It's interesting that the issue has been framed as a new fee will be charged to participate in an IETF meeting. But there's been a fee to attend an IETF meeting for as long as I've participated in the IETF. I might suggest that another way of considering this is that the typical meeting fee is being discounted for the virtual meeting.
Jason
(not speaking for the IETF LLC - personal view)
On 6/1/20, 8:39 AM, "ietf on behalf of Suresh Krishnan" <ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx on behalf of suresh.krishnan@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
+1. I think this is a reasonable decision and allows people to participate without financial barriers, while allowing the ongoing activities funded by IETF meeting fees to proceed without interruption.
Regards
Suresh
> On May 31, 2020, at 5:24 PM, Joel M. Halpern <jmh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> I agree with Eric in his description. From where I sit, this seems a reasonable decision by the leadership.
>
> Yours,
> Joel
>
> On 5/31/2020 5:13 PM, Eric Rescorla wrote:
>> On Sun, May 31, 2020 at 1:56 PM S Moonesamy <sm+ietf@xxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:sm%2Bietf@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.
>
