In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Vernon Schryver writes
:
> I'm not a lawyer, but that sounds like it might conflict with the U.S.
> Constitution's provisions concerning freedom of assembly.
(a) The U.S. constitution applies to the Federal government (and sometimes to
the state governments); it does not apply to private groups.
(b) No one ever said that these folks can't meet; they just can't do it under
the imprimatur of the IETF.
> It also sounds
> hard to police; if some working group participants encounter each other
> in an airport waiting room, are they not allowed to talk business? What
> about participants who work for the same outfit and see each other daily?
>
> Are you going to apply the same rules to meetings of the IAB and IESG?
?? I'll let the IESG speak for itself. The IAB does not meet physically
except at IETF meetings. Instead, we have monthly conference calls. We do
hold workshops (which is expressly provided for in RFC 1601); the last such
workshop was in Utrecht. Not all IAB members attend all workshops; a number of
outsiders are invited.
>
> You could doubtless fix those modest hassles with the wording of this
> demand that RFC 2418 be honored, but what is the point? Unless you going
> to slide the IETF the rest of the way into the ITU/IEEE/ANSI swamp, won't
> the mailing lists continue to be the only official forums for the working
> groups? Won't the working group meetings continue to be effectively
> informal, slightly more than social gatherings?
The point is that some things are better accomplished in a high-bandwidth
environment.
>
> In other words and politically correct pretense asside, the IETF is not
> an international organization. Despite its posturing, the IETF is a U.S.
> or perhaps North American organization that welcomes non-U.S. participants
> and occasionally spends a lot of its U.S. participants' time and money to
> try to make people outside of North America feel welcome. If the IETF
> did honestly aspire to be an international organization, it would need
> the characteristics of the ITU (e.g. translators and high prices for
> documents). Do you think that would be a good thing?
>
I'm afraid I don't follow the logic of your penultimate sententce. The
current schedule has about 1 meeting out of 3 outside of North America.
--Steve Bellovin
