On Mar 17, Bonney Kooper <bk9001(_at_)yahoo(_dot_)com> wrote:
I think every one missed the point due to my not being
a bit more precise, and using a very strong word.
I understood your point fine - what I had problems understanding were the
responses. For people to come back with arguments like 'Do you know how much
the coffee costs?' raised the question 'Do you think the coffee is critical
to have at those meetings?'.
I do appreciate how much it costs to put on a meeting or conference,
especially when it comes to getting reasonable bandwidth into the building
for a short period of time. However, I remember occasions when reading a
draft and thinking to myself 'this is a *really* bad idea to implement' and
realising that the only way I was going to get heard was to get to the next
meetings. Then I realised that (at the time) I was a student, and couldn't
afford to even pay the door fee, never mind the flights.
These days I'm a bit more flush with the old moolah, and the primary problem
I have in attending is time not money. However, the costs are MASSIVELY
prohibitive for individuals. In a time when OSes and user experience are
becoming increasingly controlled by the individual's involvement in open
source software, I find it strange that the IETF is effectively actively
discouraging individual participation, and concerns itself mostly with
staying good chums with the larger corporate entities.
Membership of the IETF is set to the correct price - free - and nobody
expects conferences to also be run for free. However, the tiering system
Bonney is talking about is likely to have two positive effects for the IETF
process:
1. More money will be raised - Cisco et al are going to send their people
regardless, and the point where they do not see it as being economically
viable to do so is going to be quite high
2. Individual participation will increase, and therefore the quality of the
protocols, rafts and RFCs will increase. Would the IETF rather be pushing
through some standard that one manufacturer really wants for their new
router line-up, or input on a broad range of protocols from the people who
maintain the network protocol stacks in Linux/FreeBSD/OpenBSD/NetBSD/etc.
with the emphasis being on open, secure, reliable systems?
OK, I'm biased, I'm with the OSS guys, but surely somebody can see my point.
It's not about trying to push away the corporates, it's about trying to
create a level playing field. I, for one, completely agree with adopting a
tiering system.
--
Paul Robinson