Subject: Do you want to have more meetings outside US ?

From: JORDI PALET MARTINEZ <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2007 08:49:30 -0500

Hi,

Yes, you read the subject correctly. The question is if you will like to
have MORE meetings outside US ...

This morning talking with one of the IOAC members he explained me *one* of
the reasons we still have so many meetings in US.

The survey that we have after each IETF meeting include a question related
to this, and MANY MORE US participants are completing this survey, so the
result, is obviously biased.

So, I will suggest that if you want to have more meeting in Europe, Asia,
Latin America, Africa, or wherever else, say so publicly.

The US participation in IETF meetings now is only about 40%, and the number
of non-US participants in the work is also increasing. HOWEVER we fail to
say where we want to have the meetings !

In addition to that, it is clear to me that the number of participants and
countries in US meetings is going low ... I guess is a clear sign. Probably
if things don't change and we have more meetings outside US, we should make
it make more clear and massively stop coming to the meetings in US ? The
IOAC should seriously consider the consequences of this situation as they
already know that the balance of people preferring meetings in US is due to
the fact that much more US participants complete the survey, is not obvious
? And may be we need to CHANGE the actual planning, instead of waiting for
changes in 3-4 years for having more meetings outside US.

************* So please, make sure to fill-in the IETF survey !

In fact, I will like to ask the IAD to make sure that there is a specific
survey for ONLY this question *NOW*, separated from the overall meeting
survey.

Of course, there are other reasons such as lower cost for the meetings and
typically more sponsors able to fund those meetings, which again make me
wonder why we still keep a model tying the sponsorship to a concrete
meetings instead of an overall "IETF meetings" sponsorship and disconnect as
much as possible the sponsorship from the hosting. My view is that hosts are
still needed if possible, and they can provide part of the "local" benefits,
such as looking for lower cost or free connectivity, better deals with
hotels, support from local authorities, etc.

Regards,
Jordi

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---

From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 09:41:40 +0200

JORDI PALET MARTINEZ wrote:
> H
> much as possible the sponsorship from the hosting.
Non-meeting sponsorship for the IETF is also known as "ISOC Platinum 
membership (directing the contribution to standards)".

---

From: Stewart Bryant <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 16:04:23 +0100

Do we have any firm evidence that we would get more work
done if we had more meetings outside the US?

Stewart

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 11:38:07 -0400

> done if we had more meetings outside the US?

As far as I know, we do not.

We also have no firm evidence that, despite the claim in Jordi's
note, total costs of operating a meeting, measured as

	Hotel and travel expenses for secretariat staff + 
	Direct meeting costs (rooms, cookies, AV, network) +
   The registration fee +
	Attendee costs for hotels +
	Total attendee travel and meal costs

The first two of these must be calculated in current US dollars
regardless of the location of the meeting because IASA does
business in dollars.   And the others need to be adjusted for
the local (home) currencies of the attendees ("inexpensive
place" may not be so inexpensive if exchange rates are poor for
a significant number of attendees).

In addition, one must consider the odds of meetings being
disrupted by either poor network infrastructure that we need to
deal with or the risk of long-haul connections being sporadic.
ICANN may be able to live with outages in long-haul connections
of several hours duration, but I don't think we can.  

I'm actually a strong advocate of non-US meetings, especially
when I see key people prevented from attending by
seemingly-arbitrary delays in approving visas that stretch past
the meeting's starting date.  But I am also tired of regular
speeches about either going to places where we don't have
significant participation locally or about claimed advantages of
non-US meetings that I believe are dubious.

And, FWIW, I believe that we are already suffering from too-high
total costs to attendees.  Getting a good room rate on a
super-deluxe hotel is wonderful, but, if that hotel comes with
super-deluxe prices for, e.g., breakfast and beer, it really
doesn't help us: to take a recent example, knowing that cheap
beer is a few blocks away doesn't create an obvious location for
bar-bofs.

    john

---

From: Peter Dambier <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 17:39:14 +0200

> done if we had more meetings outside the US?

Is there any IPv6 activity inside the US?
Or multilingual namespace?

Kind regards
Peter and Karin

-- 
Peter and Karin Dambier
Cesidian Root - Radice Cesidiana
Rimbacher Strasse 16
D-69509 Moerlenbach-Bonsweiher
+49(6209)795-816 (Telekom)
+49(6252)750-308 (VoIP: sipgate.de)
mail: [email-masked]
mail: [email-masked]
http://iason.site.voila.fr/
https://sourceforge.net/projects/iason/
http://www.cesidianroot.com/

---

From: Arnt Gulbrandsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 17:51:21 +0200

Stewart Bryant writes:
> Do we have any firm evidence that we would get more work done if we 
> had more meetings outside the US?

I do get work done instead of spending two days applying for a US visa. 
My two cents.

(But in all honesty, I'm not sure I'd go anyway. If an IETF meeting is 
held in a place I've always wanted to visit, I'll go there. Minneapolis 
isn't that. Five days in Minneapolis + travel time + US visa chores 
compares poorly with jabber and audio streaming for the few WGs that 
interest me. Maybe the attendee questionnaire should be extended with 
another question, «how much time did you spend playing Windows 
Solitaire?».)

Arnt

---

From: JORDI PALET MARTINEZ <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 14:31:11 -0400

Well I was not indicating that, but simple maths can also say so.

As it seems that more people is contributing from Europe than from US, it
means for more people more traveling time, more time with immigration
issues, etc. Probably we could count from 16 to 40 hours per each
individual. Those hours can be applied to do more IETF work (it is not
necessarily the case, but in any case is time worth saving).

Regards,
Jordi

> De: Stewart Bryant <[email-masked]>
> Responder a: <[email-masked]>
> Fecha: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 16:04:23 +0100
> Para: <[email-masked]>
> CC: <[email-masked]>
> Asunto: Re: Do you want to have more meetings outside US ?
> 
>

---

From: Marc Manthey <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 20:39:16 +0200

hello peter , all,

well i am just lurking, but i am very interested in everything about  
ipv6 and deployment in general
there is an upcomming event here in cologne:

"European Conference on Applied IPv6" at the 6th and 7th of september  
2007 here in cologne

http://www.guug.de/veranstaltungen/ecai6-2007/index.html

hope to cu there

regards

Marc

-- 
"Reality is what, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
Failure is not an option. It is a privilege reserved for those who try."

web: http://www.let.de
.local http://stattfernsehen.com

---

From: JORDI PALET MARTINEZ <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 14:40:03 -0400

Hi John,

I didn't said that operating a meeting outside US is cheaper than in US. I
said that the cost for *participants* is lower.

In fact, I know that a meeting in US is cheaper for the IETF, by the simple
fact that meeting rooms aren't charged, which is not true probably in most
of the other parts of the world.

I also indicated that this is the reason why many sponsors prefer to have
the meetings in US, because it becomes cheaper to them, and one more reason
to split the "sponsor" from the "host" function and arrange the meetings in
venues not tied to a specific sponsor, in order to be able to have them more
frequently outside US.

What this means is that we may need to increase the registration fee. AND
THIS IS THE RIGHT THING DO TO in order to evenly share the costs between ALL
the participants, but only if the sharing of event locations is also FAIR.
Otherwise, more people traveling from other regions to US means more cost
from them, which is not fairly shared among ALL the participants.

The poor network infrastructure is not only a question of the links. It is a
question of having a good or bad network, like the problem that we had all
this week with the DHCP. Having a good link the network was still unusable
60% of the time. It is also a question of good or bad luck, and this may
happen anywhere. A road construction can break a fiber everywhere in the
world and you only avoid this with a backup link, which for example I
believe ICANN doesn't compared with IETF.

Regards,
Jordi

> De: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
> Responder a: <[email-masked]>
> Fecha: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 11:38:07 -0400
> Para: <[email-masked]>, <[email-masked]>
> CC: <[email-masked]>

---

From: "Adrian Farrel" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 21:22:41 +0100

Stewart,

> done if we had more meetings outside the US?

That is probably a non-question, isn't it?

Do we have any firm evidence that we would get less work done if we had more 
meetings outside the US?

Another data point might be...

In the CCAMP working group five editors or key authors of working group I-Ds 
were unable to travel to Chicago (for whatever reason). All of these are 
based outside the US.

One new non-WG draft had to be introduced by a friend because none of the 
author team was able to travel.

That said, the hotel cost is as much of an issue for me. I continually have 
to weigh up the convenience of staying in the host hotel, with the 
exorbitant room rates. The 30% degradation of the US dollar over the last 
six or seven years is a great help, but surely it would be even better to 
pick a more reasonably priced hotel?

Adrian

---

From: JORDI PALET MARTINEZ <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 16:51:11 -0400

And in the concrete case of the Palmer house, the price of the hotel was not
worth to pay for, in my opinion. Rooms very old and dark, not even having
wardrobe to hang up the clothes :-(, in addition to the construction issues.

Yes, it was a very nice hotel (but I don't really mind that, because I come
there to work and keep doing my regular daily tasks), and had an excellent
gym, which I really appreciate, however, the one in Prague was much better
in my opinion (including a much better and bigger gym).

Regards,
Jordi

> De: Adrian Farrel <[email-masked]>
> Responder a: Adrian Farrel <[email-masked]>
> Fecha: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 21:22:41 +0100
> Para: <[email-masked]>
> CC: <[email-masked]>

---

From: Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 14:22:39 -0700 (PDT)

You said:

"...but surely it would be even better to pick a more reasonably 
priced hotel?"

Maybe. If it also has conference facilities, or sits next door to such 
(more or less). That's not likely to be easy to find.

Ole

Ole J. Jacobsen
Editor and Publisher,  The Internet Protocol Journal
Cisco Systems
Tel: +1 408-527-8972   Mobile: +1 415-370-4628
E-mail: [email-masked]  URL: http://www.cisco.com/ipj

---

From: Joel Jaeggli <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 15:58:53 -0700

Jordi,

You're being unrealistic as you usually are on this topic. I'm going to
reply to couple of points in this thread in one message for the sake of
brevity.

> of the other parts of the world.

The meeting  rooms are included in the the room block. if you don't make
the room block Then there's a penalty associated with that. If for
example everyone decides to stay in another hotel then you pay for the
meeting space. We could pay for the meeting space in exchange for a
lower room rate, but either way you slice it the hotel has a minimum
number they need to make on a meeting of a gived size and duration and
they won't go below that.

> What this means is that we may need to increase the registration fee.

You're just moving costs around, it's unlikely to make anything cheaper.
If cost of hosting is more expensive in a given location and the
participants will bear that additional cost under your model, your
assertion is that it will be cheaper due to some of them having lower
travel costs. Again that strikes me as unrealistic. the meeting fee
doesn't have to get that much bigger before it eclipses either travel or
lodging costs as the major expense.

What's more you're missing the heart of the issue. Which in my opinion
is that the operation of the overhead functions that are the general
ietf infrastructure are funded out of the meeting fees which means the
amount made on the meeting has to exceed the actual costs by order of
50%. At the sane time, the organization is if you haven't noticed
shrinking and it's character is changing. It has more professional
standards folks and fewer of the students, academics and network
operators that made it interesting to me 10 years ago. Pushing  higher
costs onto potential attendees isn't likely to attract more of them.

> AND

Your basic beef appears be not that it's cheaper travel-wise from the
perspective of some participants to hold the meeting outside the US (if
it was you wouldn't be advocating for meetings in South America or
Africa which don't have significant historical participation) but rather
that the host sponsored model can require a significant capital outlay
to make the meeting work in some potential destinations.

Now I know you offered to host a meeting back in the CNRI days so
perhaps you can share from direct experience what it would have cost you
under the current model to host the meeting in Spain?

> 60% of the time.

I don't believe the network was unusable 60% of the time. perhaps you
are engaging in hyperbole?

> It is also a question of good or bad luck, and this may
> happen anywhere.

The network runs smoothly in the hands of the most experienced operators
with as much advance planning as is feasible. These things have costs.
The best effort volunteer model in conjunction with an accommodating
host has produced the best networks the IETF has experienced. The IAD
and the IAOC are experimenting with contracted network services and
models which involve both volunteer and contractor effort. If you
provide them with feedback on your experiences that will no doubt be
valuable information.

> A road construction can break a fiber everywhere in the

The primary circuit was donated due to the diligent efforts of the
volunteers and at&t participants. Obtaining connectivity in arbitrary
locations is neither easy nor cheap. This location in Chicago was easier
than some.

> Jordi

In another message you wrote:

JORDI PALET MARTINEZ wrote:
> And in the concrete case of the Palmer house, the price of the hotel
> was not worth to pay for, in my opinion. Rooms very old and dark, not
> even having wardrobe to hang up the clothes :-(, in addition to the
> construction issues.

Remember you're not just paying for the room you're paying for the
conference facility through the room block pricing...

If you have google you can relatively easily find some other recent
conference rates in the palmer house for comparison. You'll find I think
that the pricing structure varies based on the technical, space and
catering requirements for the conference some are higher, most are lower.

have fewer cookies and not block out dozens of conference rooms from
Saturday until Friday  and the room rate could be lower.

> Yes, it was a very nice hotel (but I don't really mind that, because
> I come there to work and keep doing my regular daily tasks), and had
> an excellent gym, which I really appreciate, however, the one in
> Prague was much better in my opinion (including a much better and
> bigger gym).
>
> Regards,
> Jordi
>
>
>

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 22:11:40 -0400

--On Sunday, 29 July, 2007 14:40 -0400 JORDI PALET MARTINEZ
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> I didn't said that operating a meeting outside US is cheaper
> than in US. I said that the cost for *participants* is lower.

Jordi,

Let me add one comment to Joel's discussion, with which I agree.
We've had a long-standing system by which the Secretariat (and
IASA, I presume) try to hold meeting registration fees stable
over some reasonable period of time.   So while, as Joel points
out, the fee for a given meeting reflects general IETF overhead
as well as actual meeting costs, the latter are averaged over a
year or so.

If one increases average meeting costs _to the IETF_ by using
more facilities that require separately paying for conference
center space (the norm outside the US and parts of Canada), that
will eventually translate into higher registration fees, which
are a cost to participants.   Your logic seems to assume that
meeting costs do not vary with facilities, but that is true only
because of the averaging:  I think it is safe to estimate that,
if we met in a larger proportion of facilities that required
rental of external meeting space (often with associated
problematic restrictions), registration fees would go up,
possibly significantly.

It is my personal belief that we are near the upper limit on
registration fees, at least without spreading Secretariat and
other overhead expenses out to the entire range of IETF
participants, not just those who attend meetings.  I note that
we are now at USD 1800/year and rising, a level that starts to
approach the costs of ITU-T Sector Membership and participation
fees for a number of other bodies that we have periodically
accused of being less open than we are by virtue of their fee
structures.  Trying to spread things out of course involves
opening other cans of worms, some of them quite large and
complex.

     john

---

From: [email-masked] (Jun-ichiro itojun Hagino)
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 12:54:09 +0900 (JST)

> http://www.guug.de/veranstaltungen/ecai6-2007/index.html

	would love to attend, if someone can take care of my flight :-)

itojun

---

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 21:22:21 -0700

JORDI PALET MARTINEZ <jordi dot palet at consulintel dot es> wrote:

> The survey that we have after each IETF meeting include a question
> related to this, and MANY MORE US participants are completing this
> survey, so the result, is obviously biased.

I'm a complete outsider to IETF meetings and their planning, but isn't
it generally the case that those who participate in a survey can expect
to have their voices heard, and those who do not participate cannot?

If you want to influence the outcome of a survey, it might help to
identify people who you believe might make a difference, and encourage
those people to participate in the survey.

--
Doug Ewell  *  Fullerton, California, USA  *  RFC 4645  *  UTN #14
http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/
http://www1.ietf.org/html.charters/ltru-charter.html
http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages

---

From: Tony Li <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 22:05:56 -0700

> Is there any IPv6 activity inside the US?

Some.  NTT/America, for example, is a Tier 1 provider with v6 deployed.

Comcast (cable-based ISP) is rumored to be working on v6.

Tony

---

From: Spencer Dawkins <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 07:04:37 -0500

OK, with some hesitation, I'll say this out loud...

> In the CCAMP working group five editors or key authors of working group 
> I-Ds were unable to travel to Chicago (for whatever reason). All of these 
> are based outside the US.
>

My IETF sponsor organization had a number of authors who were not approved 
for travel to the US (probably about 10, or 25 percent of our total, 
although I haven't seen a final number yet), so it's not like Adrian just 
hangs around the people who weren't approved.

I was also told at this IETF about people who requested visas in order to 
attend the Dallas IETF, who have not yet been approved, but who have not yet 
been rejected, either. Apparently "background investigation" is the new 
black hole of Calcutta. Perhaps they will be approved in time for 
Philedelphia, or Minneapolis.

If current plans for upcoming IETF meetings hold, it will be possible for 
IETF participants to qualify for NomCom without attending any US-based 
meetings. If those plans do not hold - specifically, if a non-US site "falls 
through" and is replaced with a US site - people who are unable to travel to 
the United States will be excluded from NomCom eligibility, and this also 
includes other things based on NomCom eligibility - for instance, 
participating in a recall petition.

>From RFC 3777:

   1.  At any time, at least 20 members of the IETF community, who are
       qualified to be voting members of a nominating committee, may
       request by signed petition (email is acceptable) to the Internet
       Society President the recall of any sitting IAB or IESG member.

If you aren't qualified to put someone on the IAB or IESG, you aren't 
qualified to remove them, either. This isn't WRONG, but I'm not sure how 
many people have noticed this.

Please don't shape your take on this based on whether you think the excluded 
people are likely to volunteer for NomCom, or something - the distinction 
covers more than the 100-or-so volunteers that sent Lakshminath their "I 
volunteer" e-mails.

I suggested a few minutes ago (in private e-mail, before reading the next 
slice of this thread) to Ray Pelletier that he consider adding a survey 
question that might give some guidance on "didn't attend because of visa 
problems" versus "didn't attend because of problems unrelated to visas".

If the plan goes as my son explained to me last week, I'll be grandfather to 
twin girls before the end of this coming week. If that happened last week, 
*I* would have been a no-show in Chicago.

If someone registered with Iraq as a country code, and did not attend the 
meeting, that could be because of visa problems, or because of other 
problems, or simply because people in Iraq also have twins, and might even 
blow off an IETF to be present at the birth.

The nice people trying to make sense of why people attended/did not attend 
any particular IETF meeting don't have a lot of information that helps you 
figure stuff like that out.

John Klensin also correctly pointed out that we have IETF participants, AND 
IETF MEETING participants, and we're trying to do the right thing for both 
of the two categories.

Doug's suggestion - to aim the survey at IETF participants, rather than IETF 
MEETING participants, also seems helpful.

Spencer

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 16:24:52 +0200

> Comcast (cable-based ISP) is rumored to be working on v6.

Not to mention every supplier to the US Government.

    Brian

---

From: Bill Manning <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 07:32:03 -0700

> pick a more reasonably priced hotel?

	an observation. IETF meetings have a fairly high hit rate on
	selecting venues where the hotel is in the middle of restoration.
	I've have come to the dubious conclusion that this tactic is 
	used to get reduced overall rates.

--bill
Opinions expressed may not even be mine by the time you read them, and
certainly don't reflect those of any other entity (legal or otherwise).

---

From: Bill Manning <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 07:43:10 -0700

On Sun, Jul 29, 2007 at 03:58:53PM -0700, Joel Jaeggli wrote:
> 
> ... missing the heart of the issue. Which in my opinion

	Joel may have hit the nail on the head. Students, Academics, and
Network Operators ahve all developed their own conferences that fit their
own constraints.  The IETF has deliberately chosen this path, with more
paid staff, legal fees, and in general higher infrastructure costs - to 
cater to professional standards folks / corporations.   And these folks
can afford and expect to pay more for a well run conference that meets their
needs.

	Adopting models that presume paid, outsourced support will only
increase costs more.

--bill

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 10:46:31 -0400

--On Monday, 30 July, 2007 07:04 -0500 Spencer Dawkins
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>...
 
> My IETF sponsor organization had a number of authors who were
> not approved for travel to the US (probably about 10, or 25
> percent of our total, although I haven't seen a final number
> yet), so it's not like Adrian just hangs around the people who
> weren't approved.
> 
> I was also told at this IETF about people who requested visas
> in order to attend the Dallas IETF, who have not yet been
> approved, but who have not yet been rejected, either.
> Apparently "background investigation" is the new black hole of
> Calcutta. Perhaps they will be approved in time for

This has apparently become standard practice for visa handling:
the visa applications are not rejected, which might require an
explanation if US entitles get involves, but approval is simply
postponed past the data at which the applications are relevant.

> If current plans for upcoming IETF meetings hold, it will be
> possible for IETF participants to qualify for NomCom without
> attending any US-based meetings. If those plans do not hold -
> specifically, if a non-US site "falls through" and is replaced
> with a US site - people who are unable to travel to the United
> States will be excluded from NomCom eligibility, and this also
> includes other things based on NomCom eligibility - for
> instance, participating in a recall petition.
>...
 
> If you aren't qualified to put someone on the IAB or IESG, you
> aren't qualified to remove them, either. This isn't WRONG, but
> I'm not sure how many people have noticed this.

As you know, I believe that use of the Nomcom qualifications for
recalls, etc., was chosen without adequate consideration of
side-effects.   In particular, I do not believe that barring
either 

	* IESG and IAB members, who are in the best position to
	observe some types of abuses, from being about to
	initiate recall actions or 
	
	* active participants in the IETF who do not attend
	meetings but may nonetheless be victims of abusive
	behavior

from initiating recalls was a bad idea.   But the last time the
former was probed, the community and IESG didn't seem enthused
about changing it, the idea got no traction.  It was also buried
in noise about the possibility of IESG or IAB members using the
recall procedure to attack each other (I believe that, if things
get to the point that would occur without good cause, it is
desirable that the community know about it and cope with it as
quickly as possible, rather than looking for ways to suppress
possible symptoms).
 
> I suggested a few minutes ago (in private e-mail, before
> reading the next slice of this thread) to Ray Pelletier that
> he consider adding a survey question that might give some
> guidance on "didn't attend because of visa problems" versus
> "didn't attend because of problems unrelated to visas".

I think this would be useful for the reasons you give and
others.  And best wishes to and for the new arrivals.  

> John Klensin also correctly pointed out that we have IETF
> participants, AND IETF MEETING participants, and we're trying
> to do the right thing for both of the two categories.

> Doug's suggestion - to aim the survey at IETF participants,
> rather than IETF MEETING participants, also seems helpful.

To the extent to which we are moving toward decision-making by
surveys, it is probably time tat we put some energy into
understanding non-attendance patterns and reasons, not just
patterns of attendance and satisfaction with the meetings.
There are, for example, differences among...

* people who would attend meetings, but can't get visas for some
of them.

* people who get visas for some US meetings but, seemingly
arbitrarily, cannot get visas (on a timely basis) for others.

* people who attend some meetings but not others due to travel
distances, costs, or company policies.  For example, some
companies require an entirely different approval process for
"foreign" meetings than for "domestic" ones, for meetings with
"away" times over a week, or for meetings held in tourist
destinations. Those extra approval processes may reduce
attendance.

* people for whom total costs of participation, or total budgets
for registration fees, may permit attending only a subset of our
meetings.

* people who have concluded that our face-to-face meetings are a
waste of time and resource, especially if they cannot count on
flying in for the one WG session of interest and then flying
back out, and hence prefer to participate only remotely.

That list probably should be longer, but you get the idea.

     john

---

From: Carsten Bormann <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 17:17:56 +0200

On Jul 30 2007, at 16:46, John C Klensin wrote:

> meetings held in tourist
> destinations

Is that *really* still an issue for anyone?
It's not that the IETF is considered a boondoggle org (like some  
other standards organizations I have known).

Places like Mallorca in Spain (or Orlando in Florida) have great  
(cheap!) plane connectivity and quite affordable hotels.

Gruesse, Carsten

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 11:34:05 -0400

--On Monday, 30 July, 2007 07:32 -0700 Bill Manning
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> 	selecting venues where the hotel is in the middle of
> restoration. 	I've have come to the dubious conclusion that
> this tactic is  	used to get reduced overall rates.

Bill,

I'd guess that it is not a tactic on the part of IETF but on the
part of the hotels.  Many organizations have had enough
experience with hotels under renovation to exclude them from
consideration so the hotels, in order to get meeting traffic,
lower rates.    They may, of course, also promise that the
renovations will not be disruptive, but we have been told that
story before, haven't we?

To make things worse, the on-site hotel staff often have no
direct control over the contractors who are doing the
construction work.  They may beg and plead with more or less
success, but are rarely in a position to say and enforce "stop".

This is just a suggestion (which I have made before) rather than
at attempt to micromanage the IAD/IAOC, but I believe that, if a
hotel says "we are being renovated but it won't cause you any
disruption" we should be responding with "post a performance
bond and pay penalties if there are disruptions".  I imagine
that would cause some facilities to rapidly lose interest in
giving us drastically reduced rates to fill up their rooms and
we would at least have a better understanding of what we were
likely to be up against.

   john

---

From: Andy Bierman <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 12:23:50 -0700

> necessarily the case, but in any case is time worth saving).

I support your desire to have more non-US meetings,
but maybe not for the same reasons.  There is a certain
moral responsibility to fairly distribute the travel costs
amongst the existing IETF participants.

This has to be balanced with some very practical concerns wrt/
the actual meeting location and facility itself (as the Palmer
House Hilton construction workers demonstrated for us).

My participation in the IETF is self-funded.
The airline flight is not a real factor because I can use FF miles.
The hotel is the major cost but I could choose not to stay
in the IETF hotel and significantly reduce that cost.
(Same for food and beer choices. ;-)

The meeting fee is almost the single
largest monetary expense for me, and it keeps going up.
I would rather the IETF hold sponsored meetings, than the IETF
pick interesting vacation spots all over the world to hold meetings.

I don't have any complaints with the current 'system'.
I just want to meeting fees to be as low as possible, and the locations
to be known far enough in advance so some frequent flier award seats are left.

> Jordi

Andy

---

From: Fred Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 12:36:27 -0700

I am of the opinion that the amount of work we get done is largely  
independent of where we meet. But who attends is very heavily  
influenced by where we meet.

---

From: Lyndon Nerenberg <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 12:38:49 -0700 (PDT)

> largest monetary expense for me, and it keeps going up.

As an individual non-attendee, I couldn't agree more.  Even though the 
December meeting is (literally) on my doorstep, there is no way I can 
justify $750 just to attend a pair of WG meetings.

The IETF claims we all participate as individuals, but the entry fee 
pretty much wipes out the possibility of individuals attending.  As the 
barrier to admission is raised we're simply giving the process over to the 
(large) corporate sector.

--lyndon

---

From: Matt Pounsett <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 15:51:55 -0400

On 2007-Jul-30, at 15:38, Lyndon Nerenberg wrote:

> As an individual non-attendee, I couldn't agree more.  Even though  
> the December meeting is (literally) on my doorstep, there is no way  
> I can justify $750 just to attend a pair of WG meetings.
>
> The IETF claims we all participate as individuals, but the entry  
> fee pretty much wipes out the possibility of individuals  
> attending.  As the barrier to admission is raised we're simply  
> giving the process over to the (large) corporate sector.

I was talking to a couple of people this week about what I consider  
to be a related issue: the fact that for the two or three wg meetings  
I'm interested in, there's little point in me being at the meeting  
for a whole week.

What about holding two or three meetings smaller meetings a year for  
each area, and then just one big meeting for the full IETF?  That  
would bring down the cost of the individual area meetings and  
therefore the admission fee, make them smaller and therefore capable  
of fitting into a wider range of hotels, and would likely result in  
fewer nights of hotel stay for a lot of people.

Matt

---

From: Peter Saint-Andre <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 14:11:38 -0600

Matt Pounsett wrote:

> for the two or three wg meetings I'm
> interested in, there's little point in me being at the meeting for a
> whole week.
> 
> each area, and then just one big meeting for the full IETF?  That would
> bring down the cost of the individual area meetings and therefore the
> admission fee, make them smaller and therefore capable of fitting into a
> wider range of hotels, and would likely result in fewer nights of hotel
> stay for a lot of people.

Depends on how much overlap there is for attendees. How many people want
to attend meetings in both (say) security and applications, or transport
and RAI? This is an empirical question that could be answered through
surveys.

Further, in-person meetings are so second-millennium. How about greater
use of text chat, voice chat, and video chat for interim meetings? Are
three in-person meetings a year really necessary if we make use of
collaborative technologies that have become common in the last 15 years?

Even further, how about breaking up the IETF into smaller, more agile
standards development organizations? We essentially did that with XMPP
by using the XMPP Standards Foundation for extensions to XMPP rather
than doing all our work at the IETF (given the large number of XMPP
extensions, doing all that work at the IETF would have represented a
denial of service attack on the Internet Standards Process). I see a few
potential benefits here:

1. Greater focus on rough consensus and running code.

2. Fewer bureaucracy headaches.

3. Reduced workload for our stressed-out IESG members. :)

Just a thought...

Peter

-- 
Peter Saint-Andre
https://stpeter.im/

---

From: Edward Lewis <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 16:18:51 -0400

At 15:51 -0400 7/30/07, Matt Pounsett wrote:

>I was talking to a couple of people this week about what I consider to be a
>related issue: the fact that for the two or three wg meetings I'm interested
>in, there's little point in me being at the meeting for a whole week.

I can relate, I left Chicago on Tuesday.

>What about holding two or three meetings smaller meetings a year for each
>area, and then just one big meeting for the full IETF?  That would bring
>down the cost of the individual area meetings and therefore the admission
>fee, make them smaller and therefore capable of fitting into a wider range
>of hotels, and would likely result in fewer nights of hotel stay for a lot
>of people.

This idea has been tossed around before.  The rationale for 
maintaining large meetings, all under "one roof" has been to maintain 
coherency across all of the areas.  I was told that there have been 
times in some other standards bodies where one area will develop a 
standard that is completely incompatible with a standard developed by 
another area.  ("I was told" meaning that I have forgotten  all the 
particulars of the story by now.)  While all we should need is the 
IESG to be present together, by the time you count up the areas and 
weeks in a year and the ability of the IESG to travel...we just keep 
up having our large conventions.

Take a look at this for an extreme counter example:
    http://www.itu.int/events/monthlyagenda.asp?lang=en
-- 
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Edward Lewis                                                +1-571-434-5468
NeuStar

Think glocally.  Act confused.

---

From: Michael Thomas <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 13:26:05 -0700

Would it really be so horrible to, say, have a per day rate? I know that 
there
are a lot of people who are only interested in one or two wg meetings and
would just assume go home instead of hanging around, kibbutzing in wg's
that you're only peripherally involved, etc. That in and of itself may help
improve the SNR...

       Mike

Edward Lewis wrote:
>> to be a
>> each

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 23:42:13 +0200

> I was talking to a couple of people this week about what I consider to 
> be a related issue: the fact that for the two or three wg meetings I'm 

The financial fallacy in that is failing to note that about half the
meeting fee isn't used to fund meeting expenses, but to fund continuing
operations of the IETF as a whole (secretariat, RFC Editor, etc.) So
restructuring the meetings would have to be done in a way that preserves
the meetings surplus at about the same annual total as today.

Also, personally, I think that once a year wouldn't be enough to keep
the cross-checking between the areas at a sufficient level. And personally,
even if I'm only active in two or three WGs, the chance to sample what's
going in related and even in unrelated WGs, as well as research groups
and BOFs, makes it well worth staying all week.

     Brian

---

From: Ken Raeburn <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 18:06:19 -0400

On Jul 30, 2007, at 16:26, Michael Thomas wrote:

> Would it really be so horrible to, say, have a per day rate? I know  
> that there
>> maintaining large meetings, all under "one roof" has been to  
>> maintain coherency across all of the areas.  I was told that there  
>> have been times in some other standards bodies where one area will  
>> develop a standard that is completely incompatible with a standard  
>> developed by another area.  ("I was told" meaning that I have  
>> forgotten  all the particulars of the story by now.)  While all we  
>> should need is the IESG to be present together, by the time you  
>> count up the areas and weeks in a year and the ability of the IESG  
>> to travel...we just keep up having our large conventions.
>>

---

From: Andy Bierman <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 16:19:48 -0700

> the meetings surplus at about the same annual total as today.

I like the idea of trying a different meeting structure instead of,
or in addition to, the '2 hour status meeting' structure we have now.
It has nothing to do with money, but rather getting work done,
by applying the right resources in the right place at the right time.

I know all about the cross-participation/review argument.
IMO, the ability for a few WGs (or entire area, whatever) to cancel all
WG meetings for the area for an entire day and conduct some
sort of on-site workshop or design meeting, would actually
enforce cross participation.  It might actually resemble
the Real Engineering practices some of us go through in our 'day jobs'.

It should be up to the ADs and the Chairs, and depend on the
situation at hand, as to how many hours or even days worth
of IETF WG meetings they would preempt for such a meeting.

Andy

---

From: Jeffrey Altman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 01:23:17 -0400

> the meetings surplus at about the same annual total as today.

I think the IETF needs to decide what its goals are and create a funding
structure that creates the appropriate incentives to achieve those
goals.  We want to encourage participation by the best and brightest and
especially those who have time to accomplish the work.   With the cost
of attending a single working group session now in excess of $1000 when
you include travel, overnight at the hotel, plus the flat rate meeting
fee, we are discouraging participation.

I have stopped attending IETF meetings in person for a variety of
reasons.  Cost is certainly a major factor.  The amount of time I must
spend away from home and my company is another one.

Besides, why should I spend my own time and money to solve other
people's problems?

In my opinion you want to keep the cost of in person participation down
so that there aren't two classes of IETF participants, those who are
face-to-face and those who aren't.  The notion that NomCom eligibility
should be determined by those who attend meetings just doesn't make a
lot of sense for an organization that prides itself on only making
consensus decisions on mailing lists.  Instead, we should minimize the
challenges to active remote participation and find an alternative source
of funds.

One notion might be to charge for publications of Internet Drafts.  $500
for a draft name including five revisions and then $25 for each
additional revision.   The rationale is that it is the draft
publications which create work for the entire IETF and the cost of that
work should be borne by those who want to see the work accomplished.

---

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 09:51:22 +0200

> fee, we are discouraging participation.

For meetings in the US, it easily exceeds 5000 USD for me (flight, 
hotel, several work days lost).

> challenges to active remote participation and find an alternative source

I completely agree with that.

> work should be borne by those who want to see the work accomplished.

My understanding was that publishing the IDs today is mainly automatic 
(at least with the new tools). Charging for publication of IDs will 
essentially discourage people from doing so, which I think would be a 
not-so-good effect.

Best regards, Julian

---

From: "Adrian Farrel" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 09:43:08 +0100

> justify $750 just to attend a pair of WG meetings.

Well, the fee charged would appear to be directly correlated to the number 
of people attending. That is, because the IETF must cover its costs not just 
for the meetings but also for the rest of the year, a good proportion of the 
cost is independent of the meetings and so must increase per capita as the 
number of attendees decreases.

But wait! There is also a direct correlation between the number of people 
attending and the cost. That is, the cost is a direct deterrent.

Economists out there will recognise this problem, and will understand where 
the spiral is headed.

The choice and cost of location can compound the problem, and it seems to me 
that one of the main objectives of setting meeting venues (both geography 
and hotel) must be to increase attendance and so to increase revenue.

Adrian

---

From: Arnt Gulbrandsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 11:11:27 +0200

Adrian Farrel writes:
> Well, the fee charged would appear to be directly correlated to the 
> number of people attending. That is, because the IETF must cover its 
> costs not just for the meetings but also for the rest of the year, a 
> good proportion of the cost is independent of the meetings and so 
> must increase per capita as the number of attendees decreases.
>
> But wait! There is also a direct correlation between the number of 
> people attending and the cost. That is, the cost is a direct 
> deterrent.

But the two costs aren't the same...

The deterrent is the sum of the IETF charge, the hotel charge, the cost 
of food, liquid refreshment and so on, travel, getting a visa, and 
finally the cost of being away from one's desk.

> Economists out there will recognise this problem, and will understand 
> where the spiral is headed.
>
> The choice and cost of location can compound the problem, and it seems 
> to me that one of the main objectives of setting meeting venues (both 
> geography and hotel) must be to increase attendance and so to 
> increase revenue.

Decreasing the IETF meeting attendees' other costs ought to help:

a) make it easier to attend by partially freezing the agenda early. If 
the secretariat could say "from now on only times can change, not days" 
early, that would help. (The WG meetings I care about are in a two-day 
block almost every time. Just coincidence or good work on part of the 
secretariat?)

b) avoid meeting locations with obnoxious travel or visa issues, or very 
high costs otherwise.

c) try to keep travel short for as many attendees as possible.

How sad that there's a conflict between b) and c).

Arnt

---

From: Thierry Ernst <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 15:22:58 +0200

>essentially discourage people from doing so, which I think would be a 

In principle I would be against charging, but my experience of being a
chair makes me believe that many authors have no reason to publish
their I-D which are just a burden to the I-D secretariat and thus the
entire IETF community. In many occasions, I have seen new drafts been
announced by the secretariat, but not announced by the authors
themselves in the WG they were targeting. In several occasions I
emailed such authors to know more about their intention and many times
I didn't get any reply at all. The others replied pt-2-pt but never
announced their draft on the WG list (but they asked the chairs to do
so ;-). So, my conclusion is that in most cases these are students who
in their academic standards are required to show evidence of
publication. I'm not sure the IETF is designed for this. In the other
cases, prospective authors do not understand the IETF process, or are
to shy to advertise their work.

So, this proposition of charging could be refined as "pubishing I-Ds
that are not supported by any WG should be charged" or something
similar. Of course, WG drafts should be free of charge. Note that the
aim of this proposition would not to get more fund to the IETF, but to
relieve the IETF of the cost of processing drafts that are never read,
never discussed, and absolutely useless.

Thierry.

---

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 15:48:39 +0200

> never discussed, and absolutely useless.

Understood. Let me add one thing I notice over and over again: drafts 
that do not state where discussion should take place. This really 
belongs on the front page.

Anyway, with the automated submission process, the cost of publishing an 
ID should be close to zero (not really more than distributing a mail to 
all mailing list recipients and adding it to the mail archive).

Note that even if an ID is never announced or discussed it can still be 
valuable later on. After all, the author hands over potentially useful 
IPR to the  IETF Trust (unless I'm not mistaken).

Best regards, Julian

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 09:54:20 -0400

--On Tuesday, 31 July, 2007 01:23 -0400 Jeffrey Altman
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>...
> In my opinion you want to keep the cost of in person
> participation down so that there aren't two classes of IETF
> participants, those who are face-to-face and those who aren't.

But we have had that participation model for many, many years,
even when the registration fees were zero or trivial.  You are
part of it and, if you count lost at-office time in figuring out
expenses, would probably remain part of it even if the
registration fees change: the reality is that relatively few
IETF participants are worth less than $600 a week

> The notion that NomCom eligibility should be determined by
> those who attend meetings just doesn't make a lot of sense for
> an organization that prides itself on only making consensus
> decisions on mailing lists.  Instead, we should minimize the
> challenges to active remote participation and find an
> alternative source of funds.

I wouldn't go so far as "doesn't make a lot of sense", although
I agree that it is problematic.  The difficulty has been, in
part, that no one has proposed a better system and, in part,
because of an assumption that the meeting-attendees are much
more likely to be in touch with personality, skills, and
behavior patterns than those who particular purely by mailing
list.  Of course, the latter assumption becomes more dubious as
the community gets larger and the Nomcom members know
proportionately fewer people and need to rely more on what they
can learn from interviews and questionnaires than on their
personal knowledge and experience.

> One notion might be to charge for publications of Internet
> Drafts.  $500 for a draft name including five revisions and
> then $25 for each additional revision.   The rationale is that
> it is the draft publications which create work for the entire
> IETF and the cost of that work should be borne by those who
> want to see the work accomplished.

Of course, this would completely prevent the use of I-Ds to
float new ideas and would reduce their utility for documenting
alternate positions in a coherent way rather than just poking at
the existing drafts on mailing lists.   Sometimes drafts are
produced for the convenience of the community or to help clarify
the issues with a possibly-bad idea, by people who have little
financial interest in "see[ing] the work accomplished".  I think
it would be a monumentally bad idea.

If we were to do anything along those lines, I'd think about
trying to spread the non-meeting overhead costs across the
entire participant base, e.g., by making subscriptions to
IETF-related mailing lists and access to documents free, but
charging a yearly participation fee to anyone who wanted to post
anything to any IETF mailing list.   I think that is a very bad
idea too, but one that is less bad than the I-D one.

     john

---

From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 16:51:56 +0200

On Tue, Jul 31, 2007 at 03:22:58PM +0200,
 Thierry Ernst <[email-masked]> wrote 
 a message of 42 lines which said:

> Note that the aim of this proposition would not to get more fund to
> the IETF, but to relieve the IETF of the cost of processing drafts
> that are never read, never discussed, and absolutely useless.

Therefore, I do not understand your proposal. If an I-D is "never read
and never discussed", its cost is nil, no? (sending it to a mailing
list has no real cost).

If an I-D is reviewed by several persons in the WG, one AD, two
members of IESG, etc, then, yes, it costs money but such an in-depth
review does not happen for random student-published I-D.

To summary: what problem do we try to solve?

---

From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 11:01:44 -0400

> review does not happen for random student-published I-D.

There is still no cost to the IETF, since review time is volunteer
time.  The costs are for the secretariat, since someone has to extract
the attachments or retrieve the drafts, get them into the database,
keep the systems up and running, etc.

That said, I think the idea of charging for draft publication is
ghastly.  Incentives matter, and structures that encourage more
openness are better than structures that discourage more openness.

Melinda

---

From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 17:22:26 +0200

> collaborative technologies that have become common in the last 15 years?

I agree with this.  Being away from work (and family) decreases my
productivity, and while being present at IETF meetings increases
productivity, I don't think the advantages of being present outweighs
the disadvantages (productivity-wise) for me.

> 3. Reduced workload for our stressed-out IESG members. :)

I think that is a good idea.  The IETF could provide guidelines for
self-organizing group efforts, such as mailing list policy, IPR
templates, bug tracker, conflict resolution systems, etc, and let people
standardize ideas and even experiment with implementations.  When such
efforts are successful, the technical work can be guided through the
IETF process (potentially changing the design to fix problems).

I think we've seen several examples of where the IETF has spent
significant amount of energy, ranging from heated discussions to
specification work, on solutions that simply won't fly.  It would be
useful if that energy waste could be reduced.  Having 'running code' as
a barrier for serious consideration within the IETF may be one approach.

/Simon

---

From: Tim Chown <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 16:25:47 +0100

> To summary: what problem do we try to solve?

either reducing ietf costs, or increasing ietf income

do we know the 'cost per i-d'?   or is that meaningless anyway while
the i-d live in the automated part of the process?

tim

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 11:29:29 -0400

> entire IETF community. 
that's a really amazing statement.  If I were participating in a WG
whose chair had that attitude, I'd be lobbying hard with the IESG for
another chair, as I'd suspect that the incumbent chair was
inappropriately hostile to introduction of new ideas within the WG.

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 11:38:56 -0400

> keep the systems up and running, etc.
I-Ds do have a cost to the community as well as to the secretariat.  For
instance: The more I-Ds there are, the harder it is to find the document
you're looking for if you don't know the I-D identifier.  And every I-D
announcement becomes another interrupt that has to be serviced by people
who want to know enough about the I-D to understand whether it is
relevant.  In order to be really effective in IETF it's important to
know about useful new ideas, and also to know which of those ideas are
gaining traction within the community. 

Still, I-Ds exist to allow half-baked ideas to be aired.  The notion
that it's possible to objectively distinguish useful I-Ds from useless
ones is silly.
> openness are better than structures that discourage more openness.
agree entirely.

Keith

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 11:40:28 -0400

> the i-d live in the automated part of the process?

Neither running the software nor maintaining it is free (and we get
lots of help from some pretty capable volunteers as it is).

Regards
Marshall

---

From: Joe Abley <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 12:19:33 -0400

> Not to mention every supplier to the US Government.

I've actually tried to buy v6 service from carriers who presumably  
claim to provide it for the very reasons you allude to. It's very  
hard to buy it if you're just a normal customer (at least, that was  
my experience).

Joe

---

From: Thierry Ernst <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 18:20:12 +0200

>inappropriately hostile to introduction of new ideas within the WG.

Sorry, what "attitude" are you talking about here ? I was speaking
about people who publish drafts but never say a word to anyone about
their draft. What's the purpose ? If the purpose is to get new ideas
through, I don't see how publishing a draft and non advertising is
useful for the sender (it may for the reader). But more importantly, I
don't see what you see as "hostile" in the observation above. 

Thierry.

---

From: Joe Abley <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 12:24:03 -0400

> Some.  NTT/America, for example, is a Tier 1 provider with v6  

Also Global Crossing and Teleglobe/VSNL International. There are also  
European providers who can do a native v6 handoff that sell transit  
in North America (e.g. C&W, Tiscali).

In the scheme of things this is still a pretty small set, but it's  
not empty.

Joe

---

From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 09:26:49 -0700

The day on which virtual meetings are as productive as face to face will be the day when the IETF has completed its purpose and is no longer necessary.
 
I do far less work in the meetings than I do in the hallways. Face to Face still matters.

________________________________

From: Simon Josefsson [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Tue 31/07/2007 11:22 AM
To: Peter Saint-Andre
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: Do you want to have more meetings outside US ?

/Simon

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 12:29:51 -0400

Thierry Ernst wrote:
> their draft. What's the purpose ? 
it used to be the case that merely publishing a draft would get some
attention for it.  these days, that amount of attention is probably very
small.

also, publishing an I-D might be useful for other reasons - e.g. to
establish prior art in case an idea or invention in the draft is ever
patented by someone else.

and how do you know that the authors never say a word to anyone about
their draft?
> If the purpose is to get new ideas
perhaps I misunderstood.  I just don't want to further raise the barrier
for publishing I-Ds, because it's easier for the community to deal with
ideas published in that form than, say, on a web page or blog.

Keith

---

From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 09:26:53 -0700

Its a nonsense idea. The vanity press formerly known as peer-reviewed journals have become virtually irrelevant for any purpose other than determining academic tenure or award of research grants. If its not on the Web it is not going to influence anyone else.
 
Charges that bear no relationship to the underlying costs are a nonsense that will simply not fly. Publication fees in academic publishing are a racket on top of a racket that is not going to last long.
 
Charging $5 to publish a document on the Web is not going to fly, still less $500. Google will give you a blog for free and you can be pretty certain it will be arround in a century or so. An internet draft is expired and deleted in 6 months.
 
If the cost of publication is a burden to the secretariat we need to look at ways to reduce the cost. XML2RFC makes it much easier to move towards automated publication.

From: Thierry Ernst [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Tue 31/07/2007 9:22 AM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Charging I-Ds

Thierry.

---

From: Ned Freed <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 09:28:22 -0700 (PDT)

> their draft.

Please explain how it is you can be sure they haven't communicated to
anyone about their draft.

> What's the purpose ?

People are, as a rule, lazy. It is therefore pretty unlikely that they will
engage in a fairly time-consuming activity with no purpose in mind.

A better question is whether or not the purpose for which some drafts are
published is in line with the general goals of the IETF, and if it isn't should
something be done about it. For example, I suspect that in some cases drafts
are published primarily for the authors to be able say that they have done work
in the IETF.

So let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that (a) The cost of publishing
an I-D is significant, (b) Lots of drafts are published that aren't intended
to fulfill the goals of the IETF.

Given these assumptions the obvious fix is to reduce publication costs with
better automation. I find it extremely hard to believe that our publication
needs cannot be met with an almost entirely automated system, one where the
per-draft costs are extremely low. We might have to sacrifice a little to make
it work, but given that we're a bunch of engineers here and engineering is
always about tradeoffs I see no reason why we should be unwilling or unable to
apply engineering principles to our internal processes. For example, if
extraction of drafts from email cannot be automated I think we all could
survive with a web-based submission tool.

But even if we cannot get the costs down I don't think charging for being able
to post a draft solves the problem. Rather, the likely outcomes is that people
will simply stop posting drafts to a central server. They will instead post
their drafts to their own servers and send a message to one or more IETF lists
saying they have done so. So this won't work unless we accompany the charge
with a hard rule that only drafts posted to the authorized IETF server can be
discussed on IETF lists, and at that point I suspect we'd have a full scale
revolt on our hands. (To be perfectly honest I'd likely be one of the people
leading the revolt.)

> don't see what you see as "hostile" in the observation above.

Your saying that your experience as a working group chair is what led you to
this conclusion is what made it hostile - very hostile indeed IMO. It would
have read very differently had you instead made the comment speaking as a
general IETF participant. But given the context Keith's characterization
sounded spot on to me.

				Ned

---

From: Thierry Ernst <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 18:56:15 +0200

On Tue, 31 Jul 2007 12:29:51 -0400

>patented by someone else.

OK, this may be a valid reason (though I doubt the IETF process of
publishing I-D has been designed for such a reason).

>and how do you know that the authors never say a word to anyone about

Well, I meant the WG doesn't know, but individuals who monitor
[email-masked] may. I just wonder why as an author I would take
my time to write a draft which deal with protocol ABCD and not announce
it on the ABCD mailing list. To me this is non sense, and my
interpretation is that the intend is not to inform ABCD but to get the
document published (with no reviews). I'm working in the academic world
and I've seen many claims of documents published to the IETF, in some
universities it could be perceived as an international publication or
as being discussed within the IETF while it's not. 

>ideas published in that form than, say, on a web page or blog.

This I agree, as for establishing prior art.

Anyway, your comment would have been more productive if you had said so
in the first place rather than accusing chairs of hostility (with no
obvious reason).

Thierry

---

From: Peter Saint-Andre <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 11:01:56 -0600

> the i-d live in the automated part of the process?

Expected result of charging per I-D: bigger I-Ds.

/psa

-- 
Peter Saint-Andre
https://stpeter.im/

---

From: JORDI PALET MARTINEZ <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 12:57:38 -0400

We try to keep an updated list of services at

http://www.ipv6-to-standard.org

Type isp at the free search.

Regards,
Jordi

> De: Joe Abley <[email-masked]>
> Responder a: <[email-masked]>
> Fecha: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 12:19:33 -0400
> Para: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
> CC: Tony Li <[email-masked]>, <[email-masked]>
> Asunto: Re: IPv6: Do you want to have more meetings outside US ?
> 
> 

Bye 6Bone. Hi, IPv6 !
http://www.ipv6day.org

---

From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 13:05:43 -0400

> Expected result of charging per I-D: bigger I-Ds.

Library science research in the early 1980s
found that the number of authors was highly
correlated with title length, so one might
reasonably expect that charging for internet
draft publication might result in longer
draft titles.

Melinda

---

From: "Eric Gray (LO/EUS)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 12:42:21 -0500

Melinda,

	I was trying to avoid weighing in on this discussion.
The discussion is essentially inane, and that's (at least
part of) your point.  After all, the thought that someone 
might be asked to work on an ID, and then - in addition to 
volunteering their time to do the work - they then need to 
pay (per iteration) for the privilege of submitting it is 
utterly absurd.

	The whole idea of taxing volunteers is, as you said,
ghastly.

	But - while we're on the subject of volunteering - your 
comment that reviews are at "no cost to the IETF" isn't quite
correct.  As a well-known SciFi author used to say -

	"there ain't no such thing as a free lunch"

- (or TANSTAAFL).  The effort to find sufficient volunteers 
to review documents is not a "no cost" exercise.

--
Eric Gray
Principal Engineer
Ericsson  

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Melinda Shore [mailto:[email-masked]] 
> Sent: Tuesday, July 31, 2007 11:02 AM
> To: Stephane Bortzmeyer; Thierry Ernst
> Cc: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: Charging I-Ds
>

---

From: "Adrian Farrel" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 18:44:45 +0100

> keep the systems up and running, etc.

And, with the advent of the online I-D submission tool (coming soon?) this 
will be reduced somewhat.

In fact, since we want to encourage the propagation of ideas and the 
development of new standards, should the IETF be paying for every I-D that 
is published? This would tie in with the $200 that WG chairs get for every 
RFC that their working group produces.

Adrian

---

From: Tim Chown <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 18:54:16 +0100

> patented by someone else.

I have written or co-written a few drafts in the past purely as problem
statements or to raise issues.   Rather than repeat text in list 
discussions, it's 'nice' to have a plain text format statement of an
#issue or problem to focus discussion.   While the draft may become
an RFC, it also quite commonly may not if the solution draft briefly
cpatures the issue at hand.

Sure, the statement could be a web page, but the IETF 'version control'
on texts is also quite handy to see how a text evolved over time.

tim

---

From: Peter Saint-Andre <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 11:58:44 -0600

> draft publication might result in longer

You mean someone might break my record?

http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-saintandre-xmpp-simple

/psa

-- 
Peter Saint-Andre
https://stpeter.im/

---

From: Suresh Krishnan <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 15:04:41 -0400

Charging for IDs will kill innovation. I use IDs to float ideas which 
may or may not bear fruition. I would not work on these if I had to pay. 
  I also work on things at the IETF than my employer does not sponsor. 
These things will get thrown out as well.

Since we have started slaughtering the sacred cows (free {ids,mailing 
lists, rfcs ...}), I might as well suggest few more.

* Make remote participants share the costs. i.e. charge for live 
audio/video feeds. I believe this is fairer than charging for ids, rfcs 
or mailing lists. People who want to participate, but are unable to 
travel can get these for a lower meeting fee (25% maybe).

* Get some kind of corporate sponsorships for supporting free documents 
(kind of like IEEE get 802)

* Cut back on the food and beverages

I would be unhappy with some of these things, but at least they still 
retain the openness of the IETF and are reasonably fair.

Cheers
Suresh

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 15:18:22 -0400

> in the first place rather than accusing chairs of hostility (with no
I don't know you or your WG, so it wasn't a comment about you.  I'm
perhaps biased from having seen a few WG chairs who railroaded
half-baked proposals through their groups and were hostile to input that
contradicted their agendas.

---

From: Alexey Melnikov <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 14:30:45 -0600

Peter Saint-Andre wrote:

>to attend meetings in both (say) security and applications,
>
I am certainly in this group. I don't think I am alone ;-).

>or transport and RAI? This is an empirical question that could be answered through
>surveys.
>
>use of text chat, voice chat, and video chat for interim meetings?
>
I am in favor of this, but I don't think this can replace many ad-hoc 
meetings on yet-non-specified topics that happen all the time during 
IETF meetings.

>Are three in-person meetings a year really necessary if we make use of
As long as the number of face-to-face meetings is not 0, this might be 
something to think about.

>3. Reduced workload for our stressed-out IESG members. :)
+ Less cross area review.

I would rather you try to standardize XMPP extensions in IETF and see if 
this would actually cause any DoS.
(Well, maybe not all of them. Some XMPP extensions should probably die 
inside XSF ;-))

---

From: Alexey Melnikov <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 14:37:41 -0600

>IETF process (potentially changing the design to fix problems).
The danger here is that when people bring work to IETF, they might 
refuse to change protocols which are already deployed.

And speaking of cross area review again: last thing I want is to be 
forced to go to multiple smaller meetings in various other organizations 
instead of attending 3 IETF meetings per-year.

>a barrier for serious consideration within the IETF may be one approach.
I agree that running code should be given extra weight, but I am not 
sure that running code should be a requirement for something which is 
not well understood yet (some Lemonade WG documents come to mind).

---

From: Peter Saint-Andre <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 14:42:14 -0600

Cyrus Daboo wrote:
> Hi Peter,
> 
> --On July 30, 2007 2:11:38 PM -0600 Peter Saint-Andre
> <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> All that will do is shift the discussion from "where shall we hold the
> meeting" to "what time/timezone shall we have for our conf call". Given
> that we have people participating from across the globe, trying to
> arrange a time that is acceptable for all participants will be just as
> hard as trying to find a meeting venue acceptable to all.

You can hold multiple meetings at different times. Not ideal, but there
has to be a better way to get all interested parties in a discussion at
the same time than forcing them to burn jet fuel.

I'm not opposed to in-person meetings -- there's nothing like a good Bar
BOF. I just think that we could more productively leverage the real-time
collaboration technologies we've developed to make progress between IRL
meetings, and perhaps run more focused IRL meetings as a result.

> Unfortunately we don't have scheduling tools that will help resolve
> issues like that (or at least make it easier than a multiple party email
> exchange/negotiation) - but some of us are working on that!

Keep up the good work!

Peter

-- 
Peter Saint-Andre
https://stpeter.im/

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 17:24:14 -0400

> refuse to change protocols which are already deployed.
This already happens to far too great a degree.  People keep arguing
that because they have running/deployed code, IETF has to standardize
exactly what they have already produced.  In many cases things that are
deployed before they get widespread design review are very poorly designed.
> not well understood yet (some Lemonade WG documents come to mind).
IMHO, "running code" gets more credit than is warranted.  While it is
certainly useful as both proof of concept and proof of implementability,
mere existence of running code says nothing about the quality of the
design, its security, scalability, breadth of applicability, and so
forth.  "running code" was perhaps sufficient in ARPAnet days when there
were only a few hundred hosts and a few thousand users of the network. 
It's not sufficient for global mission critical infrastructure.

Keith

---

From: "Tony Hain" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 15:40:36 -0700

> this week with the DHCP. Having a good link the network was still

I had no problem at all because the IPv6 path didn't rely on the failing
DHCP service. ;)

That said, several of us did notice that the local DNS servers did not have
any AAAA records, so likely they did not have any IPv6 configured either.
Even if they did, we would need to finalize the work to put the DNS address
in the RA to completely avoid the need for DHCP for those that rely on local
configuration.

Tony

---

From: Marc Manthey <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2007 00:53:18 +0200

On Aug 1, 2007, at 12:40 AM, Tony Hain wrote:

>> The poor network infrastructure is not only a question of the  
>> links. It
>> is a
>> question of having a good or bad network, like the problem that we  
>> had
>> all

thats why i like the " bonjour" idea;)

http://www.dns-sd.org/ServerTestSetup.html

marcM.

--  
"Imagination  is more important than Knowledge"
http://www.braustelle.com/

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 18:59:58 -0400

--On Tuesday, 31 July, 2007 15:40 -0700 Tony Hain
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>> links. It is a
> I had no problem at all because the IPv6 path didn't rely on
> the failing DHCP service. ;)
>...

Almost independent of the IPv6 autoconfig issues, I find it
deeply troubling that we seem to be unable to both

	* get the ducks lined up to run IPv6 fully and smoothly,
	with and without local/auto config.
	
	* get a DHCP arrangement (IPv4 and, for those who want
	to use it, IPv6) that performs reliably, consistently,
	and largely invisibly (if I have to worry about what a
	DHCP server is doing, it isn't working well).

and have both of those working seamlessly no later than Sunday
afternoon of the meeting.

If we can't do that, we should be very seriously reviewing our
protocols and specifications: that sort of thing shouldn't be,
in any sense, an experiment at this stage.

       john

---

From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2007 01:14:40 +0200

> 	with and without local/auto config.

IPv6 worked pretty well this time, although still ~60 ms (1.5x)  
slower than IPv4.

> 	DHCP server is doing, it isn't working well).

A good start would be explaining what exactly went wrong with the  
DHCP server(s) this time. "We have a problem and we're working on it"  
is not all that helpful.

---

From: Bob Hinden <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 16:40:46 -0700

John,

> afternoon of the meeting.

Agreed.

In my case, I found the IPv6 support at IETF69 better than most past  
IETF meetings.

It was also interesting to open the Mac network control pannel,  
enable my Airport (WLAN) interface, and see the IPv6 global address  
appear almost instantaneously and in many case having to wait many  
seconds to minutes for DHCP provided IPv4 address to appear.

Bob

---

From: [email-masked] (Jun-ichiro itojun Hagino)
Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2007 09:31:37 +0900 (JST)

> These things will get thrown out as well.

	I assume i-d to be a proposal for a new protocol, which is
	implementable with a reasonable efforts and costs.  i think your
	view and my view are opposite.

	i'd like to see the following:
	- submission of i-d requires an implementation
	- to become a RFC requires two independent interoperable implementation

itojun

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 21:30:57 -0400

--On Wednesday, 01 August, 2007 01:14 +0200 Iljitsch van Beijnum
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> A good start would be explaining what exactly went wrong with
> the DHCP server(s) this time. "We have a problem and we're
> working on it" is not all that helpful.

While I agree, I also believe that, if that story happens at one
meeting, it is a local problem.  If it happens at two, we either
have a protocol problem (which might be reflected in a problem
with equipment that doesn't quite conform, although I don't have
any reason to believe that is the case) or a provider problem.
If it is a protocol problem, we should know what went wrong and
the DHC WG should have their noses pressed into it.  If it
isn't, we need to not have it again.  Ever.

And, while I'm picking on DHCP because I personally had more
problems with it, I see IPv6 authconfig as being exactly the
same issue: we are telling the world that these things work and
they should be using them; if we can't make them work for our
own meetings...

    john