Re: IETF 100, IAOC perspective

[Melinda Shore <[e-mail]>]

On 6/8/16 10:13 AM, JORDI PALET MARTINEZ wrote:
> At LEAST we need to make sure that the Singapore government know that
> we go there most probably because we have no other choice at this
> point in time for planning another venue, and that we will most
> probably not return if the laws keep the same.

I have to disagree with you that this debate has been useless
if we don't communicate with the Singapore government that
we have a problem with asking our participants to travel to
their country under the condition that they are violating
the law pretty much on the basis of status.  I think that
this has been (for the most part!) a useful discussion for
the IETF to have had, and regret only that it couldn't
have been carried further because of the by-now canonical
sidetracking into discussion of participation by geography.

Even leaving aside the question of communicating with the
Singapore government, I think it is nearly impossible
that we'd come to any sort of consensus on putting together
that sort of statement and that the costs of trying to
do so and then failing would be high enough to call into
the question of even trying (yes, that's a bad thing
about the IETF).

What I do think is important to highlight is that this
really does highlight the extent to which IETF participation
is *not* meritocratic - that conditions are placed on some
which are not based on their technical contributions but on
matters of status that ought to be completely irrelevant
here.  We can and should be doing better at this.  In the
meantime the Singapore situation is what it is.

Melinda