Hi Patrice,
At 11:07 AM -0400 10/20/04, Patrice Lyons wrote:
You mentioned the importance of keeping support services, such as management
of cash flow, separate from IETF technical efforts. I share this concern in
large part. However, I would draw a distinction between carrying out
routine administrative, financial (like accounting for expenses and meeting
fees), technical (such as computer rooms at meetings), legal or other
support services for the IETF ("support services"), and the solicitation,
donation, receipt and other fundraising efforts for IETF purposes
("fundraising").
I don't believe that this distinction is as clean as you have indicated, particularly when it comes to meeting sponsorship, donations-in-kind and preferred contract pricing.
Meeting sponsorship is one means by which large companies can offer financial support to the IETF (in return for PR and good will), so it is not really distinct from fund raising. This lack-of-distinction is emphasized by the meeting in Korea, where the sponsors donated $150,000 to the CNRI/Foretec, in addition to usual sponsorship costs which run in 6 figures themselves. I have no objection, at all, to having our meetings sponsored and/or having the sponsors make additional donations, but I think that meeting sponsorship is quite clearly a form of funding.
Another form of funding is donations-in-kind. CNRI/Foretec currently buys equipment, software, etc. for running the IETF adminstrative activity. It might be possible to get companies to donate these goods, so that we don't have to pay for them. But, this is also a form of funding.
Another, even more subtle form of funding is preferred contract pricing. Carl Malamud's report supposes that there are some people who would offer preferred (or zero-cost) prices to the IETF for their services, either for the PR or good will associated with providing those services. We already see this today on a smaller level -- the ops.ietf.org site is on Randy Bush's server, edu.ietf.org is on James Seng's and tools.ietf.org is on Henrik Levkowetz's. Many people donate their time to do a number of system administration tasks for the IETF and/or to run servers for our use (issue tracking, jabber, etc.) Maybe someone else will agree to run the IETF mailing lists for free (or cheap)? Or our web site? These are also all donations of goods, services, etc.
So, I propose that we can't realistically separate all fund raising activities from the administrative support activity, at least not without eliminating some significant sources of funding.
Please let me know if this clarification of my comments meets your concerns. I look forward to resolving the administrative issues that have been under discussion recently, but would add a note of caution on a rush to judgment. The reorganization issues under consideration are of major importance for the future of the IETF, and the Internet community more generally.
We are in agreement that decisions about the structure of the IETF are important, long-term decisions that should not be taken lightly or made hastily.
Margaret
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