Re: Registration details for IETF 108

["Livingood, Jason" <[e-mail]>]

It's interesting that the issue has been framed as a new fee will be charged to participate in an IETF meeting. But there's been a fee to attend an IETF meeting for as long as I've participated in the IETF. I might suggest that another way of considering this is that the typical meeting fee is being discounted for the virtual meeting.

Jason
(not speaking for the IETF LLC - personal view)

On 6/1/20, 8:39 AM, "ietf on behalf of Suresh Krishnan" <[e-mail] on behalf of [e-mail]> wrote:

    +1. I think this is a reasonable decision and allows people to participate without financial barriers, while allowing the ongoing activities funded by IETF meeting fees to proceed without interruption.

    Regards
    Suresh

    > On May 31, 2020, at 5:24 PM, Joel M. Halpern <[e-mail]> wrote:
    >
    > I agree with Eric in his description.  From where I sit, this seems a reasonable decision by the leadership.
    >
    > Yours,
    > Joel
    >
    > On 5/31/2020 5:13 PM, Eric Rescorla wrote:
    >> On Sun, May 31, 2020 at 1:56 PM S Moonesamy <[e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
    >>    Dear Internet Engineering Steering Group,
    >>    [Reply-To override]
    >>    At 06:12 PM 27-05-2020, IETF Executive Director wrote:
    >>     >This meeting will have a substantial agenda but as the cost of an
    >>     >online meeting is lower, the registration fees have been set at
    >>     >approximately one-third of those for an in-person meeting.  A
    >>     >detailed explanation of why we charge a fee for meetings and how the
    >>     >fee reduction was set for IETF 108 is provided in a separate blog
    >>    post [3].
    >>    In 2013, the IETF Chair affirmed that the Internet Engineering Task
    >>    Force embraced the modern paradigm for standards.  One of the points
    >>    in the document is the standards process being open to all interested
    >>    and informed parties.  If I recall correctly, I raised a point a few
    >>    months before 2013 about the IETF allowing free access to its
    >>    meetings through the Internet.  I could not help noticing that there
    >>    is now a required fee to access the next IETF meeting.  Was that
    >>    approved by the IESG?
    >>    I took a look at the meeting policy for the IETF.  I never understood
    >>    why that policy is described as an ambition.  Anyway, as that policy
    >>    does not specify anything about changing the existing practice for
    >>    fees, it is unlikely that the decision to charge for online meetings
    >>    can be challenged.
    >>    I would like to thank the IETF LLC Directors for acknowledging that
    >>    the fee presents a barrier to participation and their charitable
    >>    offer.  I'll leave the charitable offer to those who are in need.
    >>    It took a decade for the IETF to take this pay-to-play decision.  Was
    >>    there any discussion about it?
    >> I don't think the characterization of this as "pay-to-play" is accurate. You
    >> are certainly free to participate in mailing lists, github, etc.
    >> What is being charged here is a fee to participate [0] in real-time virtual
    >> meetings, just as there is one charged for attending in-person meetings.
    >> -Ekr
    >> [0] I emphasize "real-time" as I expect that the recordings will be available
    >> after the fact as usual.
    >