On Tue, 18 Jul 2017 at 02:34, Daniel Roesen <dr@cluenet.de> wrote:

Why are RIPE meetings held at places where active participation in form
of talks require people from certain service area countries do something
illegal, otherwise excluding them?

Idealy I would like to avoid that.

But then it would also be very difficult, if not impossible, to find a location where everybody from the whole region can participate.

For us "north west" european the Schengen area is easy, but not necessarily for our colleagues countries further east.

This time we made the decision to hold the meeting in Dubai to make it easier for our community members in this part of our region to participate.

Was this requirement known to the organizers before deciding on venue
country?

This requirement became known to the RIPE NCC and me after the decision had been made.

Rest assured that these kind of extraordinary requirements will be taken into consideration when selecting future meeting venues.

Hans Petter Holen

RIPE Chair