Re: [Ietf108planning] Registration open for IETF 108

[George Michaelson <[e-mail]>]

It would be entirely normal for a body which is not primarily about
earning revenue, to incur the risk of LOSING revenue in a significant
change from f2f -> online, in order to understand the nature of the
problem. This would not be incorrect. Its a decision an LLC can take:
incur some costs, to understand your problem. Its a capped risk. It
cannot exceed the loss of revenue of the total number of IETF
participants.  (that is btw a loss of income, not necessarily a loss
running the meeting. So it could arguably be called an opportunty cost
more than a loss)

So, I would actually expect an un-capped fee waiver to be available
and to base the worst-case risk side of 'how many waivers do we need
to fund' on how many people elect to take the option.

I haven't yet seen a cost model which explains how the free
participants remotely represent a cost to the IETF to run. Is there a
volume based charge in Meetcho? Is there a volume based cost to the
infrastructure to run the web-casting?

I note that every meeting I have attended online this year (RIPE, DNS
OARC32 (I am on the board) and the up-coming ICANN RoW) have been
entirely free. Two of the three examples would normally charge.

I simply don't understand how either the LLC or any other body decided
there had to be a limit on "free" noting that many of us expect to
pay, but an uncounted number of us might suffer financial hardship
which in previous times, was unassessed and hidden in 'remote
participation is free' models.

I think this is a huge departure from our norms. I would have expected
this to be discussed.

-G