Hi Jason,
At 06:51 AM 02-10-2023, Livingood, Jason wrote:
Saying that "pay-to-play fee was instituted" seems a little overblown.
Pay-to-play **IS NOT** IMO:
- Paying a fee to attend a conference in order to partially cover
the costs of that conference
- An employer letting an employee spend time volunteering to serve
as a WG chair or AD, etc.
Here's what pay-to-play **IS** IMO:
- Paying a fee of $X for a company to join and participate in an
organization (without the fee you could not join a mailing list, etc.)
- Having documents that are approved by voting by named, paying
companies & where the amount of payment drives the weight of the
vote (i.e., if Company A paid $10 and Company B paid $5, then
Company A's vote is weighted at 2x Company B's vote)
It could be argued that it is possible to participate in
standard-setting by joining a mailing list. I doubt that it is
practical or else the participation set would reflect that.
The second description of "pay-to-play" is about voting rights. The
closest thing to voting rights in the Internet Standards Process is
the Internet Engineering Steering Group ballot procedure. There
might be a perception that an AD who is affiliated with an
organization would favour that organization.
Regards,
S. Moonesamy
