Open Participation Principle regarding Remote Registration Fee
Ericsson
mirja.kuehlewind@ericsson.com
Akamai
jreed@akamai.com
Akamai
rsalz@akamai.com
Internet-Draft
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.
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.
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 , whether or not that meeting has a physical presence.
This principle aims to support the openness principle of the IETF as defined in :
"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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Normative References
A Mission Statement for the IETF
This memo gives a mission statement for the IETF, tries to define the terms used in the statement sufficiently to make the mission statement understandable and useful, argues why the IETF needs a mission statement, and tries to capture some of the debate that led to this point. This document specifies an Internet Best Current Practices for the Internet Community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements.