Re: [Iasa20] IASA 2.0 minutes

[Alissa Cooper <[e-mail]>]

A couple of observations from reading this thread and talking to sponsors recently:

My sense is that the goal of no sponsor having undue influence over the technical work of the IETF is being met today. I don’t see any reason why that would necessarily change in the future even if we end up with some rearrangement of administrative structure. We can remain committed to it and uphold it just as we do today. Or to put it another way, I don’t think we’ve achieved this because donations to the IETF sit in a bank account at ISOC together with other donations to ISOC. I think we’ve achieved it because our community wouldn’t tolerate any other standard.

I do think sponsors have an influence over IETF administrative matters — specifically meeting planning, as Glenn alludes to below. And I think he articulates one important view among a diversity of views, namely that being able to attach sponsorship dollars to specific meeting-related items can be very important for some sponsors. For others, I gather it may be less important. So perhaps what we want to strive for here is flexibility: the ability for some sponsors to support specific meeting-related items, and others to provide more generalized support for IETF administration. I don’t see compelling reasons why we shouldn’t be able to support both options at once.

Alissa

> On Apr 22, 2017, at 11:31 AM, Glenn Deen <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> There is a big difference between letting a sponsor sponsor breaks and a sponsor saying this money can only go for WG X work, or even more specifically WG X and only if it adopts proposal Y.
> 
> Today, IETF sponsorships are broken down and directed to things like breaks, connectivity, receptions, etc and this is done without any influence problem to either the sponsor or the IETF.   
> 
> I don't read the "no influence" goal as saying you can't sponsor specific events like breaks, receptions, or even hackathons or bits-n-bites, or connectivity.    Those are all sponsored without either influencing or being dependent to the decisions made by the IETF.
> 
> Where the "no influence" line is crossed is when a supporter links their support to decisions, actions, or statements made by the IETF.  For example, selection of WG chairs or ADs, or what documents get discussed in a WG agenda and what others don't get agenda time.   That is not acceptable at any level from any sponsor and is not how the IETF works.
> 
> There is only one acceptable way to influence the IETF - contribute to discussions, drafts, and of course running code.
> 
> I will say that it's clearer to explain and justify to the decision makers at sponsor if you can say "we spent $X and sponsored the afternoon break at IETFxyx".   than the more generic "we donated $X to the IETF" even when X is the same amount.  Some many argue that it's the same amount and so what's the difference?  The difference is that the sponsor sees more value in being acknowledged for sponsoring a break than for contributing money to a generic bucket.
> 
> If we moved away from being able to identify specific meeting elements that the sponsors have sponsored and get acknowledged for, we would likely see a drop off in sponsorships at-least in the $ amount from the sponsors.  When budgets get challenged at the sponsors office it's much easier to drop that $20,000 sponsorship to $5,000 when there isn't any direct impact to the sponsor from the cut.  If however, that missing $15,000 means that the new reduced  break food is awful and would reflect badly on the sponsor then the sponsor is motivated not to make the cut.
> 
> That doesn't mean the sponsorship fees simply equal the cost of what they are sponsoring. It's a sponsorship and not a direct contribution by the sponsor. The actual planning and delivery is done by the IASA.
> 
> Glenn Deen
> 
> Sent from my iPad
> 
>> On Apr 21, 2017, at 1:19 PM, Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]> wrote:
>> 
>> very, very careful that if money is earmarked for the IETF, it is absolutely neutral with
>> regard to the content of the IETF's work program.
>> 
>>  Brian
> 
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