Re: [Ietf108planning] Registration open for IETF 108

[Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]>]

Portmanteau reply to several messages:
On 12-Jun-20 05:36, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
> Or maybe the answer is that the IETF has to recognize its members as members.
> 
> If we are going to make sarcastic dismissive retorts about money trees, maybe its time we started talking about the Trotskyite constitution of the organization in the same terms. Meaning no disrespect to the current office holders, the IETF has essentially the same structure as a Politburo. Cerf and co designed the organization to keep power in their own hands. That was arguably OK in the days when the ADs were effectively the DARPA program managers or their proxies. Not so OK for an international organization.

Phill, what you say was arguably true for the pre-1992 IAB which then appointed the IESG, but it really hasn't been true since then, unless you believe that Vint has a surefire method of fixing the random numbers used in the NomCom process. There are no doubt issues with that process and there's inertia in the leadership pool, but the system is much more Menshevik than Bolshevik.
 
> Lets put all the funding options on the table including the option we would start with if we were setting up the IETF from scratch: An annual membership fee.

We can call it a "participation fee" to avoid the M-word and its unwanted implications, and what you describe is exactly that anyway.

And it can have various levels, including zero.

On 12-Jun-20 06:42, STARK, BARBARA H wrote:

> IETF needs to raise $515,145 to pay for costs that would normally have been covered by in-person registration fees. See https://www.ietf.org/blog/ietf108-registration-fees/ for more details. We request that those who are able to pay the fees do so. Any who are not able, please simply check the "waiver request" box. You will then be able to register for free. If your company would like to help sponsor our experiment with unlimited waivers (to enable IETF to continue allowing all to contribute, regardless of situation) , please contact us at <email>.
> 
> And then have unlimited and automatic waiver.
> 
> IETF likes to experiment. So we should experiment with a trust model. Trust that only those who need the waiver will request it, and see what happens.

Apply this model to Phill's idea of an annual fee, and I think it works too. Include a student level, a developing country level, or whatever features we want, and I think it works too. But make sure that a suitable receipt is issued for expensing.

On 12-Jun-20 07:12, Michael Thomas wrote:

> Not to be a wet blanket but what happens if corpro bean counters find 
> out that they can game the system for the cost of a checkbox?

I think that can be avoided by making it clear that "name and shame" is a possibility.

    Brian