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Subject: Standards and Antitrust



We need to be very careful here.  

Quick background from a non lawyer.

Adam Smith in his 1776  "The Wealth of Nations" has the memorable line:

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."

That is the essence of  cartels and other anti-competitive business arrangements.  Various laws have been developed over the years to prevent and/or eliminate such practices.

However, in order to form standards, which generally are pro-competitive and are to the public's benefit, competitors meet together and cooperate, within the limited sphere.  We will compete strongly in the implementations, but we cooperate (while at the same time representing as well our own business's interests) in creating the standards.  But the restriction is that we cannot discuss things like prices, market allocations, or other similar topics.  In particular I must call "foul" whenever anyone discusses the competitive position of a particular company and suggests that this list or the proposed TC take any action based on that competitive position.  We can't do that.  We can't even discuss that.

Everyone should familiarize themselves with the following applicable OASIS policy:  http://www.oasis-open.org/who/antitrust-policy.php

Thanks,

-Rob

jose lorenzo <hozelda@yahoo.com> wrote on 06/21/2008 02:14:10 PM:
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.
.
>
> I have no problem with you trying to tighten the language on ODF as
> is and add whatever necessary fillers [ignoring all the details
> about where would that take place, this TC, elsewhere, etc]. The
> problem is in trying to change too many things, many of which are
> nitpicks when you consider the big picture, that OO.o is open source
> and that MSOffice is still an opaque monster and owns the market.
>
> That is a very serious problem. I believe, for establishing a
> competitive market, anything that works against cutting Monopolysoft
> down in size is aiding and abetting Monopolysoft and would be
> illegal according to US antitrust law.
>
.

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