|
On 5/11/19 4:58 AM, John C Klensin wrote: I was about to respond to Brian's note, but then found Keith's, which covers some of what I was going to say although I disagree with him on other parts of the issue. Inline. --On Friday, May 10, 2019 19:45 -0400 Keith Moore <moore@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:On 5/10/19 4:33 PM, Brian E Carpenter wrote:And this has been a problem since the early 1990s when the US government stopped subsidizing the meetings (and perhaps also the secretariat?). But I wish we'd try harder to find that sustainability model rather than constantly punting the problem, because the Internet has been suffering for all that time from a lack of diverse participation in IETF.I don't see how the IETF is supposed to fix the fact that independent open source developers are, um, independent.This reply seems to presume that "independent" developers should be considered by IETF to be the exceptional case, and only "dependent" developers (presumably those funded by huge corporations) have a right to sit at the big table. I think it should be the other way around - IETF should be optimized to facilitate contributions from independent parties, and those with sponsorship are welcome to sit at the same table as everyone else.I think optimizing for either is fairly hopeless. "Independent" presumably includes open source developers, contributors who support themselves as consultants or the like with multiple clients with connections to IETF work, contributors who similarly support themselves but whose clients are mostly not connected to the IETF, academics with research funding that can cover travel and/or at least some meeting costs, academics without such funding, and probably several other groups. We (or at least ISOC) have also made distinctions between people from developing countries and ones with more developed ones (and I recall as discussion or two about the meaning of "from" in that context). I (mostly) don't think IETF should care how people make their
money. It should be okay if they're independently wealthy. It
should be okay if they sell pencils on the street. It should be
okay if they're retired. It should be okay if they're academics
or work in industry or for nonprofits. It should be okay if they
work for a government, though maybe it shouldn't be okay for them
to lie about what their jobs are. I think IETF should try to structure itself so as to enable effective participation for as many willing and qualified individual participants as it can. I certainly don't mind ISOC or others assisting people from
developing countries. Though unless the funding available is
very much greater than I've seen evidence of, I don't think IETF
should use this as a way to assure itself that it's open to broad
participation. It was less of a myth when it was easier for individuals to participate. To the extent that it's more of a myth today, it's largely because IETF has increased the barriers to effective individual participation.At the same time, we continue to claim that all IETF participation --at least as far as taking of positions and determination of consensus are concerned-- is by individuals. That is a myth, I think increasingly so, and I fear that it will sooner or later get us in trouble but moving away from it would be a big step. There was a time when IETF was more like this, even after we had to pay our own meeting costs. We got sucked into the mode of holding meetings at expensive hotels, especially after our attendance figures pushed into the multiple thousands and they were the only venues available other than conference centers (which were even more expensive). It got even harder after IETF started meeting in more diverse locations (which it should have done, and which I supported). But I also saw various efforts to raise the bar on participation and discourage the independents.I'm fairly cynical, but I've nonetheless seen little evidence that any efforts to discourage independents were deliberate. What I have seen would be consistent with people who have had strong organizational financial (and other) support for meeting attendance and participation losing track of the consequences of decisions on those who lack such support and for whom even relatively small incremental costs may be significant. What I've mostly seen would be consistent with people making
decisions that it should have been obvious would harm the ability
of ordinary individuals to participate, even if not ostensibly
done for those reasons. I have also heard a few influential
people argue out loud that non-industry folks shouldn't have a
seat at the table. They're entitled to their opinions, of
course, but it's not like the current set of conditions should be
a surprise to anyone who has been around for awhile.
Or it might be that the increased number of WG-specific interim
meetings are part of the problem, especially if they're
face-to-face meetings (worse if held in non-diverse locations) or
even remote meetings if not held in widely-varying timezones.
But conditions have changed and keep changing. Remote participation is more feasible today than in the past. And our attendance numbers are down from the late 1990s period which should give us some additional flexibility about venues.I wonder if it's possible to rely less on face-to-face meetings, while still having them (because personal contact is still very valuable to enabling people to collaborate at a distance), and make the face-to-face meetings less expensive (maybe by making them shorter and more focused on facilitating the personal interaction that really helps people work well remotely.)Yes, and see above. But despite my preference for four-day meetings over five (if only to avoid killing two consecutive weekends for most participants), I'm guessing that most of the costs of holding a meeting (both overhead and to participants) are associated with holding the meeting, i.e., that while chopping off a day or two would save money, it would save a lot less than the proportion of that time to current total meeting time.A tremendous amount of participants' time is wasted at our current meetings by making Powerpoint (and similar) presentations the normal mode of working group sessions. Before we used Powerpoint, our in-person discussions were much more productive. And that could help us make the meetings shorter and more useful at the same time.I can't add much to what others have said about this. However, although I have many days when I believe that overhead projectors and whiteboards were far superior for interactive presentations and discussions than video presentations of slides (PowerPoint or otherwise), I don't see any way to get back to those times. Why not? It's not as if similar technologies are unavailable or
cost-prohibitive. The only barrier I see is mindshare. I'm
reminded of what Grace Hopper used to say, something like: "The
worst reason to do anything is we've always done it that way".
We're smart, creative people. We can do better. I also see efficient real-time drawing or editing by remote participants as being unlikely, so there may also be a tradeoff involved. Well, as long as we're all using mice to draw, efficient real-time drawing even on local machines remains unlikely, so I guess that one is a hardware problem. Keith
|
