On Sun, 11 Oct 2009, Doug Ewell wrote: > > I'd suggest reading your posts again. And I suggest you read the original message that started the whole discussion again, let me quote the relevant section: "The members of the IAOC, speaking as individuals, do not like this condition as a matter of principle. The IAOC does believe that this condition would not prevent the IETF from conducting its business." I signed up to that statement before it was sent out. And yes, I have been speaking as an individual which I think it's OK to do since no final decisions have been made. > > It's fine with me if you believe on an individual level that the > risks are low, that the rules won't be enforced for some reason or > that people will happily refrain from potentially risky subject > matter, or that nobody will mount an intentional DoS attack against > IETF by unfurling a banner and letting the hotel finish the job for > them. But if you post this, I believe it should be clearly marked > as an individual opinion, because leaving it unclear whether this is > your opinion as IETF Trustee is incompatible with asking the > question and tallying the results without bias. Really? How do you reconcile that with Marshall's statement? We're asking if the community can "live with" the clause as currently provided. We don't (or didn't at the time to be accurate) believe that the clause itself would prevent us from having a successful meeting there. But we asked for community input. The data collected (from the survey and from comments) is what we will use to further analyze the situation. Do we still believe what we belived when he sent out the message? I can't tell you because we have not discussed it in detail yet, but the whole point was to collect this information from the community. Obviously, at some level, it does not really matter WHY someone might not want to attend a meeting in China, if the number is large we're not going to have a successful meeting by our usual definition. The survey and comments tells us something about that, some of it as a direct result of the questions, some of it as "side effects". And: a lot of OTHER issues have also been brought into focus as a result of these discussions, and all of it is good input to our decision making process. It ALSO provides a written record of the community's feelings on this meeting, something I expect will become really useful if further negotiations on contract terms procede. As for > > > (And one more time: I agree that the contract clause is unacceptable, at > > least if taken literally). > > How can it not be taken literally? As I said in my other post, individuals > can choose to ignore the speed limit signs and drive as fast as they want, but > the organization cannot. > I understand your point, but "taken literally" can mean different things to different readers. It's not worth debating this any further since we already agree that the best thing would be to get rid of the clause so I suggest we move on and see what can be accomplished in that regard. Cheers, Ole _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf