to the best of my knowledge, which is limited, both the ietf and irtf chairs have [had] discretionary slush funds to be used as they felt appropriate. i am not aware of, nor have i heaed of, any abuses of these funds. making life easy for the ietf and irtf chairs would seem to be a good thing. <digression> IT departments are usually tasked with reducing cost, increasing homogeneity, enforcing security, etc. few organisations have the sense to make IT's primary goal to enable the working folk to be more productive. this iasa 2.0 corporatisation of the ietf might keep its eye on this. randy
