Re: Sponsors and influence (Re: Making IETF happening in different regions)

[Dave Crocker <dhc2 at dcrocker.net>]

Harald Alvestrand wrote:

> > One option however would be to seek 'partnerships' between vendors and
> > the IETF that span more than one meeting.  Unless that impacted the
> > perceived 'neutrality' of the IETF and its standardisation processes.
> >   
> I suspect that this would indeed be a question.

To invoke a particularly apt cliche punchline: we are merely haggling about price.

The IETF's long-term use of hosts already creates these partnerships, albeit one 
meeting at a time.  Hosts can enjoy very considerable marketing benefits during 
the IETF.

Moving to a sponsorship model permits the IETF to enjoy continue to enjoy the 
financial benefits that we rely on from hosts, but permits us to do vastly more 
rational (and cost-effective) meeting logistics planning.  It well might also 
permit us to obtain enough funds to reduce attendance fees.  By way of a simple 
goal, it might allow meeting fees to be reduced to cover only meeting costs, 
rather than also used for funding the basic Secretariat.

> One of the services that ISOC provides to the IETF is a layer of 
> indirection for sponsors; they give money into a pool administered by 
> ISOC (and get a seat on the ISOC AC in return), but the procedures make 
> it pretty clear that they do not get any direct influence over the IETF 
> standardization process that way.

From a marketing standpoint, Hosts currently get a significantly more powerful 
position than you just described.

As for whose name is on the sponsorship check, I don't care.


> Among the issues Ray could want to calculate would be:

sounds like some good examples.


> One option I do NOT want to consider (and which the 770 stand in the 
> lobby kind of dented a little) is to add a tradeshow to the IETF 
> meeting. The next steps in that progression have been travelled before - 
> soon, the tradeshow has a standards adjunct, not the other way around.

Yes, this is an important danger to pay close attention to.

d/
--

Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
<http://bbiw.net>

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