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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 (25 October 2021) is 885 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: 28 April 2022 R. Salz 6 Akamai 7 25 October 2021 9 Open Participation Principle regarding Remote Registration Fee 10 draft-ietf-shmoo-remote-fee-02 12 Abstract 14 This document outlines 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 and, if possible, related IETF-hosted events over the 18 Internet. 20 Status of This Memo 22 This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the 23 provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. 25 Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering 26 Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute 27 working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- 28 Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/. 30 Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months 31 and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any 32 time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference 33 material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." 35 This Internet-Draft will expire on 28 April 2022. 37 Copyright Notice 39 Copyright (c) 2021 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the 40 document authors. All rights reserved. 42 This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal 43 Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/ 44 license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. 45 Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights 46 and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components 47 extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text 48 as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are 49 provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License. 51 Table of Contents 53 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 54 2. Principle of open participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 55 3. Financial Impact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 56 4. Considerations on Use and Misuse of a Free Participation 57 Option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 58 5. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 59 6. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 60 Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 62 1. Introduction 64 Remote participation for IETF in-person meetings has evolved over 65 time from email-only to live chat and audio streaming, and, 66 currently, to a full online meeting system that is tightly integrated 67 with the in-room session and enables interactive participation by 68 audio and video. Due to this evolution, and because most in-person 69 attendees paid registration fees and this has been sufficient to 70 support the meeting, online participation has historically been free 71 for remote attendees. 73 Given this more full-blown participation option, the IETF has started 74 seen an increasing number of remote participants. This increase can 75 be explained by the ease with which new participants can join a 76 meeting or only attend selected parts of the meeting agenda, and also 77 by a less strongly perceived need to attend every meeting in person, 78 either due to financial reasons or other circumstances. In order to 79 better understand these trends the IETF started requiring 80 registration as "participant" (in contrast to an "observer") for 81 remote participation, still without any registration fee applied. 83 With the recent move to fully online meetings, however, there is no 84 longer a distinction between remote and on-site participants. Since 85 IETF meeting costs and other costs still have to be covered, there is 86 the need for a meeting fee for remote participants, which risks the 87 removal of the free remote option. 89 The introduction of a fee for remote participation raised concerns 90 about the potential impact on both, those who regularly remotely 91 attend IETF meetings as well as people considering attending an IETF 92 meeting for the first time. In both cases, even a small registration 93 fee can be a barrier to participation. 95 2. Principle of open participation 97 This document outlines the principle of open participation that the 98 IETF Administration LLC (IETF LLC) is expected to incorporate into 99 decisions about the registration fee structure for fully 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, regardless 104 of whether the meeting has a physical presence. Related events of a 105 meeting for which the IETF provides remote participation services and 106 are therefore part of the IETF's open process [RFC3935] are 107 encouraged to follow this principle as well. 109 This principle aims to support the openness principle of the IETF as 110 defined in [RFC3935]: 112 "Open process - any interested person can participate in the work, 113 know what is being decided, and make his or her voice heard on the 114 issue. Part of this principle is our commitment to making our 115 documents, our WG mailing lists, our attendance lists, and our 116 meeting minutes publicly available on the Internet." 118 While the principle in RFC3935 is explicitly noting that this 119 principle includes a requirement to open basically all our documents 120 and documentation and making them accessible over the Internet, it 121 was probably written with mainly having email interactions in mind 122 when talking about participation. This document extends this 123 principle to explicitly cover online participation at meetings. 124 Particularly in this context, openness should be seen as open and 125 free. 127 This document does not stipulate that all IETF meetings or related 128 IETF events must have a remote participation option, because there 129 could be technical or other reasons why that might not always be 130 possible. This document rather says that if remote participation is 131 provided, there should always be a free option to make the process as 132 open as possible. Having said that, it is of course strongly 133 anticipated that at least all working group sessions as well as BoFs 134 and the administrative plenary of an IETF meeting provide an option 135 for remote participation. 137 Further, in order to fully remove barriers to participation, any free 138 registration option must offer the same degree of interactivity and 139 functionality available to paid remote attendees. The free option 140 must be clearly and prominently listed on the meeting website and 141 registration page. If the free option requires additional 142 registration steps, such as applying for a fee waiver, those 143 requirements should be clearly documented. 145 3. Financial Impact 147 Online meetings can have lower costs than in-person meetings, 148 however, they still come with expenses, as do other services that the 149 IETF provides such as mailing lists, document access via the 150 datatracker or other online platforms, or support for 151 videoconferencing, e.g., with Webex accounts for working groups and 152 other roles in the IETF. 154 These and other operating costs of the IETF are also cross-financed 155 by income generated through meeting fees. The intention of this 156 document and the principle stated herein is not to make participation 157 free for everyone, but to always offer a free remote participation 158 option that a potential attendee can apply for without any barriers 159 other than the registration procedure itself. As long as the overall 160 meeting expenses are covered by paid registrations, sponsorships and 161 other sources of revenue, additional remote participants usually 162 impose very low additional expenses. 164 It is not in scope for this document to make suggestions for changing 165 the IETF's overall funding model. This is the responsibility of the 166 IETF LLC Board taking agreed principles like the one proposed in this 167 document into account. If unlimited free remote participation is 168 determined to adversely affect the number of paying participants or 169 the cost of free participation emerges to a signification factor, the 170 LLC might implement additional measures to manage these costs. If 171 the LLC decides to do this, they should make their decision and 172 rationale known to the community. As discussed in the next section, 173 assessment of eligibility is difficult and any limit on the number of 174 available free registrations can cause unfairness and negatively 175 impact openness. 177 4. Considerations on Use and Misuse of a Free Participation Option 179 This document does not provide specific requirements on when to use 180 or not use the free option. The purpose of the free option is to 181 enable everybody who is interested in participation to join meetings 182 without the meeting fee imposing a financial barrier. These cases 183 cannot be limited to a certain group, like students or "self-funded" 184 participants, nor to any specific other restrictions like the number 185 of meetings previously attended or previous level of involvement. 186 The purpose is simply to maximise participation without barriers in 187 order to make the standards process as open as possible. 189 It is expected that participants who have financial support to use 190 the regular registration option will do so. Paying a registration 191 fee is a way for their sponsor to support the sustainability of the 192 IETF. For example, a higher late payment charge can be used to 193 maximise this financial support. However, this document does not 194 comment on the actual payment structure of the IETF meeting fee other 195 than the requirement for a free option. The fee payment structure is 196 set the by the IETF LLC such that the viability of the IETF and the 197 need of IETF participants to work productively within the IETF can be 198 warranted. 200 The LLC is responsible to ensure the financial stability of the IETF 201 and therefore should monitor trends in the use of the free 202 participation option that could endanger the viability of the IETF 203 and, if necessary, manage the associated costs. Aggregated data on 204 the number and percentage of free registrations used should be 205 published, as this will permit analysis of the use and change in use 206 over time of the free registration option without revealing personal 207 information. 209 As the principle defined in this document aims to promote openness 210 and thereby enhance participation, an increase in use of free 211 registrations is a success and likely a sign of increased interest 212 and not necessarily a sign of misuse, as long as the number of paid 213 registrations stays stable and retains the projected needed income. 214 If the number of paid registrations, however, decreases, this can 215 still also have various reasons other than misuse, such as 216 restrictions on travel to physical meetings due to cost savings or 217 environmental reasons, general cost savings and lesser focus on 218 standardization work, or simply lost of business interest. Such 219 trends can impact the sustainability of the IETF due to its 220 dependency on meetings fees to cross-finance other costs, independent 221 of use of the free registrations. 223 5. Acknowledgments 225 Thanks to everybody involved in the shmoo working group discussion, 226 esepcially Brian Carpenter, Jason Livingood, and Charles Eckel for 227 proposing concrete improvements and their in-depth reviews. 229 6. Normative References 231 [RFC3935] Alvestrand, H., "A Mission Statement for the IETF", 232 BCP 95, RFC 3935, DOI 10.17487/RFC3935, October 2004, 233 . 235 Authors' Addresses 237 Mirja Kuehlewind 238 Ericsson 240 Email: mirja.kuehlewind@ericsson.com 242 Jon Reed 243 Akamai 245 Email: jreed@akamai.com 247 Rich Salz 248 Akamai 250 Email: rsalz@akamai.com