Re: Further update on COVID-19 (Coronavirus) and IETF 107 Vancouver

[Phillip Hallam-Baker <[e-mail]>]

On Thu, Feb 27, 2020 at 2:13 PM Christian Hopps <[e-mail]> wrote:

>
>
> > On Feb 27, 2020, at 12:08 PM, Fred Baker <[e-mail]>
> wrote:
> >
> > Attending IETF interims, what I tend to observe is that there is a
> presentation but often not much discussion. The value of an IETF meeting
> is, in my view, in the discussion. As others have noted, that discussion is
> often in the hallway, over a meal, or in a bar, and a remote meeting makes
> all of that close to impossible.
> >
> > So I don't view "let's become completely virtual" as a realistic or
> viable destination. It's a reasonable plan B when we need one, but it's
> very much "plan B".
>
> I completely agree. Every time one of these "let's stop meeting in person"
> threads starts up I'm baffled.


There is a big difference between 'lets stop meeting in person' and 'lets
stop relying on three in person meetings a year to drive work'.

The main effect of IETF meetings is setting a deadline to get stuff done. A
monthly virtual status meeting has the same effect.

When I was working on SAML in OASIS, we had bi-weekly con calls which had
the same effect. We essentially finished the WS-Security spec in 12 months
and SAML 1.0 in 18. And SAML is essentially the same level of complexity as
PKIX, the original brief for the underlying technology was 'redo PKIX in
XML'.


The other point to consider is that none of us are getting any younger and
we haven't been particularly successful in recruiting younger members. I am
one of the younger participants and I am in my 50s. I would like to be
doing this another 30 or so years.