DIPLO: Proposal to RP

[DeepO]

Originally posted by nbarclay
DeepO, the way you have things worded now, if I were RP, I would get the impression that Gathering Storm is fairly strongly inclined to favor the idea of a NDA. Your tone - "Would you be interested in...?" - and the fact that you point to what would be perceived as the advantages of a NDA rather than to the possible disadvantages, both give a strong impression in that direction.

Hmmm... you're right. Missed that one. I'll adjust the text, so that it becomes balanced, and doesn't show our, or mine preferences (in neither direction).

I really think we're better off not bringing up the subject ourselves and hoping RP doesn't. It was GoW, not RP, that attached the NDA to the deal with Vox, so I'm not seeing what you're seeing that makes you think RP is likely to insist on a NDA. Also, a post copied to our forum from the intersite forum sounded like RP does not look entirely unfavorably on the prospect of reselling someone else's research.

I don't know... you're maybe right that in mentioning it, an NDA will be more likely, but can we really not talk about it before our first tech deal? What is then assumed, a NDA, or not? It's one ambiguity I like to see resolved explicitly, in that in the eventual deal we either say the tech trade is, or is not bounded by a NDA.

Or if we want to discuss the possibility of some sort of limited NDA or three-way deal with a NDA attached, that would be workable. But you sound like you don't want to reveal as much information as would be necessary to make that type of deal work.

NDA and three way deal: hmmm. You've got a point. But do we need a true 3-way deal? can't we be the mediators, and let the others take care of themselves? Okay, we might mention to both sides that we are taking steps to not clash in research on Phil (to RP), and Lit(to Vox) (without mentioning who our other partner is), and isn't this enough? If we really get involved in a 3-way agreement, there is the risk that this also bonds Vox and RP closer together. Once we decide one of the two needs to go, it would be best to have the other on our side. At least, that's my opinion...

Re: our agreement with Vox: maybe this discussion has one very good result: that we are analysing how far our deal with Vox goes. Maybe, we should take steps to replace the rather hasty deal (which I agreed to, no problem there) by a more detailed deal.
For instance: which deal supercedes the other, our tech alliance, or individual tech deals with other teams? I wouldn't mind including that for the most part, our deal remains secret, and thus other deals supercede ours. When playing honorably, we can't accept an NDA, if we know that we are going to need to send it to Vox. This may limit our possibilities if other teams find out, they can simply have one tech with an NDA on it, and refuse to sell it to the other.

We should find this out amongst ourselves before agreeing to get HBR, as it would be hypocritical from us to accept a deal which we know was protected by a NDA (how fair the deal, or how strict the NDA was is not for us to decide, we know it exists and must act on that information even if we don't agree to how Vox agreed to the NDA from GoW), and later ask from Vox to do exactly that.

One thing is definately true: the message to RP just got delayed to at least one other rewrite

DeepO

[nbarclay]

From a post someone brought over to our forum from the inter-site one, RP clearly regards reselling another team's tech as legitimate in the absence of a NDA. So there's no real danger that they will assume an implicit NDA if we don't talk about the issue.

The reason a 3-way deal could make sense is that for RP to agree not to resell Code of Laws while allowing us to pass on Literature to someone else, they have to get something out of it. I can't figure out a way to do that without bringing Vox into the deal, either directly or by promising Philosophy to RP when we get it from our unnamed source. And Vox would need to be informed of what we're doing if we do that so their negotiations don't work at cross purposes to ours. Yes, that could run a risk of bringing Vox and RP closer together.

Nathan

[DeepO]

I just posted a vastly reduced message to Ninot, as he asked me again.
Please take this time to discuss whether we're going to need a NDA on CoL, there is certainly a risk in sending it to RP before we can make deals with al other nations.

Something else: we shouldn't send CoL to Vox before we got literature in return, and (in case of a NDA) Vox preferably should negotiate a deal with RP on philosophy before sending it to us (which they need to do at the first instance). Otherwise, the price will drop for them, and they might need to send some of the Luxian cash with it

Come to think of it, an NDA would be best, so that Vox needs to spend cash to RP

DeepO

[DeepO]

dp