The Usenix annual convention is about the same cost. I suspect the O'Reilly Open Source Convention is more. Corporations already pay for the ietf meetings. Check out the registration list. Corporations are also members and contributors to ISOC. Let's assume we took the meeting prices down for specific classes of individuals by 50%. Are we saying that the $250/meeting is going to overcome the barrier of attending? Let's get real. I suspect flying 1/3 of the way around the world is a far bigger barrier for most people. In many ways, the IETF should actually focus on making presence at a meeting less important. Things like inexpensive telephone bridge access to every session with help from the meeting chairs to get words in edgewise would help. There is merit is actively sponsoring student participation. Perhaps we should be thinking of awards for best contributions, honoraria for travel, expenses, etc. regards, peterf N.B. We are talking about IBM, HP, SUN (the new entrant to OSS ?) and others when you refer to the OSS guys, aren't we? -----Original Message----- From: Paul Robinson [mailto:paul@iconoplex.co.uk] Sent: Monday, March 18, 2002 3:45 AM To: Bonney Kooper Cc: Marshall Rose; Joe Touch; ietf@ietf.org Subject: Re: IETF Meetings - High Registration Fees On Mar 17, Bonney Kooper <bk9001@yahoo.com> wrote: > I think every one missed the point due to my not being > a bit more precise, and using a very strong word. I understood your point fine - what I had problems understanding were the responses. For people to come back with arguments like 'Do you know how much the coffee costs?' raised the question 'Do you think the coffee is critical to have at those meetings?'. I do appreciate how much it costs to put on a meeting or conference, especially when it comes to getting reasonable bandwidth into the building for a short period of time. However, I remember occasions when reading a draft and thinking to myself 'this is a *really* bad idea to implement' and realising that the only way I was going to get heard was to get to the next meetings. Then I realised that (at the time) I was a student, and couldn't afford to even pay the door fee, never mind the flights. These days I'm a bit more flush with the old moolah, and the primary problem I have in attending is time not money. However, the costs are MASSIVELY prohibitive for individuals. In a time when OSes and user experience are becoming increasingly controlled by the individual's involvement in open source software, I find it strange that the IETF is effectively actively discouraging individual participation, and concerns itself mostly with staying good chums with the larger corporate entities. Membership of the IETF is set to the correct price - free - and nobody expects conferences to also be run for free. However, the tiering system Bonney is talking about is likely to have two positive effects for the IETF process: 1. More money will be raised - Cisco et al are going to send their people regardless, and the point where they do not see it as being economically viable to do so is going to be quite high 2. Individual participation will increase, and therefore the quality of the protocols, rafts and RFCs will increase. Would the IETF rather be pushing through some standard that one manufacturer really wants for their new router line-up, or input on a broad range of protocols from the people who maintain the network protocol stacks in Linux/FreeBSD/OpenBSD/NetBSD/etc. with the emphasis being on open, secure, reliable systems? OK, I'm biased, I'm with the OSS guys, but surely somebody can see my point. It's not about trying to push away the corporates, it's about trying to create a level playing field. I, for one, completely agree with adopting a tiering system. -- Paul Robinson