On 5/13/22 21:56, Michael Douglass wrote:
So I think there's no doubt about the exclusionary nature of in-person meetings. The question is what if anything is to be done?
The first step is for IETF and associated organizations to make
facilitating truly broad participation in the development
of Internet protocol standards as its primary mission, or at least
a significant part of its primary mission.
...so that the evolution of the Internet will be influenced by a wide variety of interests and perspectives, and also so that future generations of Internet protocol developers, maintainers, and implementors will benefit from many different perspectives.
IETF SHOULD NOT see its job as only facilitating continued
participation by groups who are currently active in Internet
standards development. It SHOULD NOT measure its effectiveness
only, or even primarily, by feedback from its existing participant
population.
(The idea of "the meeting fees don't matter because everyone's already spending a lot of money on transportation and lodging anyway" is a good example of the latter kind of thinking, because it implicitly assumes a certain kind of participant who either has their IETF participation fully funded, or who is wealthy enough that their IETF meeting expense is not a significant issue for them, and ignores the concerns of other kinds of participants.)
Keith
