So sign up for remote attendance, pay the fee (or get a waiver), and attend the WG sessions from the hotel hallway on a laptop. Since IETF picks functional full-service conference hotels this is very doable.
The hallway and coffee shop/bar/restaurant meetings are the most valuable thing that cannot be recreated with remote participation in any case, and there's no fee for those.
Thanks,
Chris.
Keith Moore <moore@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
On 5/13/22 11:15, Livingood, Jason wrote:
The fee waivers are currently for remote participation. If someone has no or
low income, it seems logical that they will be unable to afford airfare and
hotels, etc. In which case they are participating in a low cost remote manner
and can apply for a fee waiver.
Those are really not valid assumptions. I've often found ways to save
tremendously on airfare, lodging, or both. Sometimes I had a friend living
nearby with whom I could stay. Sometimes the conference was within a
reasonable driving distance. Sometimes I have had a sponsor who was willing to
pay for airfare, or meeting fee, but not both. Sometimes with diligent
shopping, I've found great deals on travel, even if it meant I had to drive a
few hours each way to an airport with a low fare. Sometimes I've been able to
use frequent flyer miles left over from years ago when I traveled frequently.
And remote participation, while certainly better than nothing, is not usually an
adequate substitute for being there.
I also think it's really easy for people who are funded by their employers to
assume that other participants "should" be like them - e.g someone who is
qualified to participate in IETF will have a job that pays for their travel and
meeting fees. But in talking to other attendees at several IETF conferences
over the years, I've found that this simply isn't true. I've talked to many
extremely qualified and valuable participants whose jobs really aren't about
protocol design and whose employers don't really support their IETF work, or
only support it partially. (Perhaps people don't always like to say so,
though, out of concern of being seen as less legitimate by other "professionals"
at IETF.)
Keith
