On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 08:37:09AM -0500, Donald Eastlake wrote:
(c) The IETF does not have any members
The governance of the I* is complicated but I don't think any court
would have any trouble finding that, for some purposes, the membership
of the IETF is those qualified to serve as voting noncom members.
For the purposes to which an anti-competitive practices policy would
need to be put, however, this qualification would be nonsense.
Whether one qualifies as a nomcom member is irrelevant to whether
one's arguments count during WG and IETF last calls. Such
qualification is also not required to be a WG chair, and while it
would be unusual that a WG chair not qualify for nomcom membership, if
a WG were not regularly holding meetings co-incident with the general
IETF meeting it is certainly possible. Since rough consensus as
determined by WG chairs and then the IESG is the mechanism by which we
decide to publish a standard, those are the key areas where membership
would have to matter in any anti-competitive practices policy.
To my everlasting regret, I am not a lawyer, but I don't think a court
ruling the way you expect it to would be applying the right test. If
we think that courts would in fact use that test (I'm not as confident
as you, but I'll happily grant it's at least possible), then we have a
pretty serious problem. It is one, however, that calls not for a
policy on anti-competitive practices, but instead a general
reconsideration of how we count people as participants ("members", if
you like) in the IETF and what the consequences of that are. That is
not so much a rat-hole as a giant pit filled with every possible
rodent of every size and description.
--
Andrew Sullivan
ajs(_at_)anvilwalrusden(_dot_)com
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