On Wed, Aug 13, 2014 at 08:26:08AM -0400, Ted Lemon wrote:
I don't have enough experience with ITU to know whether in fact the
old-timers of which you speak are the sort that might help with
that, but my inclination is to remain skeptical of this proposal,
because the context in which the two organizations operate is quite
different, and specifically the funding and attendance model for ITU
is _very_ different.
My experience working with an ITU body was that I had to fly all the
way to countries like Singapore, for a single one day meeting, a
location which was deliberately picked so that a known troublemaker
who happened to have the vote of a small country in Europe wouldn't be
able to afford to travel and attend, since it was feared that he would
stop forward progress from happening.
So yes, IMHO the ITU is quite different from the IETF; the IETF does a
lot more by email, doesn't have votes, and voting isn't done by
country (and so your company don't have to pay $$$ to join yet another
organization and then to travel to yet another meeting to develop what
US National Position would be for a particular vote...)
So for people who are complaining about travel; I've seen it get much
worse in other standards bodies. You should be thankful...
- Ted