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

Brian, the fact that we say people participate as individuals does not 
suddenly make them no longer employees of their company.  And if they 
act in ways that are anti-competitive on behalf of those employers, it 
can place the IETF as a whole, and other participants in the IETF, at 
risk.  particularly if they are from a company that is considered to 
have a dominant position in the market.

So I am looking for the IETF to give participants advice to help avoid 
these risks.  I do not know who wrote the advice 30 years ago, or what 
assumptions they made.  I know that about 15 years ago our lawyer 
thought it would be helpful to clarify these things, but we chose not to.

Put differently, if we thought there was no effect from employers on 
people's actions here, we would not have the rules that each company may 
have no more than 2 members on the nomcom.  or the expectation that when 
there is more than one chair of a working group they will be from 
different companies.  or that we expect that ADs in a given area will 
come from different companies.  Or that the nomcom almost never appoints 
more than two ADs to the IESG from the same company.   We do understand 
that affiliation affects thing.

Yours,
Joel

On 11/6/2021 9:53 PM, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
> Joel,
> On 07-Nov-21 14:30, Joel M. Halpern wrote:
>> Finding the right balance on the wording of this issue is something I
>> expect the discussion once dispatched will need to do.
>>
>>   From what the lawyers tell me, I believe this kind of discussion does
>> head towards incurring significant risks.  So having guidelines that
>> help us stay on the right side of that seems desirable to me.
> 
> Help us understand. Since the IETF's motto is rough consensus and 
> running code, and our participants are individuals not company 
> representatives (and who therefore simply *cannot* make agreements about 
> companyy products), how can discussing and agreeing to implement certain 
> features and test interoperability *before* reaching rough consensus 
> conceivably breach competition law?
> 
> That the IETF is not a venue for companies to make agreements with each 
> other has been established, if not since 1986, then certainly since 1992 
> (RFC1310): "Participation is by individual technical contributors, 
> rather than formal representatives of organizations."
> 
> I do not understand why the legal advice given in 1992, 102 years after 
> the USA's Sherman Act, needs revisiting.
> 
> The same goes for the other new doctrine that I queried in 
> https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/gendispatch/VTxH4Rx_NJPgBeY9FHphdYJZYAw/ 
> .
> 
> I'm having second thoughts about whether this should be dispatched at 
> all. Since the formalisation of the standards process almost 30 years 
> ago was done with clear awareness of US and EU competition law, I'm far 
> from convinced that it's the IETF's job to give people advice in this 
> area. Participants who are employees should get such advice from their 
> employers. We certainly shouldn't be publishing advice that has a 
> chilling effect on rough consensus and running code.
> 
>     Brian
> 
>>
>> Yours,
>> Joel
>>
>> On 11/6/2021 9:07 PM, Eric Rescorla wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi Joel,
>>>
>>> This paragraph stood out to me in this document.
>>>
>>>      There should be no agreement among participants to implement or to
>>>      adhere to IETF standards, or any discussions as to when 
> participants
>>>      will begin to offer products conforming to IETF standards.
>>>
>>> In groups I am in, WG participants pretty routinely discuss shipping
>>> timelines and often try to coordinate changes so that they happen
>>> at similar times (e.g., disabling SHA-1, rolling out new code that
>>> can interop).
>>>
>>> -Ekr
>>>
>>> On Wed, Nov 3, 2021 at 8:37 AM Joel M. Halpern <jmh@joelhalpern.com
>>> <mailto:jmh@joelhalpern.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>>      This is a significant revision of the draft on IETF antitrust
>>>      guidelines.  We tried to address what we heard in the previous
>>>      feedback,
>>>      and tightened the language related to legal issues.
>>>
>>>      Chairs, if it is possible I would like to present this for 
>>> dispatching
>>>      at the upcoming session.
>>>
>>>      Thank you,
>>>      Joel
>>>
>>>
>>>      -------- Forwarded Message --------
>>>      Subject: I-D Action: draft-halpern-gendispatch-antitrust-01.txt
>>>      Date: Wed, 03 Nov 2021 08:15:16 -0700
>>>      From: internet-drafts@ietf.org <mailto:internet-drafts@ietf.org>
>>>      Reply-To: internet-drafts@ietf.org 
>>> <mailto:internet-drafts@ietf.org>
>>>      To: i-d-announce@ietf.org <mailto:i-d-announce@ietf.org>
>>>
>>>
>>>      A New Internet-Draft is available from the on-line Internet-Drafts
>>>      directories.
>>>
>>>
>>>                Title 
>     : Antitrust Guidelines for IETF Particiants
>>>                Authors         : Joel M. Halpern
>>>                                  Brad Biddle
>>>                                  Jay Daley
>>>               Filename        : 
>>> draft-halpern-gendispatch-antitrust-01.txt
>>>               Pages           : 8
>>>               Date 
>    : 2021-11-03
>>>
>>>      Abstract:
>>>           This document provides guidance for IETF participants on 
>>> compliance
>>>           with antitrust laws and how to reduce antitrust risks in 
>>> connection
>>>           with IETF activities.
>>>
>>>
>>>      The IETF datatracker status page for this draft is:
>>>      
>>> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-halpern-gendispatch-antitrust/ 
>>> <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-halpern-gendispatch-antitrust/>
>>>
>>>      There is also an HTML version available at:
>>>      
>>> https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-halpern-gendispatch-antitrust-01.html 
>>>
>>>      
>>> <https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-halpern-gendispatch-antitrust-01.html> 
>>>
>>>
>>>      A diff from the previous version is available at:
>>>      
>>> https://www.ietf.org/rfcdiff?url2=draft-halpern-gendispatch-antitrust-01
>>>      
>>> <https://www.ietf.org/rfcdiff?url2=draft-halpern-gendispatch-antitrust-01> 
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>      Internet-Drafts are also available by anonymous FTP at:
>>>      ftp://ftp.ietf.org/internet-drafts/
>>>      <ftp://ftp.ietf.org/internet-drafts/>
>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>>      --
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>>
> 