Re: Academic and open source rate
On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 11:48 AM, SM s...@resistor.net wrote: Hola Arturo, At 07:34 19-08-2013, Arturo Servin wrote: Academic might work. Open source not so much as other mentioned. Does Big Corporation doing Open Source apply? I was tempted to propose non-profit, but also there are organizations with large budgets. And profit driven ones with not much money. Open source is difficult. As people pointed out open source does not necessarily mean free. open source does not necessarily mean non-profit. I used the term loosely. If hypothetically speaking, there was formal action, a clearer term might be needed. Irrespective of my views, big corporation is what helps the IETF operate. If big corporation doing open source applies it will become a problem for the IETF. The main issue is why should the IETF subsidize a particular group. It can also be argued that it is not fair to subsidize a particular group. If getting open source implementations is a desirable goal then the way to address that goal is for ISOC or other parties with funds to provide bursaries to the developers. Isn't that the reason they got the $$$ .org money? -- Website: http://hallambaker.com/
Re: Academic and open source rate (was: Charging remote participants)
--On Sunday, August 18, 2013 17:04 -0700 SM s...@resistor.net wrote: I'd love to get more developers in general to participate - whether they're open or closed source doesn't matter. But I don't know how to do that, beyond what we do now. The email lists are free and open. The physical meetings are remotely accessible for free and open. On reading the second paragraph of the above message I see that you and I might have a common objective. You mentioned that you don't know how to do that beyond what is done now. I suggested a rate for people with an open source affiliation. I did not define what open source means. I think that you will be acting in good faith and that you will be able to convince your employer that it will not make you look good if you are listed in a category which is intended to lessen the burden for open source developers who currently cannot attend meetings or who attend meetings on a very limited budget. I think this is bogus and takes us down an undesirable path. First, I note that, in some organizations (including some large ones), someone might be working on an open source project one month and a proprietary one the next, or maybe both concurrently. Would it be appropriate for such a person (or the company's CFO) to claim the lower rate, thereby expecting those who pay full rate to subsidize them? Or would their involvement in any proprietary-source activity contaminate them morally and require them to pay the full rate? Second, remember that open source is actually a controversial term with some history of source being made open and available, presumably for study, but with very restrictive licensing rules associated with its adaptation or use. Does it count if the open source software is basically irrelevant to the work of the IETF? Written in, e.g., HTML5? Do reference implementations of IETF protocols count more (if I'm going to be expected to subsidize someone else's attendance at the IETF, I think they should). Shouldn't we be tying this to the discussion about IPR preference hierarchies s.t. FOSS software with no license requirements get more points (and bigger discounts) than BSD or GPL software, which get more points than FRAND, and so on? Finally, there seems to be an assumption underlying all of this that people associated with open source projects intrinsically have more restrictive meeting or travel budgets and policies than those working on proprietary efforts in clearly-for-profit organizations (especially large one). As anyone who have lived through a serious travel freeze or authorization escalation in a large company knows too well, that doesn't reflect reality. best, john
Re: Academic and open source rate (was: Charging remote participants)
On Aug 18, 2013, at 8:04 PM, SM s...@resistor.net wrote: On reading the second paragraph of the above message I see that you and I might have a common objective. You mentioned that you don't know how to do that beyond what is done now. I suggested a rate for people with an open source affiliation. I did not define what open source means. I think that you will be acting in good faith and that you will be able to convince your employer that it will not make you look good if you are listed in a category which is intended to lessen the burden for open source developers who currently cannot attend meetings or who attend meetings on a very limited budget. But my point was more that open source is meaningless, and not what I think we're missing/need. I agree we need more developers (at least in RAI it would help), but whether the things they develop are open source or not doesn't matter. Developers of open source are no better or worse than those of closed source. And their source code openness is not tied to their ability to pay or not, either. -hadriel
Re: Academic and open source rate (was: Charging remote participants)
On Monday, August 19, 2013 09:35:25 Hadriel Kaplan wrote: On Aug 18, 2013, at 8:04 PM, SM s...@resistor.net wrote: On reading the second paragraph of the above message I see that you and I might have a common objective. You mentioned that you don't know how to do that beyond what is done now. I suggested a rate for people with an open source affiliation. I did not define what open source means. I think that you will be acting in good faith and that you will be able to convince your employer that it will not make you look good if you are listed in a category which is intended to lessen the burden for open source developers who currently cannot attend meetings or who attend meetings on a very limited budget. But my point was more that open source is meaningless, and not what I think we're missing/need. I agree we need more developers (at least in RAI it would help), but whether the things they develop are open source or not doesn't matter. Developers of open source are no better or worse than those of closed source. And their source code openness is not tied to their ability to pay or not, either. They aren't equivalent. A developer of a Free/Open implementation can openly show/discuss the code related to development issues associated with protocol development. That's often more useful than hand waving about implementation issues that can't be shared. Not that proprietary implementations don't server to inform the process at all, but it's not equivalent to what can be accomplished with a Free/Open implementation. Note: I'm not claiming this should change anyone's mind about discounts. Scott K
Re: Academic and open source rate (was: Charging remote participants)
On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 7:11 PM, Scott Kitterman sc...@kitterman.comwrote: But my point was more that open source is meaningless, and not what I think we're missing/need. I agree we need more developers (at least in RAI it would help), but whether the things they develop are open source or not doesn't matter. Developers of open source are no better or worse than those of closed source. And their source code openness is not tied to their ability to pay or not, either. They aren't equivalent. A developer of a Free/Open implementation can openly show/discuss the code related to development issues associated with protocol development. That's often more useful than hand waving about implementation issues that can't be shared. Not that proprietary implementations don't server to inform the process at all, but it's not equivalent to what can be accomplished with a Free/Open implementation. Note: I'm not claiming this should change anyone's mind about discounts. +1 to the fact that you can openly show/discuss the code. I also want to repeat the fact that many libraries (Apache / BSD / public domain) get bundled into proprietary code as well (for example see how many products ship some version of curl/zlib library). So while it is hard to define open source no doubt, we as a community should look at how to get more implementers (whose code is likely to be widely deployed). That will help us to avoid fixing quirk down the road which is difficult and expensive. It is a problem worth looking at. -- Vinayak
Re: Academic and open source rate
Academic might work. Open source not so much as other mentioned. Does Big Corporation doing Open Source apply? I was tempted to propose non-profit, but also there are organizations with large budgets. And profit driven ones with not much money. /as On 8/18/13 6:21 AM, SM wrote: Hi Hadriel, At 12:31 16-08-2013, Hadriel Kaplan wrote: I may be misunderstanding you, but I'm proposing we charge large corporations with large travel budgets slightly *more* than others.[1] I'm not suggesting an overhaul of the system. I'm not proposing they get more attention, or more weight, or any such thing. That sounds like the ability to pay. It might be worth considering changing the student rate to an academic and open source rate and doubling the rate. I am not getting into a definition of academic or open source [1]. It is left to the organization to determine whether it is a good idea to be honest or try the weasel words [2] approach. Regards, -sm 1. If the IETF is serious about running code (see RFC 6982) it would try to encourage open source developers to participate more effectively in the IETF. 2. weasel words give the impression of taking a firm position while avoiding commitment to any specific claim.
Re: Academic and open source rate
Hola Arturo, At 07:34 19-08-2013, Arturo Servin wrote: Academic might work. Open source not so much as other mentioned. Does Big Corporation doing Open Source apply? I was tempted to propose non-profit, but also there are organizations with large budgets. And profit driven ones with not much money. Open source is difficult. As people pointed out open source does not necessarily mean free. open source does not necessarily mean non-profit. I used the term loosely. If hypothetically speaking, there was formal action, a clearer term might be needed. Irrespective of my views, big corporation is what helps the IETF operate. If big corporation doing open source applies it will become a problem for the IETF. The main issue is why should the IETF subsidize a particular group. It can also be argued that it is not fair to subsidize a particular group. Regards, -sm
Re: Academic and open source rate (was: Charging remote participants)
Hi John, At 06:11 19-08-2013, John C Klensin wrote: I think this is bogus and takes us down an undesirable path. Ok. First, I note that, in some organizations (including some large ones), someone might be working on an open source project one month and a proprietary one the next, or maybe both concurrently. Would it be appropriate for such a person (or the company's CFO) to claim the lower rate, thereby expecting those who pay full rate to subsidize them? Or would their involvement in any proprietary-source activity contaminate them morally and require them to pay the full rate? Second, remember that open The above reminds me of the Double Irish with a Dutch sandwich. If I was an employee of a company I would pay the regular fee. If I am sponsored by an open source project and my Internet-Draft will have that as my affiliation I would claim the lower rate. source is actually a controversial term with some history of source being made open and available, presumably for study, but with very restrictive licensing rules associated with its adaptation or use. Yes. Does it count if the open source software is basically irrelevant to the work of the IETF? Written in, e.g., HTML5? Do reference implementations of IETF protocols count more (if I'm going to be expected to subsidize someone else's attendance at the IETF, I think they should). This would require setting a demarcation line. That isn't always a clear line. A subsidy is a grant or other financial assistance given by one party for the support or development of another. If the lower rate is above meeting costs it is not a subsidy. Shouldn't we be tying this to the discussion about IPR preference hierarchies s.t. FOSS software with no license requirements get more points (and bigger discounts) than BSD or GPL software, which get more points than FRAND, and so on? No. :-) Regards, -sm
Re: Academic and open source rate (was: Charging remote participants)
--On Monday, August 19, 2013 12:49 -0700 SM s...@resistor.net wrote: ... First, I note that, in some organizations (including some large ones), someone might be working on an open source project one month and a proprietary one the next, or maybe both concurrently. Would it be appropriate for such a person (or the company's CFO) to claim the lower rate, thereby expecting those who pay full rate to subsidize them? Or would their ... The above reminds me of the Double Irish with a Dutch sandwich. If I was an employee of a company I would pay the regular fee. If I am sponsored by an open source project and my Internet-Draft will have that as my affiliation I would claim the lower rate. Without understanding your analogy (perhaps a diversity problem?), if you are trying to make a distinction between employee of a company and sponsored by an open source project, that distinction just does not hold up. I'm particular, some of the most important reference implementations of Internet protocols -- open source, freely available and usable, well-documented, openly tested, etc.-- have come out of companies, even for-profit companies. If the distinction you are really trying to draw has to do with poverty or the lack thereof, assuming that, if a large company imposes severe travel restrictions, its employees should pay full fare if they manage to get approval, then you are back to Hadriel's suggestion (which more or less requires that someone self-identify as poor) or mine (which involves individual self-assessment of ability to pay without having to identify the reasons or circumstances). ... Does it count if the open source software is basically irrelevant to the work of the IETF? Written in, e.g., HTML5? Do reference implementations of IETF protocols count more (if I'm going to be expected to subsidize someone else's attendance at the IETF, I think they should). This would require setting a demarcation line. That isn't always a clear line. What I'm trying to suggest is that the line will almost always be unclear and will require case by case interpretation by someone other than the would-be participant. I continue to find any peer evaluation model troubling, especially as long as the people and bodies who are likely to made the evaluations are heavily slanted toward a narrow range of participants (and that will be the case as long as those leadership or evaluation roles require significant time over long periods). A subsidy is a grant or other financial assistance given by one party for the support or development of another. If the lower rate is above meeting costs it is not a subsidy. I note that you used that term in a later message, More important, I believe the IAOC has repeatedly assured us that, at least over a reasonable span of meetings, they never seek to make a profit on registration fees. Indeed, I suspect that, with reasonable accounting assumptions, meetings are always a net money-loser although not my much and more than others. Any decision that some people are going to pay less than others (including the reduced fee arrangements we already have) is a decision that some people and groups are going to bear a higher share of the costs than others. And that is a subsidy, even by your definition above. best, john
Re: Academic and open source rate (was: Charging remote participants)
On Monday, August 19, 2013 18:08:00 John C Klensin wrote: --On Monday, August 19, 2013 12:49 -0700 SM s...@resistor.net wrote: ... First, I note that, in some organizations (including some large ones), someone might be working on an open source project one month and a proprietary one the next, or maybe both concurrently. Would it be appropriate for such a person (or the company's CFO) to claim the lower rate, thereby expecting those who pay full rate to subsidize them? Or would their ... The above reminds me of the Double Irish with a Dutch sandwich. If I was an employee of a company I would pay the regular fee. If I am sponsored by an open source project and my Internet-Draft will have that as my affiliation I would claim the lower rate. Without understanding your analogy (perhaps a diversity problem?), if you are trying to make a distinction between employee of a company and sponsored by an open source project, that distinction just does not hold up. I'm particular, some of the most important reference implementations of Internet protocols -- open source, freely available and usable, well-documented, openly tested, etc.-- have come out of companies, even for-profit companies. If the distinction you are really trying to draw has to do with poverty or the lack thereof, assuming that, if a large company imposes severe travel restrictions, its employees should pay full fare if they manage to get approval, then you are back to Hadriel's suggestion (which more or less requires that someone self-identify as poor) or mine (which involves individual self-assessment of ability to pay without having to identify the reasons or circumstances). ... Does it count if the open source software is basically irrelevant to the work of the IETF? Written in, e.g., HTML5? Do reference implementations of IETF protocols count more (if I'm going to be expected to subsidize someone else's attendance at the IETF, I think they should). This would require setting a demarcation line. That isn't always a clear line. What I'm trying to suggest is that the line will almost always be unclear and will require case by case interpretation by someone other than the would-be participant. I continue to find any peer evaluation model troubling, especially as long as the people and bodies who are likely to made the evaluations are heavily slanted toward a narrow range of participants (and that will be the case as long as those leadership or evaluation roles require significant time over long periods). A subsidy is a grant or other financial assistance given by one party for the support or development of another. If the lower rate is above meeting costs it is not a subsidy. I note that you used that term in a later message, More important, I believe the IAOC has repeatedly assured us that, at least over a reasonable span of meetings, they never seek to make a profit on registration fees. Indeed, I suspect that, with reasonable accounting assumptions, meetings are always a net money-loser although not my much and more than others. Any decision that some people are going to pay less than others (including the reduced fee arrangements we already have) is a decision that some people and groups are going to bear a higher share of the costs than others. And that is a subsidy, even by your definition above. Speaking as someone who is self-employed and a Free/Open Source software developer: The actual price of the IETF admission is the smallest part of the economic burden associated with attendance. It's not just the travel/hotel (as John Levine mentioned), but also consulting revenue forgone. Even if the price were zero, it wouldn't materially affect my willingness to take time off and travel to an IETF meeting. Even though I've participated in several IETF working groups, I've never been to a meeting and really don't expect to come. The value proposition isn't there (for me). I have participated remotely and it was ~fine. Taking an hour out of my day for something I'm interested in has a completely different cost/benefit ratio that a week of travel. For someone who's used to participating in distributed development efforts, an IETF working group session isn't so hard to do as long as the people in the room are mindful of the remote participants. I wouldn't worry too much about finding a special rate for F/OSS developers. The only time it might make a difference, IME, is for people who are local to the meeting venue and the IETF should already be working on attracting local participants, F/OSS developers or not. Scott K
Re: Academic and open source rate (was: Charging remote participants)
On Sun, Aug 18, 2013 at 2:51 PM, SM s...@resistor.net wrote: Hi Hadriel, At 12:31 16-08-2013, Hadriel Kaplan wrote: I may be misunderstanding you, but I'm proposing we charge large corporations with large travel budgets slightly *more* than others.[1] I'm not suggesting an overhaul of the system. I'm not proposing they get more attention, or more weight, or any such thing. That sounds like the ability to pay. It might be worth considering changing the student rate to an academic and open source rate and doubling the rate. I am not getting into a definition of academic or open source [1]. It is left to the organization to determine whether it is a good idea to be honest or try the weasel words [2] approach. Regards, -sm 1. If the IETF is serious about running code (see RFC 6982) it would try to encourage open source developers to participate more effectively in the IETF. 2. weasel words give the impression of taking a firm position while avoiding commitment to any specific claim. +1 on opensource. Especially in the application / RAI area space. There are several implementers who could benefit from the interaction as well as contribute to making standards better. Standards can be written in ways that can make implementation easier. I have seen several instances where RFCs have unnecessary complex and larger / longer than they should be. Having more implementers in the WG session room is always welcome as it will lead to better implementations and adoptions. Also since so many opensource contributors work on their own time and money (though not all of them), it would be welcome to give them a concessional rate. So much of the daily software we use / write depends on open source libraries and apps, I think will be useful to have them be a bigger part of the standards process. A guarded +1 on academics as well. The IRTF has been doing a good job of involving academics. Would love to hear more on their experiences before commenting. -- Vinayak
Re: Academic and open source rate (was: Charging remote participants)
On Aug 18, 2013, at 5:21 AM, SM s...@resistor.net wrote: 1. If the IETF is serious about running code (see RFC 6982) it would try to encourage open source developers to participate more effectively in the IETF. Define open source developers. Technically quite a lot of developers at my employer develop open source, as do many at many of the corporations which send people to the IETF. Heck, even I personally submit code to Wireshark now and then. Distinguishing between Self-paying vs. Expensing is pretty easy. Open source vs. Closed source is a big can of worms. I'd love to get more developers in general to participate - whether they're open or closed source doesn't matter. But I don't know how to do that, beyond what we do now. The email lists are free and open. The physical meetings are remotely accessible for free and open. To attend the physical meetings in person takes real money, but the registration fee is dwarfed by the travel+food+lodging costs. The most successful open-source conferences I've seen are ones that only last a couple days, and located where many of them live. (which in the US would be silicon valley area, in terms of largest concentration) But you can't just have it there once every few years - you have to have it there repeatedly to really succeed at that. And it does cost the IETF lots of money to host the physical meetings, and that cost is directly proportional to the number of physical attendees. More attendees = more cost. Remote participation cost isn't nearly as linear nor as high, afaik. -hadriel
Re: Academic and open source rate (was: Charging remote participants)
--On Sunday, 18 August, 2013 08:33 -0400 Hadriel Kaplan hadriel.kap...@oracle.com wrote: ... And it does cost the IETF lots of money to host the physical meetings, and that cost is directly proportional to the number of physical attendees. More attendees = more cost. I had promised myself I was finished with this thread, but I can't let this one pass. (1) If IETF pays separately for the number of meeting rooms, the cost is proportionate to the number of parallel sessions, not the number of attendees. (2) If IETF gets the meeting rooms (small and/or large) for free, the costs are borne by the room rates of those who stay in the hotel and are not proportionate to much of anything (other than favoring meetings that will draw the negotiated minimum number of attendees who stay in that hotel). (3) Equipment costs are also proportional to the number of meetings we run in parallel. Since IASA owns some of the relevant equipment and has to ship it to meetings, there are some amortization issues with those costs and shipping costs are dependent on distance and handling charges from wherever things are stored between meetings (I assume somewhere around Fremont, California, USA). If that location was correct and we wanted to minimize those charges, we would hold all meetings in the San Francisco area or at least in the western part of the USA. In any event the costs are in no way proportionate to the number of attendees. (4) The costs of the Secretariat and RFC Editor contracts and other associated contracts and staff are relatively fixed. A smaller organization, with fewer working groups and less output, might permit reducing the size of those contracts somewhat, but that has only the most indirect and low-sensitively relationship to the number of attendees, nothing near proportional. (5) If we have to pay people in addition to Secretariat staff to, e.g., sit at registration desks, that bears some monotonic relationship to the number of attendees. But the step increments in that participate function are quite large, nothing like directly proportional. (6) The cost of cookies and other refreshments may indeed be proportional to the number of attendees but, in most facilities, that proportionality will come in large step functions. In addition, in some places, costs will rise with the number of unusual dietary requirements. The number of those requirements might increase with the number of attendees, but nowhere near proportionately. Unusual is entirely in the perception of the supplier/facility but, from a purely economic and cost of meetings standpoint, the IETF might be better off if people with those needs stayed home or kept their requirements to themselves. So, meeting cost directly proportional to the number of physical attendees? Nope. best, john p.s. You should be a little cautious about a charge the big companies more policy. I've seen people who make the financial decisions as to who comes say things like we pay more by virtue of sending more people, if they expect us to spend more per person, we will make a point by cutting back on those we send (or requiring much stronger justifications for each one who wants to go). I've also seen reactions that amount to We are already making a big voluntary donation that is much higher than the aggregate of the registration fees we are paying, one that small organizations don't make. If they want to charge us more because we are big, we will reduce or eliminate the size of that donation. Specific company examples on request (but not on-list), but be careful what you wish for.
Re: Academic and open source rate (was: Charging remote participants)
I've been told, though obviously I don't know, that the costs are proportional. I assume it's not literally a if we get one additional person, it costs an additional $500. But I assume SM wasn't proposing to get just one or a few more open source developer attendees. If we're talking about just a few people it's not worth arguing about... or doing anything about. It would only be useful if we got a lot of such attendees. -hadriel On Aug 18, 2013, at 10:01 AM, John C Klensin john-i...@jck.com wrote: --On Sunday, 18 August, 2013 08:33 -0400 Hadriel Kaplan hadriel.kap...@oracle.com wrote: ... And it does cost the IETF lots of money to host the physical meetings, and that cost is directly proportional to the number of physical attendees. More attendees = more cost. I had promised myself I was finished with this thread, but I can't let this one pass. (1) If IETF pays separately for the number of meeting rooms, the cost is proportionate to the number of parallel sessions, not the number of attendees. (2) If IETF gets the meeting rooms (small and/or large) for free, the costs are borne by the room rates of those who stay in the hotel and are not proportionate to much of anything (other than favoring meetings that will draw the negotiated minimum number of attendees who stay in that hotel). (3) Equipment costs are also proportional to the number of meetings we run in parallel. Since IASA owns some of the relevant equipment and has to ship it to meetings, there are some amortization issues with those costs and shipping costs are dependent on distance and handling charges from wherever things are stored between meetings (I assume somewhere around Fremont, California, USA). If that location was correct and we wanted to minimize those charges, we would hold all meetings in the San Francisco area or at least in the western part of the USA. In any event the costs are in no way proportionate to the number of attendees. (4) The costs of the Secretariat and RFC Editor contracts and other associated contracts and staff are relatively fixed. A smaller organization, with fewer working groups and less output, might permit reducing the size of those contracts somewhat, but that has only the most indirect and low-sensitively relationship to the number of attendees, nothing near proportional. (5) If we have to pay people in addition to Secretariat staff to, e.g., sit at registration desks, that bears some monotonic relationship to the number of attendees. But the step increments in that participate function are quite large, nothing like directly proportional. (6) The cost of cookies and other refreshments may indeed be proportional to the number of attendees but, in most facilities, that proportionality will come in large step functions. In addition, in some places, costs will rise with the number of unusual dietary requirements. The number of those requirements might increase with the number of attendees, but nowhere near proportionately. Unusual is entirely in the perception of the supplier/facility but, from a purely economic and cost of meetings standpoint, the IETF might be better off if people with those needs stayed home or kept their requirements to themselves. So, meeting cost directly proportional to the number of physical attendees? Nope. best, john p.s. You should be a little cautious about a charge the big companies more policy. I've seen people who make the financial decisions as to who comes say things like we pay more by virtue of sending more people, if they expect us to spend more per person, we will make a point by cutting back on those we send (or requiring much stronger justifications for each one who wants to go). I've also seen reactions that amount to We are already making a big voluntary donation that is much higher than the aggregate of the registration fees we are paying, one that small organizations don't make. If they want to charge us more because we are big, we will reduce or eliminate the size of that donation. Specific company examples on request (but not on-list), but be careful what you wish for.
Re: Academic and open source rate (was: Charging remote participants)
On Sun, Aug 18, 2013 at 8:33 AM, Hadriel Kaplan hadriel.kap...@oracle.comwrote: On Aug 18, 2013, at 5:21 AM, SM s...@resistor.net wrote: 1. If the IETF is serious about running code (see RFC 6982) it would try to encourage open source developers to participate more effectively in the IETF. Define open source developers. Technically quite a lot of developers at my employer develop open source, as do many at many of the corporations which send people to the IETF. Heck, even I personally submit code to Wireshark now and then. Distinguishing between Self-paying vs. Expensing is pretty easy. Open source vs. Closed source is a big can of worms. +1 I suspect we have all done the open source thing at some point. Whether open source makes sense as a business strategy depends on your position in the ecosystem. Folk like the 10gen (MongoDB) people can't compete against Oracle for the closed source DB market so an open source plus proprietary service strategy is completely logical for them. Following the most a logical business model for your product is hardly a point of moral superiority. I am currently putting a large amount of my private code onto SourceForge as open source, should my employer get a discount for this? Should my employer pay a premium rate to allow discounts to others? Should the fact that my employer provides open source products that facilitate consuming a proprietary product count? I really don't think this makes any sense at all. Open Source is not Free Software though some people conflate the two. -- Website: http://hallambaker.com/
Re: Academic and open source rate (was: Charging remote participants)
In article 01672754-1c4f-465b-b737-7e82dc5b3...@oracle.com you write: I've been told, though obviously I don't know, that the costs are proportional. I assume it's not literally a if we get one additional person, it costs an additional $500. But I assume SM wasn't proposing to get just one or a few more open source developer attendees. If we're talking about just a few people it's not worth arguing about... or doing anything about. It would only be useful if we got a lot of such attendees. My trip to the Berlin IETF cost me about $3300, of which the registration fee was only $650. (The plane ticket was expensive, since I flew from upstate NY, but the hotel was cheap because I booked at a place a block away with a prepaid rate back in May.) If we're going to provide financial inducements for people to come, whether open source developers or anyone else, unless they happen to live in the city where we're meeting, we'll need to give them cash travel grants, not just waive the fee. The IRTF brings winners of their research prize to the meetings to present the winning papers, so we can look at those numbers to see what it costs.
Re: Academic and open source rate (was: Charging remote participants)
Hi Hadriel, At 05:33 18-08-2013, Hadriel Kaplan wrote: Define open source developers. Technically quite a lot of developers at my employer develop open source, as do many at many of the corporations which send people to the IETF. Heck, even I personally submit code to Wireshark now and then. Distinguishing between Self-paying vs. Expensing is pretty easy. Open source vs. Closed source is a big can of worms. I'd love to get more developers in general to participate - whether they're open or closed source doesn't matter. But I don't know how to do that, beyond what we do now. The email lists are free and open. The physical meetings are remotely accessible for free and open. On reading the second paragraph of the above message I see that you and I might have a common objective. You mentioned that you don't know how to do that beyond what is done now. I suggested a rate for people with an open source affiliation. I did not define what open source means. I think that you will be acting in good faith and that you will be able to convince your employer that it will not make you look good if you are listed in a category which is intended to lessen the burden for open source developers who currently cannot attend meetings or who attend meetings on a very limited budget. We can discuss about whether a few hundred United States dollars makes a significant difference or we can sit by a pool and discuss about more interesting things. Your colleagues will probably wonder why you brought more value to your company compared to them. You could tell them that it is because you like strawberry ice cream as it is something that wills the void between rational discussion and all-out thermonuclear war. :-) At 08:50 18-08-2013, Hadriel Kaplan wrote: I've been told, though obviously I don't know, that the costs are proportional. I assume it's not literally a if we get one additional person, it costs an additional $500. But I assume SM wasn't proposing to get just one or a few more open source developer attendees. If we're talking about just a few people it's not worth arguing about... or doing anything about. It would only be useful if we got a lot of such attendees. What I proposed might have an impact on just one or a few more persons. The rest is left to the imagination of the reader. :-) Regards, -sm
