--On Monday, August 19, 2013 12:49 -0700 SM <sm(_at_)resistor(_dot_)net>
wrote:
...
First, I note that, in some organizations (including some
large ones), someone might be working on an open source
project one month and a proprietary one the next, or maybe
both
concurrently. Would it be appropriate for such a person (or
the company's CFO) to claim the lower rate, thereby expecting
those who pay full rate to subsidize them? Or would their
...
The above reminds me of the Double Irish with a Dutch
sandwich. If I was an employee of a company I would pay the
regular fee. If I am sponsored by an open source project and
my Internet-Draft will have that as my affiliation I would
claim the lower rate.
Without understanding your analogy (perhaps a diversity
problem?), if you are trying to make a distinction between
"employee of a company" and "sponsored by an open source
project", that distinction just does not hold up. I'm
particular, some of the most important reference implementations
of Internet protocols -- open source, freely available and
usable, well-documented, openly tested, etc.-- have come out of
"companies", even for-profit companies.
If the distinction you are really trying to draw has to do with
poverty or the lack thereof, assuming that, if a large company
imposes severe travel restrictions, its employees should pay
full fare if they manage to get approval, then you are back to
Hadriel's suggestion (which more or less requires that someone
self-identify as "poor") or mine (which involves individual
self-assessment of ability to pay without having to identify the
reasons or circumstances).
...
Does it count if the open source software is basically
irrelevant to the work of the IETF? Written in, e.g., HTML5?
Do reference implementations of IETF protocols count more (if
I'm going to be expected to subsidize someone else's
attendance at the IETF, I think they should).
This would require setting a demarcation line. That isn't
always a clear line.
What I'm trying to suggest is that the line will almost always
be unclear and will require case by case interpretation by
someone other than the would-be participant. I continue to find
any peer evaluation model troubling, especially as long as the
people and bodies who are likely to made the evaluations are
heavily slanted toward a narrow range of participants (and that
will be the case as long as those leadership or evaluation roles
require significant time over long periods).
A subsidy is a grant or other financial assistance given by
one party for the support or development of another. If the
lower rate is above meeting costs it is not a subsidy.
I note that you used that term in a later message, More
important, I believe the IAOC has repeatedly assured us that, at
least over a reasonable span of meetings, they never seek to
make a profit on registration fees. Indeed, I suspect that,
with reasonable accounting assumptions, meetings are always a
net money-loser although not my much and more than others. Any
decision that some people are going to pay less than others
(including the reduced fee arrangements we already have) is a
decision that some people and groups are going to bear a higher
share of the costs than others. And that is a subsidy, even by
your definition above.
best,
john