Internet DRAFT - draft-cooper-shmo-questions

draft-cooper-shmo-questions







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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   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect



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   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
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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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