[amsat-bb] ORI receives half million dollar grant, and it's only the first.

[Phil Karn]

On 9/11/20 06:11, Joseph Armbruster via AMSAT-BB wrote:
> Bruce,
>
> When you say "everything that ARDC funds must be Open", as an observer, it
> makes me squirm in my seat just a little bit.  First, there's nothing in
> their articles of incorporation about that, ref:
> https://www.ampr.org/wp-content/uploads/articles.pdf. 

Nonprofits are advised to keep their articles of incorporation as
general as possible and put the more specific stuff in the Bylaws where
they can be more easily changed as needed.


>  I know that only
> means so much, and says nothing about it's membership and how they feel
> about things, but it is sufficient to say, that it funded at least one
> activity, namely the sale of some amateur IPs to a commercial entity, that
> many would argue is not an "Open" activity.  I suppose exceptions can
> always be made when there are Mega-bucks involved :-).  I get it.  I
> completely understand Phils response and how it is an action of financial
> opportunity, which has and will continue to benefit the amateur community.
> Nothing more to say except high-five to Phil and his crew for being in the
> right place at the right time, maintaining good relationships and
> leveraging a resource at a good time!  Quite the story, indeed!

ARDC is not a membership organization. Its policy is set by its board of
directors.

We have a pretty specific and widely accepted definition of "open": any
intellectual property we fund must be made freely available under one of
the accepted open source or Creative Commons licenses, as appropriate.
It does not mean that anything and everything ARDC has in its files must
be published. I don't think you'd expect us to openly publish access
credentials for our investment accounts, for example. But we will
release our financial information as required for any nonprofit.

ARDC expects to fund most open IP development through grants, but we may
also offer to "buy out" certain specific pieces of existing IP. E.g., we
may pay the publisher of a book or magazine or the author of a
proprietary computer program that we consider especially valuable to
make their work freely available under an open source or Creative
Commons license. Either way, ARDC's primary purpose is to increase the
amount of freely available technology, technical and educational
information available to hams and other experimenters.

Since our ultimate goal is education, we also contribute to scholarship
funds. This year we created a block of new scholarships through the
Foundation for Amateur Radio and we also matched, dollar for dollar,
every existing scholarship awarded by the ARRL Foundation.

Phil