IPP Mail Archive: IPP> IETF Adelaide and interim meetings fo

IPP> IETF Adelaide and interim meetings for APPS WGs

From: Keith Moore (moore@cs.utk.edu)
Date: Mon Feb 14 2000 - 18:37:05 EST

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    It has come to the attention of the Applications Area Directors
    that one or more Applications area working groups have elected
    to not meet in Adelaide, and instead to hold an "interim meeting"
    in the United States, presumably because of distance and/or cost issues.

    IETF is an international organization, and it is IETF's longstanding
    practice to hold its meetings in various locations around the planet.
    This serves both to encourage wider participation in IETF and also
    to more fairly distribute travel costs and inconvenience (over time)
    among all participants. The scheduleing of an interim WG meeting in
    the US in lieu of a WG meeting in Adelaide undermines this policy.
    This is insulting to non-US participants of IETF (many of whom have
    attended meetings in the US for years), embarassing to IETF as
    a whole, and a threat to IETF's international stature.

    Even if a working group has few participants outside the United
    States, a working group does not work in isolation from other
    working groups. Attendance at IETF meetings is an invaluable
    mechanism for cross-group collaboration.

    RFC 2418 states:

       Interim meetings are subject to the
       same rules for advance notification, reporting, open participation,
       and process, which apply to other working group meetings.

    Since normal working group meetings require advance notification
    via email to the entire IETF list, and the process for getting a meeting
    slot involves prior approval of the Area Directors, the same
    requirements apply to interim working group meetings. Part of the
    reason for prior approval being required is to ensure that the
    locations of the meetings are not being chosen to favor certain
    participants over others.

    There have been several violations of this policy since publication
    of RFC 2418.

    Therefore,

    - All interim meetings within the Applications Area which were not
      previously and explicitly approved by the Applications Area Directors,
      are hereby cancelled.

    - No Applications Area group will hold any interim meeting prior
      to April 15.

    - No Applications Area group which does not hold a meeting in
      Adelaide, will hold any interim meeting prior to July 31.
      (i.e. prior to the Pittsburg IETF meeting)

    - This applies to all face to face meetings held for the purpose
      of conducting working group discussion and to which the working
      group is invited, even if labelled "informal" or otherwise
      labelled to distinguish them from official working group meetings.

    - Exceptions to this policy may be made for recently chartered groups,
      but Area Director approval is still required for such groups to
      schedule interim meetings.

    for the Applications Area Directors,

    Keith Moore



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