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Re: An Antitrust Policy for the IETF

2011-11-29 04:22:09
----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian E Carpenter" <brian(_dot_)e(_dot_)carpenter(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com>
To: "IETF Chair" <chair(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org>
Cc: "Ted Hardie" <ted(_dot_)ietf(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com>; "IETF" 
<ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org>; "IESG"
<iesg(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org>
Sent: Monday, November 28, 2011 10:00 PM
On 2011-11-29 08:10, IETF Chair wrote:
Ted:
I think we should be very careful before creating makework for a lawyer.
In other words there are two initial questions that need to be answered:

1. What is the threat model? What type of exposure *of the IETF itself*
(including its volunteer "officers") exists? Of course, this is not just
about US law. The EU has strong antitrust law, for example.

I was about to say that this sounds like a USA issue, not knowing of antitrust
anywhere else in the world.  The EU has regulations to promote competition - it
invoked them against Microsoft with the bundling of browser and operating
system - but I think that the term 'antitrust' would not be recognised, would be
seen as something purely American in its terminology and in its focus.

Which raises the issue, is there any lawyer in the world competent in US
antitrust, EU 'pro-competition' and their equivalents in, say, India? um.

(When I saw this thread, I immediately connected it to a post on the MPLS list
suggesting that a suit is being prepared over the MPLS-TP choice of technology,
but that might be just FUD).

Tom Petch

2. Are there any aspects of that threat model that are not already
covered by the Note Well, the documents it refers to, and their chain
of references?

These two questions do need legal expertise. But if the answer to Q2 is
"no" we can stop there.

I think a separate list for this is appropriate.

    Brian Carpenter

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