Section 7 of the -04 version of the Structure of the IETF Administrative Support Activity (IASA) Internet-Draft mentions that any (positive) balance in the IASA accounts (among other assets) would be transferred to a new entity if the IETF and ISOC decided to part ways. This is as it should be. But some people may have unrealistic expectations of the IETF/IASA generating a running financial surplus such that a there might be a positive balance to move to a new entity.
To date the IETF has never finished a year with a surplus, if one takes into account all of the IETF expenses. CNRI/Foretec was able to show a surplus during those years when the IETF meeting attendance was quite a bit higher than we have seen in the last few years. (Attendance peaked at 2810 in December 2000 - see http://www.ietf.org/meetings/past.meetings.html). But CNRI/Foretec did not include the cost of the RFC Editor, insurance or other ISOC support in its budget. They also did not include monies ICANN has spent on the IETF-IANA function, which ICANN funds independently. If those expenses had been included, there would have been a net deficit shown.
Going forward there is no reason to expect that the IETF will return to the days of more than 2000 attendees at the meetings (and maybe that is a good thing), so there is no reason to expect that meeting fees will come anywhere close to the previous level. On the other hand, expenses are pretty similar - when we had 2800 attendees, people complained about meeting room size, and we still have to rent about the same number of the same size of room to accommodate our present attendees. Depending on how you view the numbers, the IETF's estimated annual shortfall will be between $1.4 and $2.1 million. (See http://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg33228.html). It is possible that designated donations could make up more than this difference on an ongoing basis, but it does not seem likely that this will be the case.
Our point is this. We believe that the objective of the IETF should be, at this point, to ensure that it has operating stability from a funding perspective, not that it generate a surplus that it in fact never had. ISOC sees itself as a partner with IETF - giving to IETF in the form of money and other services, and accepting from IETF in the form of wisdom and support on public policy and other issues. For its part, ISOC is prepared to continue doing the necessary work - which it has been doing for perhaps a decade - to make the continued financial position of the IETF secure.
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