Thus spake "Bonney Kooper" <bk9001(_at_)yahoo(_dot_)com>
If the cost of running A PARTICULAR IETF meeting is
concerned then it is true (this is what one would call
the element view of the problem). But if you take the
system view and consider the big picture, and try to
see who is benefitting most in increased revenues as a
result of pushing their proprietary standards as IETF
standards, then like many you would think that
companies that send lots of delegates are being
subsidized by single and independant developers in
more than one way.
First, the corporations benefit by
getting their standards approved by show of mite and
then shipping those equipment/standards for billions
dollar of profit. Without IETF's approval they won't
be able to ship those equipment as "open systems". But
the problem is many times these so called systems are
only opened once these corporations are ready to
ship!.
To believe this, you must believe that large vendors are unable to ship a
product until it has some sort of IETF rubber stamp. You must also believe
that this IETF rubber stamp is only available to large vendors, and only
large vendors will benefit from it.
Given that the IETF does not recognize organizations at all, it is hard to
agree with this model. The process is specifically designed to prevent this
from happening, and I think the current IDNA argument shows that it's
difficult to railroad a WG with a bad idea.
Also, as big companies send more people, they increase
the cost of the conference for the organisers, and
hence the cost for every one, so they should bear more
cost. If you are going to have a meeting of just 25
people costs, i believe but could be wrong, don't
increase linearly if you organise a meeting for 500
people. You now need many more halls and cost baloons
up. So they are not exactly paying there fair share,
are they really?
You have a tacit assumption here that when a large vendor, which makes
hundreds of products across dozens of market sectors, happens to send 20
people, those people have less valuable input than if 20 small vendors each
sent one person to the same meetings. Please prove this is true.
S