At Mon, 21 Sep 2009 07:01:22 -0700 (PDT),
Ole Jacobsen wrote:
On Mon, 21 Sep 2009, Eric Rescorla wrote:
I'm not really following you here. I've read the stated contract
terms and I'm concerned that they prohibit activities which may
reasonably occur during IETF. Are you saying:
(a) No, they don't prohibit those activities.
(b) Yes, they do prohibit those activities, but they won't actually
be enforced that way.
If you're saying (a), I'd be interested in seeing your analysis of
why that is the case, since my own analysis indicates the contrary.
Indeed, it seems to me that this very discussion we are having now
(which clearly is an appropriate IETF discussion), violates a number
of the terms.
What I am saying is (c) that you have listed a set of topics and
concluded that they violate the contract, I don't agree.
I'm sorry, I don't see the difference between (a) and (c). Either our
activities violate the language of the contract or they don't. You say
that you don't agree that our activities violate the language. If so,
that's good news, but it would help if you shared your analysis so
that people who are concerned can come to the same conclusion as you.
I have stated
what I believe to be the INTENTION of the language in the contract,
namely prevent political protest at the meeting. I have now attended
68 out of 75 IETF meetings, but I have never seen "political protest"
of the form that I think might lead to a meeting being shut down in
China. Yes, we are a rowdy bunch at times, and we discuss a lot of
technical things that spill over into layer 9, but let me repeat what
I said earlier: There is no way the host, with the understanding of
the government, would invite us to meet in China if they expected us
to:
a) Not discuss our usual topics
b) Stage a political rally
The offending hotel clause, simply put, is a reminder of b.
Now I'm really confused, because *this* sounds like my alternative
(b) above.
Perhaps what you're saying here is that (1) the contract doesn't
prohibit these activities and (2) even if if did, our counterparties
can be trusted not to interpret it in a way we would find
objectionable. If so, I have to say I don't find this particularly
comforting: as I've seen no analysis to support (1) [and several
analysis which suggest the contrary], and (2) relying on intentions
rather than contract language seems like an extraordinarily unsafe
practice given the costs to us of having a meeting cancelled
(even if we're not on the hook for paying the hotel a bunch of
money).
-Ekr
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