As long as the external funding is not tied to a specific person or position, but a general support fund to be administered by the IETF, there's probably no more pressure than (say) sponsoring an IETF meeting. The notion that a nearly full-time position with lots of travel can be a "volunteer" is clearly make-believe. There are three possibilities: (1) Only people employed by large corporations can realistically be candidates. The same "access" issues you mention apply, presumably. (2) There is a way to financially support other candidates via a stipend, similar to what (say) the Federal government does when they "borrow" faculty for the NSF, DARPA or the FCC. (3) The workload of the IESG members is reduced and distributed to return it to a volunteer position (i.e., probably no more than ten hours a week). Henning On Oct 17, 2013, at 1:11 PM, Melinda Shore <melinda.shore@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On 10/17/13 8:02 AM, Dave Cridland wrote: >> The only solution allowing independents to become an AD that I can >> see would be for larger companies to partially or wholly sponsor >> slots and/or particular individuals. > > I suspect that there are companies out there who would view > this as giving them better "access" (i.e. the ability to apply > political pressure). Not really very fond of this idea. > > Melinda >