On Wed 13/Nov/2013 20:44:38 +0100 Andrew Feren wrote:
On 11/13/2013 02:08 PM, SM wrote:
You and I arrived to the IETF through quite unusual paths.
:-)
A key question is how everybody else happen to join in. In
particular, how do companies decide who of their employees
participates in IETF activities, if any.
I don't know whether anybody would want to look into that.
Because it involves confidential info or because it's boring?
I can't speak for anyone else, but every time my employer (for
several values of employer) has sent me to an IETF meeting it has
been because I was the one who was participating and asked to go.
My participation has never started out as an employer directive.
That's the ideal case scenario here. Thank you for sharing it.
If a company has more people asking to go than the number it is
willing or capable to support, it is forced to make choices. The
rationale can vary widely, from practical considerations, favoritism,
or discrimination to formal policies, possibly including gender
diversity. Should the IETF recommend a specific policy?
Self-employed and companies so small that the number of people they
are willing or capable to support is zero deserve special attention:
A good deal of free software is developed by such people. See
http://p2pfoundation.net/Free_Software_Production_-_Class_Structure
A per-country distribution of computer-related employment shows small
businesses accounting for only the 32% in the US, but that figure goes
up to 67% in the UK and 73% in Italy. See figure 4 in
http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/small-business-2009-08.pdf
Ale
--
The current legal definition of small business does not allow small
businesses to compete effectively against giants in the telecom industry.
http://www.sba.gov/advocacy/7540/12143