Network Working Group A. Cooper
Internet-Draft Cisco
Intended status: Informational R. Housley
Expires: November 14, 2020 Vigil Security
S. Krishnan
Kaloom
May 13, 2020
Questions Arising Concerning In-Person Meeting Cancellation
draft-cooper-shmo-questions-00
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has required the IETF community to confront
complicated questions about the cancellation and replacement of in-
person meetings. This document lists some general questions that
have come up for discussion in the community as the IESG, the IRTF
Chair, and the IETF LLC have been faced with making decisions about
IETF 107 and IETF 108.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2.1. Participation and attendance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.2. Travel and entry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.3. Safety and health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.4. Meeting host and sponsors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.5. Venue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.6. Timing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
5. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1. Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic has required the IETF community to confront
complicated questions about the cancellation and replacement of in-
person meetings. This document lists some general questions that
have come up for discussion as the IESG, the IRTF Chair, and the IETF
LLC have been faced with making decisions about whether IETF 107 and
IETF 108 should be held as in-person meetings. In many places,
inspiration was drawn from [RFC8718] and [RFC8719].
This document is focused solely on questions concerning in-person
meeting cancellation and it intentionally does not address planning
for fully online meetings. This document is offered purely to frame
discussion, and it is not intended to be published as an RFC.
2. Questions
[RFC8719] summarized the goal for face-to-face meetings of IETF WGs
as mainly to provide a high-bandwidth mechanism for working out
unresolved issues. Historically, these are held in locations from
which most of the IETF participants have come in the recent past,
with a goal of distributing the travel effort for the participants
who attend in person and distributing the timezone difficulty for
those who participate remotely. In the current climate, the IETF
leadership, in consultation with the community, needs to determine
whether an in-person meeting will be safe and effective.
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2.1. Participation and attendance
Questions that have come up about participation and attendance
include:
1. Approximately how many in-person attendees are expected? How
does this compare to previous in-person meetings in the same
region or at the same time of year?
2. Approximately how many WGs and RGs expect to have a productive
in-person meeting based on their expected participation?
3. Approximately how many WG and RG chairs and authors who would
normally attend in person are expected to attend? How does this
compare to previous in-person meetings in the same region or at
the same time of year?
4. Which of these measures should be used to assess the viability of
an in-person meeting, if any?
5. For any of these measures, what threshold of expected in-person
attendance justifies going forward with an in-person meeting? A
majority? A significant majority? Something else? Is an in-
person meeting with a small (by some definition) number of in-
person attendees and a large number of remote attendees viable?
2.2. Travel and entry
[RFC8718] includes the following criteria related to travel and
entry:
"Travel to the Venue is acceptable based on cost, time, and
burden for participants traveling from multiple regions.
"Travel barriers to entry, including visa requirements, are
likely to be such that an overwhelming majority of participants
who wish to do so can attend. The term "travel barriers" is to
be read broadly by the IASA in the context of whether a successful
meeting can be had."
Questions that have come up related to travel and entry include:
1. Should there be meeting cancellation criteria related to travel
cost, as there is for venue selection, since travel costs can
change in relation to world events?
2. Should there be meeting cancellation criteria related to travel
availability, since this too can be affected by world events?
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3. Should the "overwhelming majority" criterion used for venue
selection also apply to meeting cancellation criteria concerning
entry?
4. Should entry requirements related to health assessments of
travelers, quarantine, or isolation requirements be factored in
to decisions about in-person meeting cancellation, and if so,
how? Should these requirements be evaluated both for the country
where the meeting is being hosted and for the countries from
which attendees are traveling? Is a "reasonable and
nondiscriminatory" test appropriate for these kinds of
requirements?
5. How should corporate travel restrictions play into meeting
cancellation decisions, if at all? Should they be evaluated
directly using their own specific criteria, or should
participation and attendance criteria be used without considering
corporate travel restrictions?
2.3. Safety and health
[RFC8718] includes the following criteria related to safety and
health:
"Economic, safety, and health risks associated with this Venue are
acceptable."
Questions related to safety and health have centered around multiple
dimensions:
1. Risks to attendees and others once they are at the venue or in
the country where the meeting is taking place. These include
getting sick, causing other attendees and staff to become sick,
and getting stuck in-country.
2. Risks to attendees and others while traveling to the venue.
These include getting sick, causing other people to get sick, and
being quarantined.
3. Risks to attendees and others once they arrive home from the
venue. These include getting sick, causing other people to get
sick, and being quarantined..
2.4. Meeting host and sponsors
[RFC8718] includes a criterion that says:
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"The Venue is assessed as favorable for obtaining a host and
sponsors."
While communication with IETF 107 and IETF 108 hosts and sponsors has
been frequent, criteria related to host and sponsorship availability
have not currently been used for determining cancellation plans for
IETF 107 and IETF 108. We are thankful for the unconditional support
of hosts and sponsors during these uncertain times, but we need to
determine whether host and sponsor availability related criteria need
to be included in the future.
2.5. Venue
Discussions about IETF 107 and IETF 108 have assumed that the
meetings would be cancelled if the venues where the meetings were
scheduled to be held were closed or otherwise unable to provide the
contracted meeting services. Similarly, if mass gatherings in the
venue city or country are banned, then it has been assumed our
meetings would be cancelled.
2.6. Timing
Questions have arisen about how far in advance of a meeting a
cancellation decision needs to be made. The level of flexibility
around this depends on the circumstances, but when there is some
flexibility, there has been discussion about whether a cancellation
date should be chosen to give participants higher certainty further
in advance or to be able to evaluate circumstances as close to the
original meeting date as possible, or somewhere in between.
3. Security Considerations
This note proposes no protocols and therefore introduces no new
protocol insecurities.
4. IANA Considerations
This document has no IANA actions.
5. Informative References
[RFC8718] Lear, E., Ed., "IETF Plenary Meeting Venue Selection
Process", BCP 226, RFC 8718, DOI 10.17487/RFC8718,
February 2020, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8718>.
[RFC8719] Krishnan, S., "High-Level Guidance for the Meeting Policy
of the IETF", BCP 226, RFC 8719, DOI 10.17487/RFC8719,
February 2020, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8719>.
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Authors' Addresses
Alissa Cooper
Cisco
Email: alcoop@cisco.com
Russ Housley
Vigil Security, LLC
Email: housley@vigilsec.com
Suresh Krishnan
Kaloom
Email: suresh.krishnan@gmail.com
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