Hi Keith! Your message and actions are right on!!!! In addition to the reasons and consequences you mentioned, such behavior opens the IETF to restraint of trade challenges at least in the U.S. Thanks, Kathy Dally MITRE Corp. Keith Moore wrote: > > 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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