Subject: Minneapolis terminal room

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1999 18:13:23 -0500

Sometimes I think we expect too much.

The terminal room is essential. Many IETF participants cannot be away 
for a week without Internet access, and without the terminal room the 
hotel phone switch probably could not keep up with the traffic.

However, I never cease to be amazed at the level of service expected
by IETF meeting attendees.  We expect laptop ports and workstations and 
printers for both paper and transparencies with large amounts of each, 
all provided "for free".  We expect DNS, DHCP, ethertalk, WINS, lpd,
CIFS printing, ssh, and probably a few more random services.  We expect 
wireless LAN with devices provided and good coverage within the hotel.  
We expect mbone access, even though it doesn't seem to be very useful.

We seem to forget that this is a non-profit organization with limited
resources, and that the terminal room facilities are provided by the
host.  Personally, I'm always thankful for the generosity of these hosts,
and their patience at putting up with the endless complaints of IETF.
I'm also thankful for the IETF folks who pitch in to help out or to
add some service beyond the bare mininum.

Perhaps, once every year or two, we should have a "potluck terminal room".
The host would provide a pipe with adequate bandwidth, and a router with
a sufficient number of Ethernet interfaces.  Either the host or the 
secretariat would provide a large room with tables and chairs, and
coordination.  There would be a sign-up list for all remaining services 
and equipment.  Everyone who expects to use the terminal room would be 
expected to contribute *something* - say by bringing a hub, or cables; 
by paying to lease a workstation or printer; by purchasing a ream of 
paper or a box of transparencies; or by showing up early to get things
to fit together.  Those who do would get a colored dot on their nametags.  
In the event of insufficient resources, folks with a dot on their nametags 
could pre-empt those who had not seen fit to contribute.

I realize that this would be a logistical nightmare, but it would at
least serve two purposes: (1) it would make us more aware of our hosts'
generosity for the other IETF meetings, and (2) it would make us more 
aware of how difficult it really is to set up an Internet and perhaps
motivate (more of) us to try to make it easier to do so.

Keith

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From: Tim Salo <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 13:27:42 -0600 (CST)

> From salo  Wed Mar 24 10:12:19 1999
> Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 10:12:19 -0600 (CST)
> From: Tim Salo <[email-masked]>
> To: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: Minneapolis terminal room
> 
> From: Geert Jan de Groot <[email-masked]>
> Subject: Re: Minneapolis terminal room 
> Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 12:26:44 +0100
> 	[...]
> Second, I think it would be good if more people would bring laptops,
> so that the desktop machines can be phased out. ...
> A laptop drop requires much less work and is a *lot* cheaper.

I suggest that desktop machines be phased out so that people will
bring laptops, and probably more significant, use the laptops they
bring.  (I occasionally use a desktop machine, even when I carry
a laptop.  I suspect a lot of other people do as well.)

Perhaps, an objective of reducing the number of desktop machines until
the queue of people waiting for desktops is some multiple of the queue
of people waiting for laptop connections would be appropriate.

I think it is reasonable to expect the IETF to provide good connectivity.
I think we should reconsider the expectation that the IETF also
provide good compute power.

-tjs

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From: Tim Salo <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 13:27:42 -0600 (CST)

-tjs

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1999 09:11 -0800 (PST)

I usually am not around for the terminal room setup or teardown
       but would be happy to contribute a few bucks to a 'beer fund'
       for those volunteers who are.

       --aaron

       From: [email-masked] AT mime on 03/24/99 03:26 AM

       To:   [email-masked] AT mime@PMDF-IMP@HUB-H4@CCMAIL
       cc:   [email-masked] AT mime@PMDF-IMP@HUB-H4@CCMAIL (bcc: Aaron
             D Falk/ES1/ES/HSC)

       As many people are stuck at the IETF location ('saturday night
       stay rule'), I think it would make sense to see if you can help
       out. Hopefully we can make it an IETF tradition that there will
       be a bunch of people showing up for volunteer help at future
       IETF's.

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1999 09:11 -0800 (PST)

--aaron