Hello all,
I've not been active here, but some of you may remember me as the guy who first got TCP/IP going on amateur packet radio way back in 1986. At one time, my name was registered as the owner of the block. This makes me one of a VERY small group of people with any arguable personal property interest in network 44. And yes, 25% of this space, which is VERY unlikely to ever be used by hams, has been sold to Amazon.
Rather than try to personally profit from this, we all readily agreed to place the *entire* proceeds of this sale into a 501(c)(3) charity chartered to support amateur digital radio and related developments. No one is buying a yacht or a mansion. As a tax-exempt charity, our tax returns and related documents will be publicly available so you can see what is being done. Like the rest of the amateur community, all of you will have the opportunity to apply for grants and do good things for amateur radio with them.
73, Phil
On 19/07/2019 12:19 pm, Phil Karn wrote:
Like the rest of the amateur community, all of you will have the opportunity to apply for grants and do good things for amateur radio with them.
I don't know much about US-registered charities and tax law, but will this include amateurs and clubs located outside of the US?
73
On 7/18/19 21:25, Gavin Rogers wrote:
On 19/07/2019 12:19 pm, Phil Karn wrote:
Like the rest of the amateur community, all of you will have the opportunity to apply for grants and do good things for amateur radio with them.
I don't know much about US-registered charities and tax law, but will this include amateurs and clubs located outside of the US?
Sure. We'd like to cast the net as widely as possible for worthy grant recipients. Doesn't matter where they are in the world, as long as the purpose is consistent with our charter, which is to benefit amateur digital radio and related development. That's a worldwide activity.
I suppose US legal restrictions on dealing with certain "pariah" countries might come into play (e.g., North Korea) but that's a very short list and there isn't much ham radio in them anyway.
We're already thinking about things like:
Educational grants to students who are hams;
Existing amateur radio 501(c)(3) organizations;
Development of *freely available* technology: hardware, software, protocols, etc
Field trials, demonstrations, pilot projects, educational outreach, etc;
This list is NOT exhaustive by any means, and in fact we'll be looking for good ideas from anyone who has them. We want to be as transparent about this as possible.
Again, though we might have been able to establish a *personal* property claim over network 44, we all quickly decided to not open that can of worms and instead sign everything over to the ARDC. Face it, given who we are we'd probably just spend the money on ham radio development ourselves. This is a much better way to do it.
73, Phil
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On 7/19/19 12:43 AM, Phil Karn wrote:
Again, though we might have been able to establish a *personal* property claim over network 44, we all quickly decided to not open that can of worms and instead sign everything over to the ARDC.
Bullshit. You want to do something for ham radio? Resign and go back to your hole. - -- Bryan Fields
727-409-1194 - Voice http://bryanfields.net
Really at the end of the day its part of the 44net allocation that is not allocated to any country.
yes I was pissed at first but after reading the original document it makes sense to me. it protects thecallocations msde to countries etc, just means as co ordinators we need to apply best practice then allocate stupidly to people.
at least there are funds to pay costs well into the future. congrats to those who saw the light and did something constructive.
Regards Sam
Sent from MailDroid
-----Original Message----- From: Phil Karn karn@ka9q.net To: 44net@mailman.ampr.org Sent: Fri, 19 Jul. 2019 14:43 Subject: Re: [44net] 44.192.0.0/10 sale
On 7/18/19 21:25, Gavin Rogers wrote:
On 19/07/2019 12:19 pm, Phil Karn wrote:
Like the rest of the amateur community, all of you will have the opportunity to apply for grants and do good things for amateur radio with them.
I don't know much about US-registered charities and tax law, but will this include amateurs and clubs located outside of the US?
Sure. We'd like to cast the net as widely as possible for worthy grant recipients. Doesn't matter where they are in the world, as long as the purpose is consistent with our charter, which is to benefit amateur digital radio and related development. That's a worldwide activity.
I suppose US legal restrictions on dealing with certain "pariah" countries might come into play (e.g., North Korea) but that's a very short list and there isn't much ham radio in them anyway.
We're already thinking about things like:
Educational grants to students who are hams;
Existing amateur radio 501(c)(3) organizations;
Development of *freely available* technology: hardware, software, protocols, etc
Field trials, demonstrations, pilot projects, educational outreach, etc;
This list is NOT exhaustive by any means, and in fact we'll be looking for good ideas from anyone who has them. We want to be as transparent about this as possible.
Again, though we might have been able to establish a *personal* property claim over network 44, we all quickly decided to not open that can of worms and instead sign everything over to the ARDC. Face it, given who we are we'd probably just spend the money on ham radio development ourselves. This is a much better way to do it.
73, Phil
_________________________________________ 44Net mailing list 44Net@mailman.ampr.org https://mailman.ampr.org/mailman/listinfo/44net
-----Original Message----- From: 44Net [mailto:44net-bounces+jim=photojim.ca@mailman.ampr.org] On Behalf Of Phil Karn Sent: Thursday, July 18, 2019 10:43 PM To: 44net@mailman.ampr.org Subject: Re: [44net] 44.192.0.0/10 sale
On 7/18/19 21:25, Gavin Rogers wrote:
Existing amateur radio 501(c)(3) organizations;
My only concern is that only American non-profit organizations qualify under 501(c)(3). Non-profit organizations for amateur radio in other countries will be registered with respect to the laws of their own countries.
73 Jim VE5EV
Beneficiaries of US Non-Profit charities can be international.
On Fri, Jul 19, 2019 at 7:59 AM Jim MacKenzie jim@photojim.ca wrote:
-----Original Message----- From: 44Net [mailto:44net-bounces+jim=photojim.ca@mailman.ampr.org] On Behalf Of Phil Karn Sent: Thursday, July 18, 2019 10:43 PM To: 44net@mailman.ampr.org Subject: Re: [44net] 44.192.0.0/10 sale
On 7/18/19 21:25, Gavin Rogers wrote:
Existing amateur radio 501(c)(3) organizations;
My only concern is that only American non-profit organizations qualify under 501(c)(3). Non-profit organizations for amateur radio in other countries will be registered with respect to the laws of their own countries.
73 Jim VE5EV
44Net mailing list 44Net@mailman.ampr.org https://mailman.ampr.org/mailman/listinfo/44net
On 7/19/19 07:57, Jim MacKenzie wrote:
My only concern is that only American non-profit organizations qualify under 501(c)(3). Non-profit organizations for amateur radio in other countries will be registered with respect to the laws of their own countries.
We hope to broaden this as soon as possible, and to only temporarily limit grants to US 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporations. Eventually we hope to make grants to *any* individual or organization in furtherance of the foundation's charter, i.e, to advance amateur digital radio and related technologies -- anywhere in the world.
The IRS rules on nonprofits are there to ensure transparency and avoid self-dealing. They're complex and we will have to navigate them very carefully with advice from lawyers, accountants and auditors who specialize in nonprofits.
This will not be the Trump Foundation.
73 Phil
Hello all I didnt read my mail for some days and when I started to read i thought i was dreaming ... Now I will respond it probably will not be polite but forgive me it is with good intentions and come direct from my heart without any filter
So i Understand someone sold part of our Address space before I start i say that I Know Phil Karn (not personally) I was using his KA9Q NOS (under DOS ) those days and made few gateways for Internet to Packet in My Country and provided the local Ham Radio Community internet connectivity in times that only research and development organization was allowed to get internet feed in our country
In any case I know that we (the ham radio) got a FREE class A network for years and we can be happy that we didnt have to pay for it and I say many thanks for Brian for maintaining for us a Worldwide Router for years free of charge but it was our address space why to release it ?
I have some question and hope that the seller (i really dont know who it is ) will be brave enough to answer them
1) why the whole thing done secretly without any announcement or at least letting the Ham radio community to know it IN ADVANCE at least for the intention ? 2)what will happen now if we will need more address space ? where we will get it from ? 3) is there any mechanism that will prevent selling additional address space in future ?
maybe most of you are not aware but I as a member of the iarc.org repeater and Data comm committee face a proposal of France to take the 2 Meter Band for Air band and this might effect the whole world now there is a big fight against this silly proposal
I say (and not only me) we are not releasing frequency and also not releasing address space address space is same as frequency !!!!
Im very sad on what happened someone here called it "theft" i tend to agree with him ... just because that it was done quick and without any notice or t least letting us to know about what is going to happen
and least but not last how much money the seller got for this address space and what will be done with this money for the benefit of the ham radio community ? )maybe buying a ip V6 address space for future time ?
I hope that there will be someone brave to face this questions and give answers not only to me to all the AMPRNET community ...
I apology again the writing came from my heart the amprnet is important to me as looking for the worldwide community
Regards Ronen - 4Z4ZQ http://www.ronen.org Ronen Pinchooks (4Z4ZQ) WebSitehttp://www.ronen.org/ ronen.org (Ronen Pinchooks (4Z4ZQ) WebSite) is hosted by domainavenue.com www.ronen.org
________________________________ From: 44Net 44net-bounces+ronenp=hotmail.com@mailman.ampr.org on behalf of Phil Karn karn@ka9q.net Sent: Friday, July 19, 2019 9:55 AM To: 44net@mailman.ampr.org Subject: Re: [44net] 44.192.0.0/10 sale
On 7/19/19 07:57, Jim MacKenzie wrote:
My only concern is that only American non-profit organizations qualify under 501(c)(3). Non-profit organizations for amateur radio in other countries will be registered with respect to the laws of their own countries.
We hope to broaden this as soon as possible, and to only temporarily limit grants to US 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporations. Eventually we hope to make grants to *any* individual or organization in furtherance of the foundation's charter, i.e, to advance amateur digital radio and related technologies -- anywhere in the world.
The IRS rules on nonprofits are there to ensure transparency and avoid self-dealing. They're complex and we will have to navigate them very carefully with advice from lawyers, accountants and auditors who specialize in nonprofits.
This will not be the Trump Foundation.
73 Phil
_________________________________________ 44Net mailing list 44Net@mailman.ampr.org https://mailman.ampr.org/mailman/listinfo/44net
Hello Ronen,
I think many of your questions would be answered if you read the article I wrote on the subject at https://www.ampr.org/amprnet.
But one point that I want to make even more strongly is that there is NO plan to sell any more of the AMPRNet address space now or at any time in the future.
Please note that we discussed this matter for many many months before moving ahead. EVERYONE who has ever had control over this address space was unanimously in favor of selling the unused (and likely never to be used) space to forward the goals of Amateur Radio, and that is what we have done. We think it is for the best.
And none of us gets any reward for any of this except for the feeling of having done the right and proper thing. We each of us have received a number of thanks and congratulations, along with a lot of vitriol, hate, and threats from small-minded hotheads.
We all apologize for the secrecy, but it was forced upon us in order to participate in the IP address global marketplace. That is not an open arena, and likely never will be. And that is not our doing. Large corporations and governments, those who are the only possible buyers of the required magnitude, do not conduct their business details in public. By keeping it under wraps during the negotiations, we and the negotiators we employed were able to obtain the best sale price available.
After months of negotiation, this all went surprisingly quickly from proposals to accomplished fact, in a matter of just a few days.
With more than 50 million dollars that now must be spent on promoting amateur radio by supporting those that make ham radio what it is and what it can be, we believe that the address space now converted to funds will do more good for more hams and the future of amateur radio than any unused idle addresses held for an unlikely future use could possibly do.
In the near future, we expect to invite interested groups (and later, when we have the clerical support to handle the paperwork, individuals) to apply for funding to support their projects, whether they be fundamental research, scholarships for education, design of new algorithms or technology, or the construction of Amateur facilities. The granting committee is being formed as we speak, and we will publish a document on how to qualify for funding as soon as we can -- it is being written now.
Best wishes and 73, - Brian
On 7/21/19 10:06 AM, Brian Kantor via 44Net wrote:
I think many of your questions would be answered if you read the article I wrote on the subject at https://www.ampr.org/amprnet.
But one point that I want to make even more strongly is that there is NO plan to sell any more of the AMPRNet address space now or at any time in the future.
Funny, in 2014 you mentioned to me, in person, you would never permit selling of the space. Even leasing it long term was out of the question as it was in trust for amateur radio, ARDC was a custodian of it.
Please note that we discussed this matter for many many months before moving ahead.
Where? There was no discussion with the community of users.
We think it is for the best.
This is part and parcel in how the unelected board operates; aloof and condescending to the users.
And none of us gets any reward for any of this except for the feeling of having done the right and proper thing. We each of us have received a number of thanks and congratulations, along with a lot of vitriol, hate, and threats from small-minded hotheads.
So the board will never take a salary?
We all apologize for the secrecy, but it was forced upon us in order to participate in the IP address global marketplace. That is not an open arena, and likely never will be. And that is not our doing. Large corporations and governments, those who are the only possible buyers of the required magnitude, do not conduct their business details in public.
There's a disconnect here. Two decisions were made, one to sell a community resource, the other is who to sell it to. The decision to sell needed to be done in the open with the community. You can negotiate in secret and then be open about the buyer and the sales price when it closes. We held the address space, and set the terms.
Nothing said it _had_ to be sold.
With more than 50 million dollars that now must be spent on promoting amateur radio by supporting those that make ham radio what it is and what it can be, we believe that the address space now converted to funds will do more good for more hams and the future of amateur radio than any unused idle addresses held for an unlikely future use could possibly do.
Part of discussion of the sale with the community would be laying out exactly how this foundation will work. ARDC is unsuitable to do this as it's structured. The community will have no voice and continues to have no voice. Board members who are friends and colleagues of yours get appointed and elected with no input from the community.
ARDC should have setup a proper foundation to handle this endowment, separate from the ARDC board and answerable to the community. Their business should be conducted in the open and transparent to the community. The users could have received clear benefits from this sale in normalization of services, SWIP, RDNS, and maybe even RPKI. We'd have the best of both worlds, a strong single purpose organization to give grants and maintain the endowment, and another for the stewardship and technical support of the address space.
ARDC bungled this, both from the organizational and technical aspects. RDNS is still broken for several users on /16 boundaries, and was broke for everyone else 20+ hours on the day it closed.
In the near future, we expect to invite interested groups (and later, when we have the clerical support to handle the paperwork, individuals) to apply for funding to support their projects, whether they be fundamental research, scholarships for education, design of new algorithms or technology, or the construction of Amateur facilities. The granting committee is being formed as we speak, and we will publish a document on how to qualify for funding as soon as we can -- it is being written now.
ARDC is unsuited for this. ARDC has a poor (non-existent) track record of supporting FOSS, is not engaged in the community, and the board has shocking conflicts of interest.
Dear Brian Thank U for the brief answer
Please consider using part of the money for reserving us (buying ?) IPV6 address for future use .. and if possible increasing the AMPRNET router bandwidth (if money play in that matter) and continue providing us excellent uptime for it and if needed using part of that money for developing our network and upgrading it (say to use VPN instead of IPIP tunnel)
Regards Ronen - 4Z4ZQ ________________________________ From: 44Net 44net-bounces+ronenp=hotmail.com@mailman.ampr.org on behalf of Bryan Fields via 44Net 44net@mailman.ampr.org Sent: Sunday, July 21, 2019 11:11 AM To: AMPRNet working group Cc: Bryan Fields Subject: Re: [44net] 44.192.0.0/10 sale
On 7/21/19 10:06 AM, Brian Kantor via 44Net wrote:
I think many of your questions would be answered if you read the article I wrote on the subject at https://www.ampr.org/amprnet.
But one point that I want to make even more strongly is that there is NO plan to sell any more of the AMPRNet address space now or at any time in the future.
Funny, in 2014 you mentioned to me, in person, you would never permit selling of the space. Even leasing it long term was out of the question as it was in trust for amateur radio, ARDC was a custodian of it.
Please note that we discussed this matter for many many months before moving ahead.
Where? There was no discussion with the community of users.
We think it is for the best.
This is part and parcel in how the unelected board operates; aloof and condescending to the users.
And none of us gets any reward for any of this except for the feeling of having done the right and proper thing. We each of us have received a number of thanks and congratulations, along with a lot of vitriol, hate, and threats from small-minded hotheads.
So the board will never take a salary?
We all apologize for the secrecy, but it was forced upon us in order to participate in the IP address global marketplace. That is not an open arena, and likely never will be. And that is not our doing. Large corporations and governments, those who are the only possible buyers of the required magnitude, do not conduct their business details in public.
There's a disconnect here. Two decisions were made, one to sell a community resource, the other is who to sell it to. The decision to sell needed to be done in the open with the community. You can negotiate in secret and then be open about the buyer and the sales price when it closes. We held the address space, and set the terms.
Nothing said it _had_ to be sold.
With more than 50 million dollars that now must be spent on promoting amateur radio by supporting those that make ham radio what it is and what it can be, we believe that the address space now converted to funds will do more good for more hams and the future of amateur radio than any unused idle addresses held for an unlikely future use could possibly do.
Part of discussion of the sale with the community would be laying out exactly how this foundation will work. ARDC is unsuitable to do this as it's structured. The community will have no voice and continues to have no voice. Board members who are friends and colleagues of yours get appointed and elected with no input from the community.
ARDC should have setup a proper foundation to handle this endowment, separate from the ARDC board and answerable to the community. Their business should be conducted in the open and transparent to the community. The users could have received clear benefits from this sale in normalization of services, SWIP, RDNS, and maybe even RPKI. We'd have the best of both worlds, a strong single purpose organization to give grants and maintain the endowment, and another for the stewardship and technical support of the address space.
ARDC bungled this, both from the organizational and technical aspects. RDNS is still broken for several users on /16 boundaries, and was broke for everyone else 20+ hours on the day it closed.
In the near future, we expect to invite interested groups (and later, when we have the clerical support to handle the paperwork, individuals) to apply for funding to support their projects, whether they be fundamental research, scholarships for education, design of new algorithms or technology, or the construction of Amateur facilities. The granting committee is being formed as we speak, and we will publish a document on how to qualify for funding as soon as we can -- it is being written now.
ARDC is unsuited for this. ARDC has a poor (non-existent) track record of supporting FOSS, is not engaged in the community, and the board has shocking conflicts of interest.
-- Bryan Fields
727-409-1194 - Voice http://bryanfields.net _________________________________________ 44Net mailing list 44Net@mailman.ampr.org https://mailman.ampr.org/mailman/listinfo/44net
Phil,
I think it was a good move. Some will argue it should have been discussed on this list, but seeing as how hams argue things to death I understand how it was done.
Be sure to buy Brian a beer for me, as I am sure he is being inundated with angry emails right now. In my opinion he has done a great tireless job at keeping it afloat and useful for a good long time.
Steve, KB9MWR
On Thu, Jul 18, 2019 at 11:20 PM Phil Karn karn@ka9q.net wrote:
Hello all,
I've not been active here, but some of you may remember me as the guy who first got TCP/IP going on amateur packet radio way back in 1986. At one time, my name was registered as the owner of the block. This makes me one of a VERY small group of people with any arguable personal property interest in network 44. And yes, 25% of this space, which is VERY unlikely to ever be used by hams, has been sold to Amazon.
Rather than try to personally profit from this, we all readily agreed to place the *entire* proceeds of this sale into a 501(c)(3) charity chartered to support amateur digital radio and related developments. No one is buying a yacht or a mansion. As a tax-exempt charity, our tax returns and related documents will be publicly available so you can see what is being done. Like the rest of the amateur community, all of you will have the opportunity to apply for grants and do good things for amateur radio with them.
73, Phil
44Net mailing list 44Net@mailman.ampr.org https://mailman.ampr.org/mailman/listinfo/44net
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256
On 7/19/19 12:19 AM, Phil Karn wrote:
Hello all,
I've not been active here, but some of you may remember me as the guy who first got TCP/IP going on amateur packet radio way back in 1986. At one time, my name was registered as the owner of the block. This makes me one of a VERY small group of people with any arguable personal property interest in network 44. And yes, 25% of this space, which is VERY unlikely to ever be used by hams, has been sold to Amazon.
This is simply backroom politics and you know it. Had this been an open discussion our board would have involved the community from day 1. ARDC held this in trust, not as an asset to be disposed of to this highest bidder.
I demand you resign from ARDC as you've shown a lack of leadership.
- -- Bryan Fields
727-409-1194 - Voice http://bryanfields.net
Hello Phil, Everyone,
I was curious what the process is going to be for this ~$50M US dollars (speculation on my part) grants? I would hope that ARDC will release a published document on specific criteria for anything to be considered. The vetting be an publicly available review process vs. something done behind "closed doors", etc.. I would imagine this criteria could include items such as:
- Make a decision if grants need to revolve around amateur related networking topics or would it be anything generally for amateur radio
- Monies should be put into category buckets and tracked against purposes like furthering the science, EmComm, communications/awareness/marketing, large orgs (AmSat, TAPR, etc). No one group should dominate in terms of granted monies. I imagine this will be difficult to do as any one ask might be far more expensive than many other little asks.
- A fair share of monies must go non-US located grants as AMPR must be more than a US thing
- Monies should not go to any government entities in any country
- Monies should not go to for profit corporations. Examples include say MFJ, Icom, Elecraft, HRO, Kenwood, Tyt, Motorola, etc.
- Monies should not go to HAM representative organizations like the ARRL, RSRB, etc. One possible exception could be around spectrum defense but this is iffy in my mind
- Monies should not go to "big gun" contesting groups, DX expeditions, etc (IMHO because they already have money compared to many many others)
- Monies spent on either software or hardware related projects must be open source based on some agreeable license (not necessarily GPLv3, etc)
- Grant recipients must publicly submit formal requests confirming their goals and how they meet XYZ requirements. They must receive auditing on X interval of how the the money has been spent
- Any one grant must not exceed X US dollars
- Any one specific entity should not get more than X grants per quarter and/or year
- Set a budget of no more than X US dollar be spent in a calendar quarter and a calendar year
- The ARDC 501.C books and balance sheet should be publicly posted and updated on a quarterly basis
Those are just some of the ideas that come to mind but I'm sure that many other criteria should be considered.
Btw, I would like to formally see the consideration of a few grants ideas:
1. Allocate some amount of budget to properly over see this whole process. It's going to be a lot of work and I believe those people should be compensated for it. This level of compensation should be fully disclosed and be "minimally" fair.
2. Develop and operate a redundant BGP backhaul for 44.0.0.1 beyond just our current UCSD provider. Doesn't have to be anything super fast but must be better than our current 0 Kbps
3. Hire a focused development team to have the Linux AX.25 stack repaired due to the various errant commits that have been getting committed. Modern linux kernels now have various bugs and toxicity that is rendering native Linux as unusable. Myself and many other HAMs can provide details but we don't have the expertise to correct these issues. I also believe this team should work with the Linux community to get proper unit tests added to the Linux development process so future toxic commits can be caught as part of the modern continuous development process.
This and related topics should be moved to a different email list so interested parties can view and participate w/o bothering this core technical email list
Just my $1.50
--David KI6ZHD Silicon Valley, CA 44.4.x.x/16 AMPR coordinator
On 07/18/2019 09:19 PM, Phil Karn wrote:
Hello all,
I've not been active here, but some of you may remember me as the guy who first got TCP/IP going on amateur packet radio way back in 1986. At one time, my name was registered as the owner of the block. This makes me one of a VERY small group of people with any arguable personal property interest in network 44. And yes, 25% of this space, which is VERY unlikely to ever be used by hams, has been sold to Amazon.
Rather than try to personally profit from this, we all readily agreed to place the *entire* proceeds of this sale into a 501(c)(3) charity chartered to support amateur digital radio and related developments. No one is buying a yacht or a mansion. As a tax-exempt charity, our tax returns and related documents will be publicly available so you can see what is being done. Like the rest of the amateur community, all of you will have the opportunity to apply for grants and do good things for amateur radio with them.
73, Phil
On 7/19/19 09:04, David Ranch wrote:
Hello Phil, Everyone,
I was curious what the process is going to be for this ~$50M US dollars (speculation on my part) grants? I would hope that ARDC will release a published document on specific criteria for anything to be considered. The vetting be an publicly available review process vs. something done behind "closed doors", etc.. I would imagine this criteria could include items such as:
David, I think this is an *outstanding* suggestion. It expresses almost exactly what we've been thinking, and we're going to need help writing it all down and putting it into practice. This is not a bad start. We will definitely have to hire professionals such as tax lawyers, accountants, auditors and investment advisors who are experienced with nonprofits and understand the tax and other relevant laws. (I'd rather the money go to ham radio, but this is the real world.)
Remember that the rules governing nonprofits already restrict what we can do; all spending must further the charter of the organization, which is to broadly benefit amateur digital radio development and any closely related fields. I would not necessarily rule out, a priori, any particular class of recipients because we simply don't know right now what opportunities might pop up. As long as an entity can use our grant to make a bona-fide contribution to digital amateur radio, adhering to all our usual rules such as open source software, public documentation and free use rights, we should at least consider it.
Phil
Hello all, perhaps this is already planned but my personal opinion is that since this is a large sum of money, we should invest in some sort of low risk investment. Then we would only spend the resultant interest which would allow the fund to be used indefinitely. I can’t comment on what those investments would be in the US, but in Canada, that would be something like a GIC as one of the safest options.
Whatever the outcome, David has some excellent suggestions! I am very excited to see what projects get funded!
Bryce ~ AS202313
On Jul 19, 2019, at 10:28 AM, Phil Karn karn@ka9q.net wrote:
On 7/19/19 09:04, David Ranch wrote:
Hello Phil, Everyone,
I was curious what the process is going to be for this ~$50M US dollars (speculation on my part) grants? I would hope that ARDC will release a published document on specific criteria for anything to be considered. The vetting be an publicly available review process vs. something done behind "closed doors", etc.. I would imagine this criteria could include items such as:
David, I think this is an *outstanding* suggestion. It expresses almost exactly what we've been thinking, and we're going to need help writing it all down and putting it into practice. This is not a bad start. We will definitely have to hire professionals such as tax lawyers, accountants, auditors and investment advisors who are experienced with nonprofits and understand the tax and other relevant laws. (I'd rather the money go to ham radio, but this is the real world.)
Remember that the rules governing nonprofits already restrict what we can do; all spending must further the charter of the organization, which is to broadly benefit amateur digital radio development and any closely related fields. I would not necessarily rule out, a priori, any particular class of recipients because we simply don't know right now what opportunities might pop up. As long as an entity can use our grant to make a bona-fide contribution to digital amateur radio, adhering to all our usual rules such as open source software, public documentation and free use rights, we should at least consider it.
Phil
44Net mailing list 44Net@mailman.ampr.org https://mailman.ampr.org/mailman/listinfo/44net
I was shocked at first, maybe even a little bit angry that 44net was being sold off without consultation as it is arguably the largest (and most underutilized) asset the amateur radio community has ever possessed. I fully support this decision however.
On Thu, Jul 18, 2019 at 10:19 PM Phil Karn karn@ka9q.net wrote:
Rather than try to personally profit from this, we all readily agreed to place the *entire* proceeds of this sale into a 501(c)(3) charity.
I love this. The funds raised by the sale of the address space could do a lot of good for digital exploration of this hobby.
73,
-
Brian Kantor -
Bryan Fields -
Dakota Hourie -
David Ranch -
Gavin Rogers -
Jim MacKenzie -
K7VE - John -
Phil Karn -
R P -
secret.memail.com＠gmail.com -
Steve L -
vk4aa＠vk4aa.com.au