--On Thursday, June 11, 2020 14:21 +1200 Jay Daley <jay@xxxxxxxx> wrote: >... > As well as stating that you see this a switch from a zero to > non-zero fee, I think you've also stated that such a switch > can only be made with community consensus. Given that you and > some others firmly oppose this switch it would seem that > community consensus could not be achieved within the necessary > timeframe to make such as switch for IETF 108, if at all, no > matter what process was used to try to find consensus. That > would then mean that if your initial premise is accepted, IETF > 108 would have to have a zero fee for all, no choice in the > matter Jay, I have more and longer comments which I may not send, especially since others seem to be making some of the points, but I just want to point out how the above can be read in the light of traditional IETF assumptions about openness and community involvement. I hope it is not what you intended, but the above paragraph can easily be interpreted as: (1) We [1] decided we wanted or needed to impose the charge. (2) We realized that, if we announced our intentions and engaged the community on the subject of a charge, there would be a heated debate and that it was unlikely that clear community consensus would emerge quickly. Our carefully explaining our reasoning and motivations and/or different choices of how to present the question would be unlikely to speed that process up significantly. (4) Therefore we decided to not ask but simply announced our choices when we announced the final registration plan and procedures. Now I really, really, hope that isn't what you are saying and isn't the process that got us here. That explanation and those steps could be repeated, even if some of the decisions were reversed or mitigated, to decisions about the fee waiver arrangements, the restrictions on retransmitting information from the sessions, the audio stream, the elimination of the real-time observer arrangements, and maybe a few things I have forgotten. Again, I hope that is not what you are saying and the process that got us to any of those actions. best, john p.s. I left (3) out of the above because I don't think even I am that pessimistic and cynical. However, it would go something like: (3) In spite of the fact that we because aware early on that there would need to be some kind of charging arrangements and other perturbations to how we have traditionally done things, early enough that we could, e.g., recruit a couple of companies to cover the cost of fee waivers and engage in a fairly elaborate analysis of possible fee levels, we decided to not give the community even a heads-up at those points because doing so would have likely started a discussion and we preferred to wait long enough that we could say "no time for a community discussion and consensus". As I said, I'm not that pessimistic and cynical. I can't speak for others. And, no, I'm not underestimating the amount of time and effort the planning process has taken nor am I suggesting that there would have been time to prepare a detailed report that laid out plans, options, and tradeoffs. But a "heads up" note that says "hey, we are thinking about these things, there will likely be a plan at some stage, and, if you think there are important principles that we might miss, this would be a good time to speak up" would not have taken a huge extra effort to write and send, especially in comparison to one that said "plans will be announced when possible" (or equivalent). I hope we can at least learn enough from this that we are not having the same quality of discussion before IETF 109, 110, or whenever it is next necessary to hold an all-online meeting, even if that is years from now. [1] I still don't know who, or what process, that refers to, but let's leave that for other messages.
