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

If I could summarise the issues I’ve heard here:

1.  Rob wants section 5 rephrased from recommending the avoidance of certain discussions, to warning people about certain discussions.  Mark makes a similar suggestion in order to avoid any recommendations being weaponised to prevent legitimate discussions.

2.  Lloyd points out that he would be unable to voluntarily share his compensation and benefits details

3.  Mark points out (I think) that preventing all discussion of compensation and benefits could be akin to imposing a "no poaching of competitors staff" policy for the IETF

4.  S. Moonesamy points out that "dominant position" should be better explained as relating to participants whose employer maybe in a dominant market position.

5.  Rob wants to hear from an actual lawyer (in case there’s any doubt - I am not a lawyer) that the phrase "This document does not contain legal advice" is a meaningful legal phrase, while Brian recommends the alternative "This document does not constitute formal legal advice".

6.  Mark is concerned that dealing with the possible abuse of a dominant position is unnecessary given there have been no cases brought to suggest that regulators are concerned with this

7.  Stephen points out that he would be unable to discuss the FLOSS business model in relation to specific supply chains.

Does that capture it?

Jay

> On 7/09/2021, at 7:12 AM, John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> wrote:
> 
> It appears that Brian E Carpenter  <brian.e.carpenter@gmail.com> said:
>>> IETF engineers can't discuss employee compensation or benefits?
>> 
>> What the draft advises is that such matters should not be part of a standardisation discussion. Not being an anti-trust or competition lawyer, I don't
>> know why such a discussion might be a legal exposure, but it would be a very silly thing to discuss in a standardisation context, so I can't see any
>> conceivable objection to the advice.
> 
> The scenario is that a manager at company A says "we pay our engineers
> about $120K", manager at company B says "huh, I guess we won't need to
> give ours a raise."
> 
> In general it is illegal for competitors to coordinate the way they do
> business. Stanrdards development has a carveout because there there
> is a widely understood benefit to the public for competing products
> to interoperate.  That isn't limited to software; it's why the lightbulbs
> you buy at the hardware store fit into the sockets in the desk lamps you
> bought at the office supply store.
> 
> R's,
> John
> 
> PS: This still isn't legal advice.
> 
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-- 
Jay Daley
IETF Executive Director
exec-director@ietf.org