On 15 Feb 2015 13:48, "Ted Lemon" <Ted(_dot_)Lemon(_at_)nominum(_dot_)com>
wrote:
On Feb 15, 2015, at 4:30 AM, Dave Cridland <dave(_at_)cridland(_dot_)net>
wrote:
Charging the people we want to be contributing just doesn't seem
logical to me.
This isn't really what's happening, though. What's happening is that
corporations tend to have budgets for things like conference attendance,
and IETF is getting participants to tap those budgets to partially fund the
organization. The idea isn't really for participants who are contributing
to have to pay, and we do have scholarship programs, although it would be
unusual for a non-student to be sponsored in one of these programs.
Trying to turn the funding scheme into something "fair" isn't going to
work, because the people who really benefit from this are users of the
internet, and they don't even know who we are. They are not going to fund
us. If we really think what we are doing is important, it's not
unreasonable to expect us to try to figure out how to fund it.
The idea of a fee for off-site attendees is not to make them pay, but to
provide a way for them to get their employers to pay, or for them to pay.
I realize this is a subtle distinction, but the point is that if you think
what the IETF does is important, providing funding from an available budget
is a good way to support it, and we have not yet identified any better way
to support it. If you think that asking attendees to take on this
responsibility is inappropriate, then you should probably be thinking
seriously about an alternative proposal for how to fund the organization.
I agree with everything you've written there. I don't think the IETF is pay
to play, as such, and I think funding this kind of thing is particularly
challenging at this scale.
But still, I'd rather avoid seeing participants as a revenue stream, so
yes, seriously looking at an alternative funding structure that doesn't
involve neither any non existent benefactors nor charging contributors
would be interesting.
Dave.