John- > Processing those applications would mean lots more work for the > Secretariat. And then there'd be the time spent on people > complaining because they were turned down. > > >(And, there would be several well-known > >categories of folk who would be helped: academics, students, > >self-funded, folks from non-profits, whatever) > > "Self-funded" is problematic, though: how do you tell the > difference between someone who really is paying his own way and > someone who's going to expense it? And what about a consultant > with his own small business; if he owns the business outright, and > the business pays the way, is that self-funded or not?
Maybe a bit -- but, if you're self funded then you have no affiliation on your badge. It would be a bit of extra work, I agree. How much, I have no idea... But, let's face it ... we're going to raise the meeting fee to get our finances in order. And, I was echoing Harald's point that this could be a Big Deal to some folk. A student I have worked with in the past funded his way to SF last week and I know was very grateful for the break in the meeting fee. I, for one, do not want to eliminate these sorts of people from attending the meetings because I think they add a different and useful perspective. So, I would be in favor of having some amount of wiggle room for folk who ask for it. I will not ask for it (in my current situation) and would be happy (for my funder) to subsidize the registration fee for these folk (as I am currently thrilled to do for students who attend IETF). > I think other organizations make this kind of distinction work by > giving more rights to people who pay more; that would be the > opposite of what we want to do here. I was specifically thinking of SIGCOMM's student travel grant program -- in which the above is not the case. allman -- Mark Allman -- NASA GRC/BBN -- http://roland.grc.nasa.gov/~mallman/
