On Sun, May 31, 2020 at 1:56 PM S Moonesamy <sm+ietf@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Dear Internet Engineering Steering Group,
[Reply-To override]
At 06:12 PM 27-05-2020, IETF Executive Director wrote:
>This meeting will have a substantial agenda but as the cost of an
>online meeting is lower, the registration fees have been set at
>approximately one-third of those for an in-person meeting. A
>detailed explanation of why we charge a fee for meetings and how the
>fee reduction was set for IETF 108 is provided in a separate blog post [3].
In 2013, the IETF Chair affirmed that the Internet Engineering Task
Force embraced the modern paradigm for standards. One of the points
in the document is the standards process being open to all interested
and informed parties. If I recall correctly, I raised a point a few
months before 2013 about the IETF allowing free access to its
meetings through the Internet. I could not help noticing that there
is now a required fee to access the next IETF meeting. Was that
approved by the IESG?
I took a look at the meeting policy for the IETF. I never understood
why that policy is described as an ambition. Anyway, as that policy
does not specify anything about changing the existing practice for
fees, it is unlikely that the decision to charge for online meetings
can be challenged.
I would like to thank the IETF LLC Directors for acknowledging that
the fee presents a barrier to participation and their charitable
offer. I'll leave the charitable offer to those who are in need.
It took a decade for the IETF to take this pay-to-play decision. Was
there any discussion about it?
I don't think the characterization of this as "pay-to-play" is accurate. You
are certainly free to participate in mailing lists, github, etc.
What is being charged here is a fee to participate [0] in real-time virtual
meetings, just as there is one charged for attending in-person meetings.
-Ekr
[0] I emphasize "real-time" as I expect that the recordings will be available
after the fact as usual.
