Subject: charging for IETF participation

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 10:20:50 -0800

Folks,

The IETF is based on the key principle of open participation. The
benefits of this have been massive, even as the project management
challenges have been frequently frustrating.

However, open does not require free, as long as we are careful to
ensure that charging is not a major filter.

We charge meeting attendees who are physically present. We do not
charge multicast attendees. We do not charge mailing list attendees.
We do not charge I-D issuers.

The charge for meeting attendance covers more than the pure cost of
meetings.

This suggests that it would entirely reasonable to consider
introducing cost-recovery charging for participation in some or all of
the IETF's other activities.

I said "consider". That means that the idea, itself, does not violate
IETF precepts. Of course, particular choices need to be balanced
carefully, against other IETF precepts. We don't not want the solution
to our financial problems to destroy our productivity or quality.

My own feeling is that we must not charge for RFC publication.  The
quantity is pretty small, and the bulk of the RFCs represent IETF work
product.

On the other hand, I-Ds and IETF mailing lists have large volume and
not much filtering prior to issuance. This means that it is likely to
be fair and productive to push the direct costs onto the individual
contributors.

Choosing to charge for things like I-D authorship or mailing list
posting (or subscription) carries some practical challenges. In
particular how do we charge efficiently and authentically? So this
makes the considerations even more delicate.

I suspect we can find a reasonable set of mechanisms and prices.

d/
--
 Dave Crocker <mailto:[email-masked]>
 Brandenburg InternetWorking <http://www.brandenburg.com>
 Sunnyvale, CA  USA <tel:+1.408.246.8253>, <fax:+1.866.358.5301>

---

From: Pekka Savola <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 21:14:29 +0200 (EET)

This isn't fun anymore.. I can't tell whether you're serious or not :-(

On Thu, 20 Mar 2003, Dave Crocker wrote:
[...]

-- 
Pekka Savola                 "You each name yourselves king, yet the
Netcore Oy                    kingdom bleeds."
Systems. Networks. Security. -- George R.R. Martin: A Clash of Kings

---

From: John Stracke <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 14:37:07 -0500

Dave Crocker wrote:

>posting (or subscription) carries some practical challenges.
>
If we charged for subscription, we'd have to make sure that the archives 
became available for free eventually; otherwise we're a lot less open to 
peer review.  Even with that, charging for subscription sounds like a 
nightmare; we'd have people missing important messages because their 
credit cards expired at just the wrong time.

Charging for posting will reduce feedback from outside the WG.  Besides, 
it sounds a lot like solving the spam problem.  ;-)

-- 
/=================================================================\
|John Stracke      [email-masked]                          |
|Principal Engineer|http://www.centive.com                        |
|Centive           |My opinions are my own.                       |
|=================================================================|
|"We can't duplicate the bug." "Have you tried the Xerox machine?"|
\=================================================================/

---

From: Rajesh Talpade <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 15:54:24 -0500 (EST)

All proposals I have seen so far seem to focus on the IETF meeting and
ID/RFC generation process for a revenue source. How about focusing on the
RFC consumption process? At the risk of inviting the ire of vendors, how
about a usage-fee for an IETF-standards compliance label? It could be
per unit shipped, or per RFC, etc. Of course this will face 
implementation and political challenges....

Rajesh.

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 12:20:19 -0800

Pekka,

Thursday, March 20, 2003, 11:14:29 AM, you wrote:
PS> This isn't fun anymore.. I can't tell whether you're serious or not :-(

yeah.  it's tough without smiley's.

unfortunately, I am entirely serious about this suggestion.  and I am
hoping the the details I provided both justified its "theoretical" basis
and plausible utility.

d/

d/

---

From: "David J. Aronson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 16:33:35 -0500

How about selling IETF-branded swag?  Membership cards?  Other cheap 
junk that does nothing but take up space, collect dust, and confer 
bragging rights as having financially supported the IETF?  Maybe even 
something useful, like yet another canvas tote bag, like people keep 
getting from their local public TV station.  B-)

Someone mentioned auctioning off "points" -- I didn't like the idea of 
points, but perhaps a fundraising auction would be feasible.  Send in 
your outdated hardware, your polo shirts from companies that have gone 
bust, whatever, and see what some sucker, er, wonderful donor will pay 
for it.  Another organization holds auctions at practically every major 
gathering.  One of the popular items is $5 bills -- and they have gotten 
triple-digit figures for them!  (Yes, I mean plain ordinary $5 bills, 
not even with the autograph of some famous or high up in the group.)

Maybe a donation jar?  That works VERY well at outreach tables at 
events, for a political non-profit I'm in....

-- 
David J. Aronson, Software Engineer for hire in Washington DC area.
See http://destined.to/program/ for online resume, references, etc.

---

From: Daniel Senie <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 16:43:02 -0500

At 04:33 PM 3/20/2003, David J. Aronson wrote:
>How about selling IETF-branded swag?  Membership cards?  Other cheap junk 
>that does nothing but take up space, collect dust, and confer bragging 
>rights as having financially supported the IETF?  Maybe even something 
>useful, like yet another canvas tote bag, like people keep getting from 
>their local public TV station.  B-)

Or something really tacky, like wood & metal plaques of the top page of 
RFCs you've authored, so those can hang on the wall along with patent and 
trademark plaques?

---

From: David Terrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 16:39:34 -0600

> be fair and productive to push the direct costs onto the individual

How many of these mailing lists are even hosted on on ietf-run
systems?  Many of these mailing lists are hosted by third party
volunteers (Unless say, sun is getting some kickback from the ietf
for running playground, for example).

Dave, not sure what a good funding model for an open participation
      system like this is either.

-- 
David Terrell            | But remember that "layman" is just a polite 
[email-masked]             | word for "idiot." 
http://wwn.nebcorp.com/  |  - Neal Stephenson