On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 03:18:24PM -0400, Eric Burger wrote: > How much is the concentration of corporate participation in the IETF a > result of market forces, like consolidation and bankruptcy, as opposed to > nefarious forces, like a company hiring all of the I* leadership? We have > mechanisms to deal with the latter, but there is not much we can do about > the former. Having started in the IETF at a much smaller vendor, it's less a nefarious thing than it is a money thing. When you're talking about participation at the conferences, the cost of flying someone to the venue, paying for the conference fee and covering hotel can be a big burden for smaller companies. They then have to pick and choose which groups it makes sense to get a human to attend. Even on-the-list participation can be a financial burden. Someone has to spend a chunk of their time doing standards work instead of other things like code. I* leadership is even messier. IETF is effectively asking for half or more of the time of those people. They are effectively being given a form of patronage to do IETF work. -- Jeff