Bernard Aboba allegedly wrote on 09/18/2009 3:33 PM: > The IETF does not and cannot make any warranties relating to the > political views, manners or behavior of attendees. The attendees are > responsible for their own actions, and the IETF has no ability ensure > their conformance to local laws or customers. If attendees violate the > laws or customs of the host country, they may face consequences -- but > they're on their own. > > So if the question is whether the IETF should sign any agreement that > takes responsibility for the behavior attendees, I'd say that this is a > bad idea. It's not really an issue of politics -- I'd say the same > thing if the meeting were being held in Palm Beach and the city > requested that the IETF take responsibility for ensuring that > participants conformed to the dress code (no white after labor day!). My reading is that neither the IETF nor the client is being asked to sign such an agreement. Individuals are, as you say, on their own. The point is about "group activities, presentations and printed materials". My experience with meetings in China is that I try to control my urge to poke into every possible embarrassing topic (I try to control that anyway), and that often I'm surprised when Chinese participants themselves criticize their own government more than I would have. IMHO if the past Net Neutrality discussion were held at the China IETF, it would certainly be toned down simply because people wouldn't be sure if they were crossing a line, but a discussion of technical (IETF) issues related to the topic, and speculation about social implications, would not in themselves be a problem. I believe the same is true about GeoPriv. My personal opinion is that discussion on technical topics can be conducted in a way which goes into depth but is not "defamation of the government of the PRC" or shows "disrespect to Chinese culture". Somehow we've managed to do this in other meetings there. Scott _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf