Re: ietf meeting fees

[Andrew Sullivan <[e-mail]>]

Hi,

No hat.  In particular, I'm employed by the Internet Society but most
certainly do not speak for it in this message.

On Wed, May 29, 2019 at 01:45:00PM -0400, John C Klensin wrote:

> decision bodies come to be dominated by people with strong
> organizational support, sensitivity to cost and related issues
> by those who actually make the decisions may be reduced.

I think it impugns the professional integrity of those working for
those supportive organizations -- who support the IETF through quite
generous allocations of their employees' time and travel budget -- to
suggest that they are not price sensitive.  I know that when I was on
the IAB and when I was IAB chair, while I depended on my generous
corporate suppprt, I tried to be pretty careful with my travel budget
lest I find my organizational support reduced.

> I note that each of the above has been proposed in the past, at
> least the first to the point of I-Ds proposing different
> variations.  What they have in common is that the IESG (and/or
> IASA) have been unwilling to take them up.

I think this is entirely unfair to the IESG and IASA, who have often
and diligently considered all these proposals.  The problem, of
course, is that while an awful lot of people think that _something_
should be done, they seem also almost universally agree that whatever
their favourite feature is must not be affected.  The effect is that
everyone agrees that something should be done to constrain the budget,
but not anything that will affect oneself, which inevitably reduces to
"nothing".  This is not an IESG or IASA problem.  It's a community
problem.  If the collective will were there to do something less
expensive and take the compromises, it would be easy.

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[e-mail]