Internet DRAFT - draft-kuehlewind-shmoo-remote-fee
draft-kuehlewind-shmoo-remote-fee
Network Working Group M. Kuehlewind
Internet-Draft Ericsson
Intended status: Best Current Practice J. Reed
Expires: 22 July 2021 R. Salz
Akamai
18 January 2021
Open Participation Principle regarding Remote Registration Fee
draft-kuehlewind-shmoo-remote-fee-02
Abstract
This document proposes a principle for open participation that
extends the open process principle as defined in RFC3935 by stating
that there must always be a free option for online participation to
IETF meetings over the Internet.
Status of This Memo
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This Internet-Draft will expire on 22 July 2021.
Copyright Notice
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Principle of open participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
3. Financial impact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
4. Considerations on Use and Misuse of a Free Participation
Option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
5. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
6. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1. Introduction
Remote participation for IETF in-person meetings has evolved over
time from email-only to live chat and audio streaming, and,
currently, to a full online meeting system that is tightly integrated
with the in-room session and enables interactive participation by
audio and video. Due to this evolution, and because most in-person
attendees paid registration fees and this has been sufficient to
support the meeting, online participation has historically been free
for remote attendees.
Given this more full-blown participation option, the IETF has started
to observed an increasing number of remote participants. This
increase can be explained by the ease with which new participants can
join a meeting or only attend selected parts of the meeting agenda,
and also by a less strongly perceived need to attend every meeting in
person, either due to financial reasons or other circumstances. In
order to better understand these trends the IETF started requiring
registration as "participant" (in contrast to an "observer") for
remote participation, still without any registration fee applied.
With the recent move to full online meetings, however, there is no
distinction between remote and other participants anymore which lead
to the introduction of a meeting fee for all participants, removing
the free remote option.
This change led to concerns about the impact both on those who
regularly remotely attend meetings, as well as people looking to
attend IETF meetings for the first time. In both cases, even a small
registration fee can be a barrier to participation.
2. Principle of open participation
This document outlines the principle of open participation and
solicits community feedback in order to reach consensus on this or a
similar principle that the IETF LLC can use to guide future decision
about registration fees for full online meetings.
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The principle this document states is simple: there must always be an
option for free remote participation in any IETF meeting, whether or
not that meeting has a physical presence.
This principle aims to support the openness principle of the IETF as
defined in [RFC3935]:
"Open process - any interested person can participate in the work,
know what is being decided, and make his or her voice heard on the
issue. Part of this principle is our commitment to making our
documents, our WG mailing lists, our attendance lists, and our
meeting minutes publicly available on the Internet."
It should be noted that opennees as defined in [RFC3935] should be
seen as open and free. While the principle in RFC3935 is explicitly
noting that this principle includes a requirement to open basically
all our documents and documentation and making them accessible over
the Internet, it was probably written with mainly having email
interactions in mind when talking about participation. This document
extends this principle to explicitly cover online participation at
meetings.
In order to fully remove barriers to participation, any free
registration option must offer the same degree of interactivity and
functionality available to paid remote attendees. The free option
must be clearly and prominently listed on the meeting website and
registration page. If the free option requires additional
registration steps, such as applying for a fee waiver, those
requirements should be clearly documented.
3. Financial impact
Online meetings have lower costs than in-person meetings, however
they still come with expenses, as do other services that the IETF
provides such as mailing lists, document access over the datatracker
or other online platforms, or Webex accounts for working groups and
other roles in the IETF.
These and other running costs of the IETF are also cross-financed by
income generated through meeting fees. The intention of this
document and the principle stated herein is not to make participation
free for everyone but to always have a free option that can be used
without any barriers other than the registration procedure itself.
It is not in scope for this document or the shmoo working group to
make suggestions for changing the IETF's overall funding model. This
is the responsibility of the LLC Board taking agreed principles like
the one proposed in this document into account.
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4. Considerations on Use and Misuse of a Free Participation Option
This document does not provide specific requirements on when to use
or not use the free option. The purpose of the free option is to
enable everybody who is interested in participation to join meetings
without the meeting fee imposing a financial barrier. These cases
cannot be limited to a certain group, like students or "self-founded"
participants, nor to any specific other restrictions like the number
of meetings previously attended or previous level of involvement.
The purpose is simply to maximise participation without barriers in
order to make the standards process as open as possible.
It is expected that participants who have financial support to use
the regular registration option will do. Paying a registration fee
is a way for their sponsor to support the sustainability of the IETF.
For example, a higher late payment charge can be used to maximise
this financial support. However, this document does not comment on
the actual payment structure of the IETF meeting fee other than the
requirement for a free option. The fee payment structure is set the
by the LLC such that the viability of the IETF and the need of IETF
participants to work productively within the IETF can be warranted.
Aggregated data on the number and percentage of free registrations
used should be published, as this will permit analysis the use and
change in use over time of the free registration option without
revealing personal information. If the number of paid registrations
decreases, this can however also have various reasons, such as
restrictions on travel to physical meetings due to cost savings or
environmental reasons, general cost savings and lesser focus on
standardization work, or simply lost of business interest. These are
risks that can impact the sustainability of the IETF independent of
the free registration option due to its dependency on meetings fees
to cross finance other costs.
5. Acknowledgments
6. Normative References
[RFC3935] Alvestrand, H., "A Mission Statement for the IETF",
BCP 95, RFC 3935, DOI 10.17487/RFC3935, October 2004,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3935>.
Authors' Addresses
Mirja Kuehlewind
Ericsson
Email: mirja.kuehlewind@ericsson.com
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Jon Reed
Akamai
Email: jreed@akamai.com
Rich Salz
Akamai
Email: rsalz@akamai.com
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