Re: Stupid question: How are "the rights to represent the Sponsor" as codified in BCP78 and BCP79...

["Frank Ellermann" <nobody at xyzzy.claranet.de>]

TS Glassey wrote:

> How if an individual represents a Sponsor's legal interests
> in the IETF would that Sponsor not be liable for "any and all"
[...]
> damages that said sponsored person caused to another in the
> IETF's standards process?

Looking through BCP 25 and 78 it's apparently very important
to distinguish "participant" and "contributor".  A participant
is always an individual, see BCP 25 chapter 1:

| Participation is by individual technical contributors, rather
| than by formal representatives of organizations.
 
A contribution can be made as a representative of a sponsor, in
BCP 78 chapter 3.3:

| By submission of a Contribution, each person actually submitting
| the Contribution, and each named co-Contributor, is deemed to
| agree to the following terms and conditions, and to grant the
| following rights, on his or her own behalf and on behalf of the
| organization the Contributor represents or is sponsored by (if
| any) when submitting the Contribution.

You are apparently talking about a contributor representing an
an organization, and/or sponsored by an organization.  And this
contributor caused damage to oner or more IETF participants.

Some damage caused by the sponsored contribution, otherwise 
this would be a participant not representing any organization.
 
> I ask this since BCP78 forces the participants to agree by
> their continued participation that they do formally hold in
> a legal sense an "Enduring Power of Attorney" which if true
> ***ALSO*** makes that Sponsor totally liable for that person's
> actions in any effort one would think since those two facets
> cannot be separated as far as I know.

If contributor C representing organization O causes damage for
participant P with the contribution, then P might be able to
sue O.  If that's the case, what's your problem with it ?  

 Frank


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