--On Thursday, 29 November, 2007 10:15 +0100 Stephane Bortzmeyer
<bortzmeyer(_at_)nic(_dot_)fr> wrote:
It's not "geographic balance of places on the world map" that
people are talking about here. It's "geographic balance of
places where the people who write IETF documents live".
Then, things can go on forever. We do not hold meetings in
places where there are not a lot of IETF members. As a result,
people from these countries do not come and do not
participate. Then, the prophecy becomes true. And so on.
Stephane,
If you believe this, it could easily be used to go back a decade
and used to prove that we would never hold a meeting in either
Europe or Asia. Such a proof would clearly be false, since
people from those regions started participating actively and
writing documents without the presumed benefits of showpiece
meetings in their immediate vicinity.
This isn't about making the IETF accessible to people. It is
about the end of the horse on which the cart is to be placed.
Of course, if we were to decide that we would like to be more
like those organizations in which most of the work is done at
meetings and a great deal of the purpose of a meeting is to act
as a showpiece for the organization in some particular region or
country, these considerations would change. I've had enough
experience with those organizations and the related side-effects
that I hope we don't go there. Ever. YMMD, but, if that were
to be even part of your goal, I think you should be explicit
about it, not raise spurious arguments about how people won't
participate unless we start holding meetings in their city/
country/ region.
john
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