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Miscellaneous warnings: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- == The copyright year in the IETF Trust and authors Copyright Line does not match the current year -- The document date (18 May 2021) is 1073 days in the past. Is this intentional? Checking references for intended status: Best Current Practice ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- (See RFCs 3967 and 4897 for information about using normative references to lower-maturity documents in RFCs) No issues found here. Summary: 2 errors (**), 0 flaws (~~), 1 warning (==), 1 comment (--). Run idnits with the --verbose option for more detailed information about the items above. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 Network Working Group M. Kuehlewind 3 Internet-Draft Ericsson 4 Intended status: Best Current Practice J. Reed 5 Expires: 19 November 2021 R. Salz 6 Akamai 7 18 May 2021 9 Open Participation Principle regarding Remote Registration Fee 10 draft-ietf-shmoo-remote-fee-01 12 Abstract 14 This document proposes a principle for open participation that 15 extends the open process principle defined in RFC3935 by stating that 16 there must always be a free option for online participation to IETF 17 meetings (or related events) over the Internet. 19 Status of This Memo 21 This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the 22 provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. 24 Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering 25 Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute 26 working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- 27 Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/. 29 Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months 30 and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any 31 time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference 32 material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." 34 This Internet-Draft will expire on 19 November 2021. 36 Copyright Notice 38 Copyright (c) 2021 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the 39 document authors. All rights reserved. 41 This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal 42 Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/ 43 license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. 44 Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights 45 and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components 46 extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text 47 as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are 48 provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License. 50 Table of Contents 52 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 53 2. Principle of open participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 54 3. Financial Impact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 55 4. Considerations on Use and Misuse of a Free Participation 56 Option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 57 5. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 58 6. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 59 Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 61 1. Introduction 63 Remote participation for IETF in-person meetings has evolved over 64 time from email-only to live chat and audio streaming, and, 65 currently, to a full online meeting system that is tightly integrated 66 with the in-room session and enables interactive participation by 67 audio and video. Due to this evolution, and because most in-person 68 attendees paid registration fees and this has been sufficient to 69 support the meeting, online participation has historically been free 70 for remote attendees. 72 Given this more full-blown participation option, the IETF has started 73 to observed an increasing number of remote participants. This 74 increase can be explained by the ease with which new participants can 75 join a meeting or only attend selected parts of the meeting agenda, 76 and also by a less strongly perceived need to attend every meeting in 77 person, either due to financial reasons or other circumstances. In 78 order to better understand these trends the IETF started requiring 79 registration as "participant" (in contrast to an "observer") for 80 remote participation, still without any registration fee applied. 82 With the recent move to fully online meetings, however, there is no 83 longer a distinction between remote and on-site participants. Since 84 IETF meeting costs and other costs still have to be covered, there is 85 the need for a meeting fee for remote participants, which risks the 86 removal of the free remote option. 88 The introduction of a fee for remote participation raised concerns 89 about the potential impact on both, those who regularly remotely 90 attend IETF meetings as well as people considering attending an IETF 91 meeting for the first time. In both cases, even a small registration 92 fee can be a barrier to participation. 94 2. Principle of open participation 96 This document outlines the principle of open participation and 97 solicits community feedback in order to reach consensus on this or a 98 similar principle that the IETF Administration LLC (IETF LLC) can use 99 to guide future decision about registration fees for full online 100 meetings. 102 The principle this document states is simple: there must always be an 103 option for free remote participation in any IETF meeting and related 104 events that are part of the IETF's open process [RFC3935], whether or 105 not that meeting has a physical presence. 107 This principle aims to support the openness principle of the IETF as 108 defined in [RFC3935]: 110 "Open process - any interested person can participate in the work, 111 know what is being decided, and make his or her voice heard on the 112 issue. Part of this principle is our commitment to making our 113 documents, our WG mailing lists, our attendance lists, and our 114 meeting minutes publicly available on the Internet." 116 It should be noted that opennees as defined in [RFC3935] should be 117 seen as open and free. While the principle in RFC3935 is explicitly 118 noting that this principle includes a requirement to open basically 119 all our documents and documentation and making them accessible over 120 the Internet, it was probably written with mainly having email 121 interactions in mind when talking about participation. This document 122 extends this principle to explicitly cover online participation at 123 meetings. 125 This document does not advise that all IETF meetings or events must 126 have a remote participation item, because there could be technical or 127 other reasons why that might not always be possible. This document 128 rather says that if remote participation is provided, there should 129 always be a free option that makes the process as open as possible. 130 Having said that, it is of course strongly anticipated that at least 131 all sessions of the main agenda of an IETF plenary meeting provide an 132 option for remote participation. 134 Future, in order to fully remove barriers to participation, any free 135 registration option must offer the same degree of interactivity and 136 functionality available to paid remote attendees. The free option 137 must be clearly and prominently listed on the meeting website and 138 registration page. If the free option requires additional 139 registration steps, such as applying for a fee waiver, those 140 requirements should be clearly documented. 142 3. Financial Impact 144 Online meetings have lower costs than in-person meetings, however, 145 they still come with expenses, as do other services that the IETF 146 provides such as mailing lists, document access over the datatracker 147 or other online platforms, or support for videoconferencing, e.g with 148 Webex accounts for working groups and other roles in the IETF. 150 These and other operating costs of the IETF are also cross-financed 151 by income generated through meeting fees. The intention of this 152 document and the principle stated herein is not to make participation 153 free for everyone but to always have a free option that can be used 154 without any barriers other than the registration procedure itself. 155 As long as there are still enough paying participants to cover the 156 base costs, additional participant can effectively be added without 157 increasing expenses. 159 It is not in scope for this document or the SHMOO working group to 160 make suggestions for changing the IETF's overall funding model. This 161 is the responsibility of the IETF LLC Board taking agreed principles 162 like the one proposed in this document into account. 164 4. Considerations on Use and Misuse of a Free Participation Option 166 This document does not provide specific requirements on when to use 167 or not use the free option. The purpose of the free option is to 168 enable everybody who is interested in participation to join meetings 169 without the meeting fee imposing a financial barrier. These cases 170 cannot be limited to a certain group, like students or "self-funded" 171 participants, nor to any specific other restrictions like the number 172 of meetings previously attended or previous level of involvement. 173 The purpose is simply to maximise participation without barriers in 174 order to make the standards process as open as possible. 176 It is expected that participants who have financial support to use 177 the regular registration option will do so. Paying a registration 178 fee is a way for their sponsor to support the sustainability of the 179 IETF. For example, a higher late payment charge can be used to 180 maximise this financial support. However, this document does not 181 comment on the actual payment structure of the IETF meeting fee other 182 than the requirement for a free option. The fee payment structure is 183 set the by the IETF LLC such that the viability of the IETF and the 184 need of IETF participants to work productively within the IETF can be 185 warranted. 187 The LLC is responsible to ensure the financial stability of the IETF 188 and therefore should monitor trends in the use of the free 189 participation option that could endanger the viability of the IETF. 191 Aggregated data on the number and percentage of free registrations 192 used should be published, as this will permit analysis of the use and 193 change in use over time of the free registration option without 194 revealing personal information. However, as long as the number of 195 paid registrations stays stable and retains the projected needed 196 income, an increase in use of free registrations should not 197 necessarily be taken as a sign of misuse but rather a sign of 198 increased interest and success for the open participation principle. 199 If the number of paid registrations, however, decreases, this can 200 still also have various reasons other than misuse, such as 201 restrictions on travel to physical meetings due to cost savings or 202 environmental reasons, general cost savings and lesser focus on 203 standardization work, or simply lost of business interest. These are 204 risks that can impact the sustainability of the IETF independent of 205 the free registration option due to its dependency on meetings fees 206 to cross-finance other costs. 208 5. Acknowledgments 210 Thanks to everybody involved in the shmoo working group discussion, 211 esepcially Brian Carpenter, Jason Livingood, and Charles Eckel for 212 proposing concrete improvements and and their in-depth reviews. 214 6. Normative References 216 [RFC3935] Alvestrand, H., "A Mission Statement for the IETF", 217 BCP 95, RFC 3935, DOI 10.17487/RFC3935, October 2004, 218 . 220 Authors' Addresses 222 Mirja Kuehlewind 223 Ericsson 225 Email: mirja.kuehlewind@ericsson.com 227 Jon Reed 228 Akamai 230 Email: jreed@akamai.com 232 Rich Salz 233 Akamai 235 Email: rsalz@akamai.com