On Wed, Jul 15, 2020 at 2:10 PM Brian E Carpenter <brian.e.carpenter@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 15-Jul-20 20:51, Rob Sayre wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 1:57 PM Brian E Carpenter <brian.e.carpenter@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:brian.e.carpenter@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
>
> Nevertheless, the fact is that big
> companies can (and do) send more people, and provide more sponsorship
> (such as hosting meetings, and funding Area Directors), than small
> companies. If they didn't get something back for that, they would
> complain, or simply withdraw their resources.
>
>
> This seems like one of those things that might not "return to normal".
>
> IETF work seems to be proceeding fine without people flying long distances to sit in a hotel conference room and look at their laptops.
That doesn't change my argument that big companies are more able than small companies to donate resources to the IETF. Whether those resources come out of the travel budget is a detail.
Yes, the point was to consider whether the IETF needs the money. The number of meetings is a sliding scale. Zero is probably not a good idea, but three per year seems like too many. I attended a few IETF meetings long ago, and I can understand why they must happen occasionally.
Area Director and WG chair time is a real cost, and I would advocate reducing that commitment as well. Perhaps the IETF should no longer publish Informational or Experimental RFCs. Internet-Drafts are good enough for that.
thanks,
Rob
