Subject: [103attendees] Visas and hackathons (is it work?)

From: Mukund Sivaraman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2018 14:18:42 +0530

Hi all

I've wondered about this before:

Many countries' tourist and business travel visas only allow meetings
and not "work". I know of a case of an ex-colleague who was apparently
refused entry because he mentioned "work" to border agents on his way
into a western country.

The definition of "work" differs from country to country, and I'm not a
lawyer, but I've understood that creating something of value is often
considered "working" w.r.t. visas.

So, how is participation in hackathons safe for visitors? How is it not
work, when what is created is similar to what is created "at work" in a
real job, and has as much commercial value?

		Mukund

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From: [email-masked]
Date: 12 Sep 2018 14:52:52 -0400

>real job, and has as much commercial value?

As far as I'm concerned the code sprint and hackathon are part of the
IETF meeting.  Nobody's paying me, maybe I'll write some useful code,
maybe I won't.