Re: [Gendispatch] Fwd: I-D Action: draft-halpern-gendispatch-antitrust-01.txt

["Joel M. Halpern" <[e-mail]>]

Toerless, several reactions to this email.

First, I (and my co-authors I am confident) do not intend to ignore any 
input.  We may or may not agree with it, but it will not be ignored.

With regard to your question, the answer, to a first approximation as 
far as my intentions go is both.  Which we tried to say in the document. 
  word-smithing suggestions are appreciated.

The caveat is that it is hard enough to arrange useful advice in the 
IETF context. Generalizing and adding to it for other context is left to 
the reader, or the reader's lawyer.

Beyond that, I am waiting to give the chairs time to figure out what 
they think the dispatch answer is.  (As I said at the time, I did not 
expect an answer yet.)  And to talk with my co-authors about what 
changes we think make sense for the issues we want to address even 
before dispatching.  (After dispatching, the dispatching mechanism will 
help us determine what path to take.  It will, I hope, become a 
community document with us responsible to abide by the rough consensus.)

Yours,
Joel

On 11/13/2021 11:55 PM, Toerless Eckert wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 07, 2021 at 04:40:13PM -0500, Joel M. Halpern wrote:
>> I agree with some of your proposals, and disagree with others.
>> But I do not see any of the actual proposals as substantive enough to affect
>> the dispatching concern.  They all seem things we can fairly discuss once
>> dispatching has taken place.
> 
> Does that mean the authors will drop and forget input her from the list that
> is not marked as "unless this issue is resolve, i will not recommend for this
> document to be dispatched" ?
> 
> To repeat here on the list what i said during the WG meeting:
> 
> I do not recommend for this document to be dispatched until it is
> clearer written down agreed to, what actually the goal is. And i see two potentially
>   even conflicting possible goals:
> 
> a) To put into writing sufficient 'Cover My Behind' statements to protect
> the IETF from legal action in case participants partake in anti-trust
> behavior. This is not mentioned as a goal in the draft, but i have the
> strong believ that this must have played a role on writing this document.
> And i do support such a document, but it should explicitly state that
> purpose.
> 
> b) A document that is really intended to help participants to understand
> how to not get into anti-trust law issues. This is what the document claims
> it wants to achieve, but quite frankly i do not even understand the most
> basic connection between this goal and being an "IETF participant".
> 
> E.g.: what legal differences does it make for my compliance (or lack thereof) with
> anti-trust laws if my actions are performed at the IETF or at any other
> place ? Lets say when i am getting together "privately for dinner" at an evening
> of an IETF week with a bunch of folks i know who happen to also attend the
> IETF, and discuss exactly the same stuff there ? Unless there are really
> strange laws (which i would be curious to learn about), i'd say the only
> difference is (a), aka.: possible implication of the IETF into legal
> actions caused by its participants ("sponsoring anti-trust behavior").
> 
> I also think that for (a), we do not necessary need to add more explanatory
> text (however unfortunate i would think that is), but if the goal is (b),
> and someone like me is supposed to understand the guidance, then i'd certainly
> be asking for more explanatory text to be put into the document.
> 
> So, i really can't see how we can dispatch a document without being clearer
> about this goal. And if it is just me being confused here, great, please
> unconfuse me.
> 
> Cheers
>      Toerless
>