Subject: IETF registration fee?

From: Paul Aitken <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2013 17:01:21 +0100

Can you help me understand why the One Day Pass rate ($350) is so high 
compared with the full week rate ($650 / $800)?

Registering for two days could cost more than a week!

Surely the day rate should be a little more than (week/5), eg about $175 
- $200, to encourage those who only want/need to contribute on 
particular days?

Thanks,
P.

---

From: manning bill <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2013 11:45:44 -0700

you are not allowed to register for two days.

/bill

On 10July2013Wednesday, at 9:01, Paul Aitken wrote:

> Can you help me understand why the One Day Pass rate ($350) is so high compared with the full week rate ($650 / $800)?
> 
> Surely the day rate should be a little more than (week/5), eg about $175 - $200, to encourage those who only want/need to contribute on particular days?
> 
> Thanks,
> P.

---

From: Donald Eastlake <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2013 14:50:33 -0400

The IETF values cross area interaction at IETF meeting and attendees
have always been encouraged to attend for the week. Allowing one day
passes is a recent phenomenon to which some people, including myself,
are on balance opposed.

Thanks,
Donald
=============================
 Donald E. Eastlake 3rd   +1-508-333-2270 (cell)
 155 Beaver Street, Milford, MA 01757 USA
 [email-masked]

On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 12:01 PM, Paul Aitken <[email-masked]> wrote:
> Surely the day rate should be a little more than (week/5), eg about $175 -
> $200, to encourage those who only want/need to contribute on particular
> days?
>
> Thanks,
> P.

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2013 15:41:25 -0400

> passes is a recent phenomenon to which some people, including myself,

I'm also of the opinion that the one-day passes were a bad idea. We have 
too little cross-group and cross-area participation, too many groups 
working at cross-purposes, and too little attention paid to the 
implications of any one new protocol on the Internet architecture.   We 
have become very overspecialized and we need to see what we can do to 
discourage this trend.

Keith

---

From: Peter Saint-Andre <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2013 13:44:46 -0600

> have become very overspecialized and we need to see what we can do to

I can spend a week at an IETF meeting and never participate in a session
outside a given area. Day passes have nothing to do with it.

Peter

-- 
Peter Saint-Andre
https://stpeter.im/

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2013 08:46:17 +1200

On 11/07/2013 07:44, Peter Saint-Andre wrote:
> outside a given area. 

That's true of course, but you will also have the chance to pick up
corridor gossip from other areas, and to be found by people in other
areas who are concerned about something your area is doing.

> Day passes have nothing to do with it.

I disagree. Day passes encourage the notion that it's normal to
parachute into the IETF to attend a single session. I think that the
IETF's strength is that we don't totally compartmentalise work items.

In that light, it's reasonable that two day passes should cost
more than the whole week. In any case, hotel costs quickly exceed
the meeting fee if you stay for a few days.

Not to mention that people who've paid for a day pass get mighty
upset when a session is moved to a different day at the last
moment.

   Brian

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2013 16:51:39 -0400

--On Wednesday, July 10, 2013 14:50 -0400 Donald Eastlake
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> The IETF values cross area interaction at IETF meeting and
> attendees have always been encouraged to attend for the week.
> Allowing one day passes is a recent phenomenon to which some
> people, including myself, are on balance opposed.

I would add that the registration fee covers a number of IETF
expenses that are fixed and independent of the number of
people-days at a meeting.  So, independent of Donald's concern,
even if one were to use a formula similar to the one you suggest
it would be more like
 
   (1/5 * day-cost-part-of-fee) + fixed-expense-part-of-free

or at least a much larger fraction of the latter.

   john

---

From: "Pat Thaler" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2013 21:10:57 +0000

As someone who during iSCSI development attended just to attend that group, I didn't find IETF to be single day attendance friendly and I don't think that day passes change that substantially. 

The main problem is that the final agenda isn't published until a little more than 3 weeks before the meeting so attending for a single day means waiting to make travel reservations late enough that it may be difficult to get a good airfare (and either booking the hotel for more days and reducing the reservation when one knows what day one is interested in or getting a hotel after the IETF hotel blocks are full).

While generally IETF is helped by cross pollination and multi-day attendance is a good thing to encourage, there are times when the work of a particular group is helped by the attendance of some subject matter experts who are only interested in the topic of that group and who would not be willing or able to attend for the week. A day pass at around 1/2 the full week registration fee does something for the one day attendee while still encouraging full attendance. 

That seems to be a reasonable compromise to me - though given the choice between having a stable agenda more than a month before the meeting and a day pass, I think the former would be more helpful for single subject attendees.

Regards,
Pat 

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Keith Moore
Sent: Wednesday, July 10, 2013 12:41 PM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: IETF registration fee?

Keith

---

From: Josh Howlett <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2013 21:17:59 +0000

>IETF's strength is that we don't totally compartmentalise work items.

I am perplexed that there is, on the one hand, a (valid, IMHO) concern
about increasing IETF diversity & participation, when there appears to be
an active policy of discouraging potential participants who simply wish to
get work done in some specific sessions. Superficially, it would seem that
making participation more flexible and affordable might help to improve
diversity & participation.

Josh.

Janet(UK) is a trading name of Jisc Collections and Janet Limited, a 
not-for-profit company which is registered in England under No. 2881024 
and whose Registered Office is at Lumen House, Library Avenue,
Harwell Oxford, Didcot, Oxfordshire. OX11 0SG. VAT No. 614944238

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2013 17:37:52 -0400

> diversity & participation.

There's more than one kind of diversity.

IETF (and its work) would greatly benefit from participants who work in 
more diverse areas, including areas within IETF and/or outside of IETF.

IETF has a long history of giving too much favor to narrow and/or 
short-term interests.   The long-term viability of the Internet 
continues to suffer because of this bias.

Keith

---

From: Hector Santos <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2013 19:06:34 -0400

> diversity & participation.

+1 Thank you. Well said. I had very little limited time but I wanted to 
blast by Orlando from Miami (by car) and attend just one day, just to 
meet the folks I often have electronic battles with over the years.  But 
the daily cost was a little too much and I certainly didn't want (nor 
ready) to stay an entire week to make it cost effective.  Perhaps it is 
a minor issue to attract local area interest, since that would be the 
only advantage for a daily attendance cost.

It seems to be too much contradictory discussion about diversity. I 
don't have too much confidence anything will be improved.

--
HLS

---

From: Douglas Otis <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2013 16:32:12 -0700

> diversity & participation.

Dear Josh,

I agree. A single day fee should also be considered in conjunction with the increased status of remote participation underwritten by a much smaller remote meeting fee.  It seems there is a general reluctance to consider schemes aimed at capturing face-to-face meetings in a realtime fashion permitting moderated realtime interaction with selected network entities. Experiments with things like WebEx and others involve a fair amount of network resources or they offer poor results.  An audio/video bridge suitable for many simultaneous participants is difficult to solve in a generic manner.  The real question is simultaneous participation in conjunction with telephone bridges really necessary?

Setting up a dedicated low cost device to manage video projectors, microphones, and PA systems for a single moderated inbound access should supplant much of the complexity.  By not permitting multiple video/audio sources and requiring presentation being available in the cloud prior to the meetings, issues of distribution and audio quality are removed.  Such an approach will necessitate greater meeting discipline to ensure only those at an active microphone are recognized, and that presenters both local and remote are permitted control of their presentation. 

Developing this approach would offer a number of benefits extending well beyond that of the IETF since this is a common problem.  Much of the ongoing work related to HTML5 facilitate standardizing the needed APIs.  There are many fairly powerful systems using dual core Atom processors available well below $300.  These systems should be able to handle audio using USB adapters and source video presentations accessed from the cloud.  A fallback operation should be able to carry meetings forward completely from the cloud "as if" moderators and participants were present locally.  In other words, treat loss of the Internet at the venue as being equivalent to being denied access to the physical venue and include this requirement in venue arrangements.

Those traveling thousands of miles already confront many uncertainties.  Those that elect to participate remotely should be afforded greater certainty of being able to participate when problems occur at local venues or with transportation.  Increasing participation without the expense of the brick and mortar and travel should offer long term benefits and increased fairness. 

Regards,
Douglas Otis

---

From: Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2013 16:33:26 -0700 (PDT)

When we introduced the day passes, part of the discussion revolved 
around the observation that some number of people (I don't think
this has ever been "measured") attend for a day or less than a day
in order to participate in a specific working group session or even
just meet with other people. This has certainly been the case for
as long as I have been attending, Berlin will be my 80th (!) IETF
meeting.
 
Prior to the day pass program (and since we generally don't check 
badges), there was no "honest" way to attend for just a single day. 
Having Day Passes at least let's people attend for a day without 
feeling guilty (whether they consume cookies or not).

Ole

Ole J. Jacobsen
Editor and Publisher,  The Internet Protocol Journal
Cisco Systems
Tel: +1 408-527-8972   Mobile: +1 415-370-4628
E-mail: [email-masked]  URL: http://www.cisco.com/ipj
Skype: organdemo

---

From: Andy Bierman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2013 16:39:31 -0700

On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 4:06 PM, Hector Santos <[email-masked]> wrote:
> blast by Orlando from Miami (by car) and attend just one day, just to meet
> the folks I often have electronic battles with over the years.  But the
> daily cost was a little too much and I certainly didn't want (nor ready) to
> stay an entire week to make it cost effective.  Perhaps it is a minor issue
> to attract local area interest, since that would be the only advantage for a
> daily attendance cost.
>
> It seems to be too much contradictory discussion about diversity. I don't
> have too much confidence anything will be improved.
>

+1
Just because I want to attend all week doesn't mean everybody
else should also want to do the same, or can afford the time and expense.

Back when I was RMONMIB WG Chair, it was difficult to get developers
to attend the IETF.  They were too busy implementing the RFCs to
spend an entire week at the IETF.  They really didn't want to expand
their horizons and attend extra meetings for WGs they didn't follow.
I think a 1-day pass would have helped a little, since one still has to make
travel plans in advance of the final agenda.

It seems to me that a cheap 1 day pass and ultra-cheap 1 day student pass
would encourage local people to attend their first IETF.

Andy

---

From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2013 02:42:40 +0300

> That seems to be a reasonable compromise to me - though given the choice between having a stable agenda more than a month before the meeting and a day pass, I think the former would be more helpful…

Secondly, the day pass rates are a combination of a number of partially conflicting factors, including:

- the desire to help cross-pollination
- the desire to attract more participants (and more diverse participation)
- the desire to make attending easy for everyone
- costs: the combination of fixed costs (e.g., RFC Editor), fixed meeting costs (e.g., site selection), and variable meeting costs (e.g., size of rooms)
- pricing: what attendees find as a reasonable fee and how it compares to their other costs, such as travel; avoiding competing with the full week option
- setting up meetings only as a place to do work vs. as a part of funding a bigger system (e.g., editor staff, tools development)
- …

Are we at the right spot? Maybe, maybe not. I personally think the current settings are at least in the ballpark. 1/5 price for a day ticket would certainly be a bad choice, IMO. Something between 2/5 to 3/5 is probably the right area, and I think we are there. And don't forget that we also have Fellows/Guest programs...

I also tend to agree with Pat that the practical matters are more relevant than whether the day pass costs 100$ more or less. I'd rather work on those matters than the price.

Jari

---

From: Simon Pietro Romano <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2013 10:38:11 +0200

Hello Douglas,

> I agree. A single day fee should also be considered in conjunction with the increased status of remote participation underwritten by a much smaller remote meeting fee.  It seems there is a general…

As regards remote participation 'experiments', we have been working for years on trying and improving remote participants involvement and interactivity at IETF meetings (starting with IETF80 in Prague). You can have a look at [http://ietf8X.conf.meetecho.com/ (0 <= X <= 7)] to get an idea of such work.

> Setting up a dedicated low cost device to manage video projectors, microphones, and PA systems for a single moderated inbound access should supplant much of the complexity.  By not permitting multi…

With respect to this point, we proposed an experiment at IETF83: http://ietf83.conf.meetecho.com/index.php/UMPIRE_Project. Discussions about this specific topic can be found in the vmeet mailing list, as well as in the once-supposed-to-become-official RPS document from Paul Hoffman http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-genarea-rps-reqs-08.

> Developing this approach would offer a number of benefits extending well beyond that of the IETF since this is a common problem.  Much of the ongoing wok related to HTML5 facilitate standardizing the needed APIs.  There are many fairly powerful systems using dual core Atom processors available well below $300.  These systems should be able to handle audio using USB adapters and source video presentations accessed from the cloud.  A fallback operation should be able to carry meetings forward completely from the cloud "as if" moderators and participants were present locally.  In other words, treat loss of the Internet at the venue as being equivalent to being denied access to the physical venue and include this requirement in venue arrangements.
> 

Agreed.

Cheers,

Simon

> Douglas Otis

                     					       _\\|//_
                           				      ( O-O )
   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~o00~~(_)~~00o~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                    				Simon Pietro Romano
             				 Universita' di Napoli Federico II
                		     Computer Engineering Department 
	             Phone: +39 081 7683823 -- Fax: +39 081 7683816
                                           e-mail: [email-masked]

		    <<Molti mi dicono che lo scoraggiamento Ë l'alibi degli 
		    idioti. Ci rifletto un istante; e mi scoraggio>>. Magritte.
               			                     oooO
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(   )~~~ Oooo~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
					                 \ (            (   )
			                                  \_)          ) /
                                                                       (_/

---

From: Phillip Hallam-Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2013 10:34:13 -0400

There are several interlocking issues with the day passes and cross area
participation.

One issue is the fact that the IETF chose a business model in which profits
from the conferences fund the organization and the IETF has no ability to
reconsider or change decisions of that sort. I can see that as being an
existential threat to the IETF in a decade or two since the demand for
(unpaid) external participation is going to grow and the technologies for
supporting external participation will eventually not suck.

Using paid conferences as a profit center is a risky long term prospect at
best. Refusing to adapt the format of the conferences to protect the profit
center worse. And in the case of the IETF the whole purpose of the
organization is to develop the technologies that are undermining the paid
conference model. We are sawing the board we are standing on.

Cross area participation is a good thing but the way the IETF supports this
is terrible. I won't be coming to Berlin because there is only one WG that
I have a reason to attend in person and it is not worth making the flight
for a two hour meeting, much of which is summaries.

I much prefer the OASIS or W3C model for plenary meetings where my WG
session will be doing one or two solid days of design work and the plenary
sessions are on the Wednesday and consist of a series of presentations
designed to inform people about the work going on in each area.

Sitting in watching other WGs is not a good way to find out what is going
on. Area meetings are more useful.

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2013 11:17:02 -0400

--On Thursday, July 11, 2013 10:34 -0400 Phillip Hallam-Baker
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>...
> Using paid conferences as a profit center is a risky long term
> prospect at best. Refusing to adapt the format of the
> conferences to protect the profit center worse. 

Or adapting the format to attract more paying attendees, such a
what we have sometimes called "tourists", with no real
expectation that they will do work, because it increases the
income.

Still better than building a funding structure based on sale of
publications, however :-(

   john

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2013 11:29:00 -0400

> publications, however :-(

The best idea that I've come up with would be for IETF to offer 
tutorials (not at IETF meetings, but at other times and places) to teach 
people about current and emerging Internet technology, and use the 
proceeds from those to pay for its standards-making and -maintenance 
efforts.   Part of the function of the tutorials could be to serve as a 
means of getting user feedback for just how well IETF standards were or 
were not meeting their needs.

Of course, there are hazards associated with any approach.   One could 
imagine, for instance, that the IETF tutorial division could end up 
being much larger than the IETF standards division, and that IETF 
standards making would suffer from the desire to optimize performance of 
the cash cow.     Or that there would be conflicts between what the 
teachers taught as best practices, and the practices recommended by IETF 
standards.

At any rate, it certainly would be a significant change from the current 
way we operate.

Keith

---

From: "Moriarty, Kathleen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2013 11:39:41 -0400

Tourists can turn into long term contributing attendees if they like what they see and think it will be an effective forum to get work done.  We need to collectively do a better job helping new people get acclimated to being effective at the IETF.  The mentoring program, ISOC policy makers, and other efforts should help to improve this over time.

I do agree that we need to improve materials so that people can better understand the work happening in each WG.  I know people can read the drafts, but sometimes how the drafts connect or why they matter collectively is not apparent, or even how/why to use which drafts for what purpose.  Drafts and RFCs are great, but other media would be helpful here I think.  The tutorials is an interesting idea.  I think youtube videos may be effective as well without having to schedule meetings for tutorials.

Thanks,
Kathleen

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of John C Klensin
Sent: Thursday, July 11, 2013 11:17 AM
To: Phillip Hallam-Baker; Simon Pietro Romano
Cc: Keith Moore; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: IETF registration fee?

   john

---

From: Simon Pietro Romano <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2013 18:05:34 +0200

Hi Kathleen,

> think.  The tutorials is an interesting idea.  I think youtube videos may be effective as well without having to schedule meetings for tutorials.

I think the IETF leadership is already looking after this. Have a look at:

http://iaoc.ietf.org/
http://www.ietf.org/edu/process-oriented-tutorials.html#newcomers
http://www.ietf.org/edu/process-oriented-tutorials.html#wgleadership
http://www.ietf.org/edu/process-oriented-tutorials.html#creatingids
http://www.ietf.org/edu/technical-tutorials.html#netconfandyang
http://www.ietf.org/edu/technical-tutorials.html#opsandmanagement
http://www.ietf.org/edu/technical-tutorials.html#routing
http://www.ietf.org/edu/technical-tutorials.html#security

All of these have been recorded at recent IETF meetings, and some of them will be re-recorded at an enhanced quality level in order to improve the quality of experience for the end users.

Cheers,

Simon

                     					       _\\|//_
                           				      ( O-O )

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2013 12:09:28 -0400

On 07/11/2013 11:39 AM, Moriarty, Kathleen wrote:
> The tutorials is an interesting idea.  I think youtube videos may be effective as well without having to schedule meetings for tutorials.
Note that I was suggesting tutorials as a revenue source for IETF.     I 
doubt that youtube videos would work well for this.

Keith

---

From: Alia Atlas <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2013 13:45:37 -0400

On Thu, Jul 11, 2013 at 12:09 PM, Keith Moore <[email-masked]>wrote:

>> The tutorials is an interesting idea.  I think youtube videos may be
>> effective as well without having to schedule meetings for tutorials.
>>

But perhaps using some of the Massive On-line Courses infrastructure could?
 That would provide the key benefit of being able to clarify and ask
questions above and beyond a video without requiring physical colocation.

Alia

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2013 08:50:18 +1200

Douglas,
...
>> Those traveling thousands of miles already confront many uncertainties.  Those that elect to participate remotely should be afforded greater certainty of being able to participate when problems oc…

How much would you be willing to pay for remote participation
(assuming it was of high quality)?

$600 for the week (cookies and taxes not included)?

    Brian

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2013 17:19:47 -0400

> (assuming it was of high quality)?

Not much.   Remote participation misses the whole point of IETF 
meetings.   Sure, it's useful to be able to listen on WG sessions and 
make a comment or two.   But the WG sessions generally aren't actually 
worth very much, especially the way that they tend to be run these 
days.   The most important work gets done in the hallways and over food 
and drink.

So IETF is in this very strange position of supporting itself by 
charging a large amount of money for an activity that's mostly 
peripheral to getting useful work done.

Keith

---

From: Douglas Otis <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2013 14:37:18 -0700

> $600 for the week (cookies and taxes not included)?

Dear Brian,

A $600 price would represent a significant savings for most participants traveling large distances and using hotels.  If remote participants were given a first class status, such that even when physical venues lost Internet access, meetings continued.  The number of overall participants should increase and have the effect of demanding much lower meeting fees.

I suspect this will require abandoning the use of unmoderated inbound access to audio channels.  This has not worked very well.  Echo cancelation, noise, and disruption is likely too problematic as well as resource intensive.  Whatever is used must be rock solid.

The IETF already supports a hallway channel.  When the goal is to sell products or services, face-to-face becomes far more important.  There are many other organizations better at playing that role.  I have also experienced these face-to-face meetings many times being used to subvert ongoing efforts.  Strictly moderated and fully recorded meetings hold a greater promise of providing fairness. 

Imagine XMPP as a control channel for moderators in conjunction with meeting channels that automatically recognize requests to speak. The meeting agenda should already indicate who is to speak, with their presentations available before the beginning of the meetings.  Nothing could  be done without everything being recorded and available remotely. 

Regards,
Douglas Otis

---

From: Andrew Allen <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2013 22:24:49 +0000

I think that misses the point.

The WG sessions are where the issues are raised and the opinions and positions are stated.

Offline over the food and drink in small groups is where the detailed discussion and finding of solutions to resolve those issues usually takes place. 

Such a phenomena is not unique to just IETF - its the nature of the beast.

Andrew

----- Original Message -----
From: Keith Moore [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Thursday, July 11, 2013 04:19 PM Central Standard Time
To: [email-masked] <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: IETF registration fee?

Keith

---------------------------------------------------------------------
This transmission (including any attachments) may contain confidential information, privileged material (including material protected by the solicitor-client or other applicable privileges), or constitute non-public information. Any use of this information by anyone other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you have received this transmission in error, please immediately reply to the sender and delete this information from your system. Use, dissemination, distribution, or reproduction of this transmission by unintended recipients is not authorized and may be unlawful.

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2013 18:27:22 -0400

> The WG sessions are where the issues are raised and the opinions and positions are stated.

As far as I can tell, these days the WG sessions are where endless 
PowerPoint presentations are held and bored people check email.

Keith

---

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2013 01:08:50 +0100

This neglects to mention that the IETF is really an activity of the Internet Society - see RFC2301 for takeover details.

As such, the IETF is a business unit of ISOC, which is a non-profit (charitable organization) and which can subsidize the IETF, allowing different conference/payment models to be tried out.

(I've never really understood the IETF business model. I understand ISOC's model even less.)

Lloyd Wood
http://sat-net.com/L.Wood/

________________________________________
From: [email-masked] [[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Phillip Hallam-Baker [[email-masked]]
Sent: 11 July 2013 15:34
To: Simon Pietro Romano
Cc: Keith Moore; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: IETF registration fee?

There are several interlocking issues with the day passes and cross area participation.

One issue is the fact that the IETF chose a business model in which profits from the conferences fund the organization and the IETF has no ability to reconsider or change decisions of that sort. I can see that as being an existential threat to the IETF in a decade or two since the demand for (unpaid) external participation is going to grow and the technologies for supporting external participation will eventually not suck.

Using paid conferences as a profit center is a risky long term prospect at best. Refusing to adapt the format of the conferences to protect the profit center worse. And in the case of the IETF the whole purpose of the organization is to develop the technologies that are undermining the paid conference model. We are sawing the board we are standing on.

Cross area participation is a good thing but the way the IETF supports this is terrible. I won't be coming to Berlin because there is only one WG that I have a reason to attend in person and it is not worth making the flight for a two hour meeting, much of which is summaries.

I much prefer the OASIS or W3C model for plenary meetings where my WG session will be doing one or two solid days of design work and the plenary sessions are on the Wednesday and consist of a series of presentations designed to inform people about the work going on in each area.

Sitting in watching other WGs is not a good way to find out what is going on. Area meetings are more useful.

---

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2013 01:15:31 +0100

oops. RFC2031.

Lloyd Wood

________________________________________
From: [email-masked] [[email-masked]] On Behalf Of [email-masked] [[email-masked]]
Sent: 12 July 2013 01:08
To: [email-masked]; [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked]; [email-masked]
Subject: RE: IETF registration fee?

Lloyd Wood

---

From: Abdussalam Baryun <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2013 06:27:49 +0200

Hi Paul,

I agree with you if someone attends without presenting work, but I
think the fees is reasonable if we compare with other conferences fees
per day (don't forget your free to presentations of your docs and get
feedback from many sessions, this may change in future if higher
load). If the IETF considers your request, I think it will increase
participation maybe about 5% globaly and 20% locally, so mostly
encourages regional participations. I will also add that if the IETF
can consider newcomers to get discount for one day, because newcomers
may want to get a feeling of the meeting.

AB

---

From: Phillip Hallam-Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2013 09:46:43 -0400

To be clear here, I do not think the IETF conference fee to be at all
unreasonable. I have paid it out of my own pocket on occasion.

My concern here is that arguments of the form 'we can't change the
conference model because IETF needs the money' will lead to disaster. The
Internet is changing a lot of business models at the moment and there is a
lot more destruction going on than creation. It is quite likely that at
some points over the next 10-20 years the conferences will lose money. We
might even be at that point already since the profitability is largely
dependent on getting sponsors and the sponsors are paying to support the
IETF not the meetings.

The world looks very different today than 30 years ago and not just because
there is no Soviet Union. Most of the changes of the last 20 years are
actually the consequences of container freight rather than the Internet.
The dotcom businesses were all about moving atoms, not bits.

The Internet effects are only just starting to be felt. The Internet is
movement of information and we have yet to see the type of major industrial
restructuring in the knowledge industries. Container freight and barcodes
are the reasons that all those mom and pop stationary suppliers were
replaced by Staples and Office Max. We haven't yet seen all those hundreds
of tier 3 universities replaced by franchises affiliated with the big name
universities like MIT, Stanford and the rest. But that is going to happen.

The IETF actually has a perfectly logical business model. ISOC collects a
rent off .org which provides several million a year in income which has to
be spent somehow and the IETF is an activity of ISOC.

Now that is not an argument for 'problem solved' but it is an argument that
the IETF is not forced to keep the conference funding model untouched for
fear of breaking the business model.

-- 
Website: http://hallambaker.com/

---

From: Paul Aitken <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2013 11:50:47 +0100

Why are newcomers attending the IETF? There seems to be an assumption 
that they're coming to participate across the board, or that they should 
be encouraged to do so.

Perhaps that's because it's the model that senior / old-time IETFers 
follow - they're involved in many different groups.

However not everyone has that level of experience or can afford to get 
involved so broadly. Other people could be attending very specific WGs 
which relate directly to what they're working on. The rest of the IETF 
is, frankly, irrelevant to them.

For the past 5 years I've mostly been attending the IETF remotely. I'll 
be in Berlin for two specific WGs. Even if other WGs may be interesting, 
I simply can't afford the time, nor do I have management support to get 
involved with stuff that's unrelated to what I'm working on. In the past 
I've seen others fly in just to attend specific WG meetings.

Yet the IETF doesn't recognise that model. You've got the blue sheets, 
you could do the analysis: attendee versus WG, over time. And add a 
section to the blue-sheet for WG chairs to record remote attendance.

Thanks,
P.