Phil Hallam-Baker just suggested in the plenary that we could
easily raise funds by going round looking for sponsorship
from industry, $10k and $10k there.
This ignores that this is *exactly* where ISOC's funds come
from, and those funds are largely used to support the IETF
(specifically the RFC Editor, plus a few smaller expenses that
would otherwise fall on the Secretariat budget).
Unfortunately, we've been scraping the bottom of that barrel
thoroughly over the last two years. Speaking as a participant
in ISOC's fund-raising during that time, I can tell you that
the barrel is empty. In present economic conditions, those extra
$10ks are almost impossible to get.
While I'm talking, let me add that ISOC traditionally preceded
the INET conference with tutorials. But our experience of INETs
for the last few years has been quite negative financially, which
is why there is no INET 2003. So even this approach may not be as
easy as we might think. However, I think doing some ISOC/IETF joint
tutorials just before an IETF is definitely worth a try.
Brian