--On Monday, August 19, 2013 12:49 -0700 SM <sm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >... >> First, I note that, in some organizations (including some >> large ones), someone might be working on an open source >> project one month and a proprietary one the next, or maybe >> both >> concurrently. Would it be appropriate for such a person (or >> the company's CFO) to claim the lower rate, thereby expecting >> those who pay full rate to subsidize them? Or would their >... > The above reminds me of the Double Irish with a Dutch > sandwich. If I was an employee of a company I would pay the > regular fee. If I am sponsored by an open source project and > my Internet-Draft will have that as my affiliation I would > claim the lower rate. Without understanding your analogy (perhaps a diversity problem?), if you are trying to make a distinction between "employee of a company" and "sponsored by an open source project", that distinction just does not hold up. I'm particular, some of the most important reference implementations of Internet protocols -- open source, freely available and usable, well-documented, openly tested, etc.-- have come out of "companies", even for-profit companies. If the distinction you are really trying to draw has to do with poverty or the lack thereof, assuming that, if a large company imposes severe travel restrictions, its employees should pay full fare if they manage to get approval, then you are back to Hadriel's suggestion (which more or less requires that someone self-identify as "poor") or mine (which involves individual self-assessment of ability to pay without having to identify the reasons or circumstances). >... >> Does it count if the open source software is basically >> irrelevant to the work of the IETF? Written in, e.g., HTML5? >> Do reference implementations of IETF protocols count more (if >> I'm going to be expected to subsidize someone else's >> attendance at the IETF, I think they should). > > This would require setting a demarcation line. That isn't > always a clear line. What I'm trying to suggest is that the line will almost always be unclear and will require case by case interpretation by someone other than the would-be participant. I continue to find any peer evaluation model troubling, especially as long as the people and bodies who are likely to made the evaluations are heavily slanted toward a narrow range of participants (and that will be the case as long as those leadership or evaluation roles require significant time over long periods). > A subsidy is a grant or other financial assistance given by > one party for the support or development of another. If the > lower rate is above meeting costs it is not a subsidy. I note that you used that term in a later message, More important, I believe the IAOC has repeatedly assured us that, at least over a reasonable span of meetings, they never seek to make a profit on registration fees. Indeed, I suspect that, with reasonable accounting assumptions, meetings are always a net money-loser although not my much and more than others. Any decision that some people are going to pay less than others (including the reduced fee arrangements we already have) is a decision that some people and groups are going to bear a higher share of the costs than others. And that is a subsidy, even by your definition above. best, john