Agree with Phillip, but I would add one more thing. Stewart's note includes "country that is open to International participation in technical standards meetings". I'd would be happy --or at least amused-- to see a counterexample, but, AFAICT, the number of countries who have imposed travel restrictions -- regardless of when, for how long, and with various details-- but have said "except for technical standards meetings, whose attendees are exempt from the rules" is zero. I think Brian Carpenter's note of some weeks ago is key. Restating it from a different perspective. Until either a very large fraction of the worldwide population has been vaccinated with a vaccine that is highly effective in preventing infection and transmission and not just against serious illness, hospitalization, and death (likely many years at the rate things are going) or almost all of those who have not developed nature immunity have died off (likely even longer), we are going to have countries with significant exit or reentry restrictions and companies with travel restrictions of their own. Maybe predictability will improve to the point that we get months of notice about who is going to impose (or drop) which restrictions and when rather than the "little or no notice" Phillip mentions, but the odds of getting enough notice to plan meetings well are about zero. Net result: Unless we really want to have never ending discussions about how one country or company is more protective, infected, or reasonable than another (and likely to remain so some months or years off) or about which groups of participants are more important than others, it seems to me that there are only three realistic questions: (1) Do we plan on all-remote meetings for the indefinite future or is it possible, operationally and economically, to plan "hybrid" meetings with significant numbers of people remote, meetings whose physical locations can be cancelled or moved on relatively short notice? As others have pointed out, big parts of the latter question are financial and I hope the LLC (really Jay) will tell us rather than having those of us who are not expert and who do not have access to key data debate the topics at length. (2) Would there be significant enough value in cluster meetings that are f2f on a national or regional level with the clusters participating remotely in global IETF meetings to justify sorting out the many challenges -- technical, logistical, and financial -- associated with such arrangements (and noting that some countries and companies have imposed in-country travel restrictions, not just international ones)? (3) Do we really need to have these discussions on a per-meeting basis or can we consider the time they take away from substantive technical work that might make the Internet better? Can we cut the frequency down and increase our overall technical productivity? And, if the answers are "less often would be fine", can we determine the frequency (or delegate that determination) and then start treating any threads that bring the issues up on the interim without introducing new and significant information and circumstances as disruptive? thanks, john --On Monday, September 20, 2021 08:55 -0400 Phillip Hallam-Baker <phill@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > I don't think there is any value to be had in the game of > guessing which country will be more or less open to visitors > in nine months time. > > Any country can shut down with little or no notice. And it is > not just stopping people in that is the issue, it is people > unable to get back home. There are still people who have been > unable to get home from the 2020 lockdowns. > > US regulations have much wider impact than the US. Corporate > travel restrictions tend to be at least as restrictive as the > US. It is highly unlikely that we can have a productive > meeting anywhere on the planet while US travel restrictions > are in place. > > The people of a certain ideological faith spend a lot of time > jabbering enthusiastically about 'regulatory arbitrage'. In > practice, regulation tends to spread far beyond the sovereign > territory it theoretically applies to. The device you are > reading this on is almost certainly RoHS certified (or > pretends to be) despite the fact that this is only a legal > requirement in the EU. > > > > > On Mon, Sep 20, 2021 at 1:16 AM Stewart Bryant > <stewart.bryant@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > >> I know that it is a long way out, but there seems to be a >> significant body of opinion that the US will not open up to >> travel by the residents of a significant number of IETF >> participants until the end of 2022. >> >> Under these circumstances should we not be moving IETF 114 >> from the USA to a country that is open to International >> participation in technical standards meetings? >> >> Moving a meeting is no small undertaking, and the sooner we >> take steps to move to a less restrictive country, the higher >> the chance that we will have a face to face rather than >> virtual meeting. >> >> - Stewart >> >> >>
