--On Sunday, 29 July, 2007 14:40 -0400 JORDI PALET MARTINEZ
<jordi.palet@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I didn't said that operating a meeting outside US is cheaper
> than in US. I said that the cost for *participants* is lower.
Jordi,
Let me add one comment to Joel's discussion, with which I agree.
We've had a long-standing system by which the Secretariat (and
IASA, I presume) try to hold meeting registration fees stable
over some reasonable period of time. So while, as Joel points
out, the fee for a given meeting reflects general IETF overhead
as well as actual meeting costs, the latter are averaged over a
year or so.
If one increases average meeting costs _to the IETF_ by using
more facilities that require separately paying for conference
center space (the norm outside the US and parts of Canada), that
will eventually translate into higher registration fees, which
are a cost to participants. Your logic seems to assume that
meeting costs do not vary with facilities, but that is true only
because of the averaging: I think it is safe to estimate that,
if we met in a larger proportion of facilities that required
rental of external meeting space (often with associated
problematic restrictions), registration fees would go up,
possibly significantly.
It is my personal belief that we are near the upper limit on
registration fees, at least without spreading Secretariat and
other overhead expenses out to the entire range of IETF
participants, not just those who attend meetings. I note that
we are now at USD 1800/year and rising, a level that starts to
approach the costs of ITU-T Sector Membership and participation
fees for a number of other bodies that we have periodically
accused of being less open than we are by virtue of their fee
structures. Trying to spread things out of course involves
opening other cans of worms, some of them quite large and
complex.
john
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