Open Participation Principle regarding Remote Registration Fee
draft-ietf-shmoo-remote-fee-01
Network Working Group M. Kuehlewind
Internet-Draft Ericsson
Intended status: Best Current Practice J. Reed
Expires: 19 November 2021 R. Salz
Akamai
18 May 2021
Open Participation Principle regarding Remote Registration Fee
draft-ietf-shmoo-remote-fee-01
Abstract
This document proposes a principle for open participation that
extends the open process principle defined in RFC3935 by stating that
there must always be a free option for online participation to IETF
meetings (or related events) over the Internet.
Status of This Memo
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This Internet-Draft will expire on 19 November 2021.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Principle of open participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Financial Impact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4. Considerations on Use and Misuse of a Free Participation
Option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
5. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
6. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1. Introduction
Remote participation for IETF in-person meetings has evolved over
time from email-only to live chat and audio streaming, and,
currently, to a full online meeting system that is tightly integrated
with the in-room session and enables interactive participation by
audio and video. Due to this evolution, and because most in-person
attendees paid registration fees and this has been sufficient to
support the meeting, online participation has historically been free
for remote attendees.
Given this more full-blown participation option, the IETF has started
to observed an increasing number of remote participants. This
increase can be explained by the ease with which new participants can
join a meeting or only attend selected parts of the meeting agenda,
and also by a less strongly perceived need to attend every meeting in
person, either due to financial reasons or other circumstances. In
order to better understand these trends the IETF started requiring
registration as "participant" (in contrast to an "observer") for
remote participation, still without any registration fee applied.
With the recent move to fully online meetings, however, there is no
longer a distinction between remote and on-site participants. Since
IETF meeting costs and other costs still have to be covered, there is
the need for a meeting fee for remote participants, which risks the
removal of the free remote option.
The introduction of a fee for remote participation raised concerns
about the potential impact on both, those who regularly remotely
attend IETF meetings as well as people considering attending an IETF
meeting for the first time. In both cases, even a small registration
fee can be a barrier to participation.
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2. Principle of open participation
This document outlines the principle of open participation and
solicits community feedback in order to reach consensus on this or a
similar principle that the IETF Administration LLC (IETF LLC) can use
to guide future decision about registration fees for full online
meetings.
The principle this document states is simple: there must always be an
option for free remote participation in any IETF meeting and related
events that are part of the IETF's open process [RFC3935], whether or
not that meeting has a physical presence.
This principle aims to support the openness principle of the IETF as
defined in [RFC3935]:
"Open process - any interested person can participate in the work,
know what is being decided, and make his or her voice heard on the
issue. Part of this principle is our commitment to making our
documents, our WG mailing lists, our attendance lists, and our
meeting minutes publicly available on the Internet."
It should be noted that opennees as defined in [RFC3935] should be
seen as open and free. While the principle in RFC3935 is explicitly
noting that this principle includes a requirement to open basically
all our documents and documentation and making them accessible over
the Internet, it was probably written with mainly having email
interactions in mind when talking about participation. This document
extends this principle to explicitly cover online participation at
meetings.
This document does not advise that all IETF meetings or events must
have a remote participation item, because there could be technical or
other reasons why that might not always be possible. This document
rather says that if remote participation is provided, there should
always be a free option that makes the process as open as possible.
Having said that, it is of course strongly anticipated that at least
all sessions of the main agenda of an IETF plenary meeting provide an
option for remote participation.
Future, in order to fully remove barriers to participation, any free
registration option must offer the same degree of interactivity and
functionality available to paid remote attendees. The free option
must be clearly and prominently listed on the meeting website and
registration page. If the free option requires additional
registration steps, such as applying for a fee waiver, those
requirements should be clearly documented.
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3. Financial Impact
Online meetings have lower costs than in-person meetings, however,
they still come with expenses, as do other services that the IETF
provides such as mailing lists, document access over the datatracker
or other online platforms, or support for videoconferencing, e.g with
Webex accounts for working groups and other roles in the IETF.
These and other operating costs of the IETF are also cross-financed
by income generated through meeting fees. The intention of this
document and the principle stated herein is not to make participation
free for everyone but to always have a free option that can be used
without any barriers other than the registration procedure itself.
As long as there are still enough paying participants to cover the
base costs, additional participant can effectively be added without
increasing expenses.
It is not in scope for this document or the SHMOO working group to
make suggestions for changing the IETF's overall funding model. This
is the responsibility of the IETF LLC Board taking agreed principles
like the one proposed in this document into account.
4. Considerations on Use and Misuse of a Free Participation Option
This document does not provide specific requirements on when to use
or not use the free option. The purpose of the free option is to
enable everybody who is interested in participation to join meetings
without the meeting fee imposing a financial barrier. These cases
cannot be limited to a certain group, like students or "self-funded"
participants, nor to any specific other restrictions like the number
of meetings previously attended or previous level of involvement.
The purpose is simply to maximise participation without barriers in
order to make the standards process as open as possible.
It is expected that participants who have financial support to use
the regular registration option will do so. Paying a registration
fee is a way for their sponsor to support the sustainability of the
IETF. For example, a higher late payment charge can be used to
maximise this financial support. However, this document does not
comment on the actual payment structure of the IETF meeting fee other
than the requirement for a free option. The fee payment structure is
set the by the IETF LLC such that the viability of the IETF and the
need of IETF participants to work productively within the IETF can be
warranted.
The LLC is responsible to ensure the financial stability of the IETF
and therefore should monitor trends in the use of the free
participation option that could endanger the viability of the IETF.
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Aggregated data on the number and percentage of free registrations
used should be published, as this will permit analysis of the use and
change in use over time of the free registration option without
revealing personal information. However, as long as the number of
paid registrations stays stable and retains the projected needed
income, an increase in use of free registrations should not
necessarily be taken as a sign of misuse but rather a sign of
increased interest and success for the open participation principle.
If the number of paid registrations, however, decreases, this can
still also have various reasons other than misuse, such as
restrictions on travel to physical meetings due to cost savings or
environmental reasons, general cost savings and lesser focus on
standardization work, or simply lost of business interest. These are
risks that can impact the sustainability of the IETF independent of
the free registration option due to its dependency on meetings fees
to cross-finance other costs.
5. Acknowledgments
Thanks to everybody involved in the shmoo working group discussion,
esepcially Brian Carpenter, Jason Livingood, and Charles Eckel for
proposing concrete improvements and and their in-depth reviews.
6. Normative References
[RFC3935] Alvestrand, H., "A Mission Statement for the IETF",
BCP 95, RFC 3935, DOI 10.17487/RFC3935, October 2004,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3935>.
Authors' Addresses
Mirja Kuehlewind
Ericsson
Email: mirja.kuehlewind@ericsson.com
Jon Reed
Akamai
Email: jreed@akamai.com
Rich Salz
Akamai
Email: rsalz@akamai.com
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