.mnot.net/
>>
>>