Those of us that document and report on the work done at ORI (https://openresearch.institute) make a concerted effort to highlight the positive progress from volunteers, projects, and collaborators. We've been very successful. It is a joy to help do the weekly reports. You should have received one earlier today.
Not all of our efforts have been treated well, and that's what I am going to talk about here in this post. Generally speaking, we simply take evasive action around silly things like censorship, personal attacks, gaslighting, power mongering, bullying, and so on. Our work speaks for itself. We have an excellent relationship with a wide variety of organizations ranging from IEEE to QSO Today.
However, when organizations like ARDC directly interfere with our work, it needs to be documented and disclosed. We need to protect the good faith investment of our community.
You might be familiar with the M17 Project. It's a digital voice protocol for VHF/UHF. ORI is M17 Project's fiscal sponsor, for a $250,000 grant from ARDC (https://www.ampr.org/).
Work has gone well. There's still work to do. There is $68,000 left on the grant.
Here's a summary of what ORI has contributed towards M17's success.
We donated back the customary overhead fee of 10%. We figured M17 needed the money more than we did. M17 got a dedicated bank account, shielding, professional tax accountant services, and other benefits of a non-profit corporation.
We purchased Open Lunar Foundation's surplus lab primarily in order to fully stock M17's "Shed Lab" - and any other lab needs the project might have around the world. We did this out of ORI's operating budget, since we'd been pretty frugal and had the margin to donate equipment to M17.
The equipment is in storage. We were able to convert a storage lease to $0 through negotiation. The equipment cost $25,000. The plan was to deliver the equipment in late spring 2022.
Here's what else ORI has done for M17.
We have presented M17 work at four IEEE meetings. Each of these presentations involved a lot of effort to properly frame different parts of the protocol. The presentations and meetings were very well received and worth doing, especially one on standardization of the protocol. We presented OpenRTX and M17 work at our own half-day Technical Advisory Committee Meetup, also an IEEE event. We wrote and produced the video presentation for M17 for FOSDEM. We produced video presentations for Ham Expo, provided logistics support for M17 at HamCation, provided forum space at HamCation for M17 talks, made space at ARRL's Expo for M17, submitted articles, heavily promoted M17 online, gave advice when appropriate, helped develop code, provided valuable protocol specification work (ongoing!), we raised $50,000 (as yet unspent) for ORI legal work related to M17, provided all the items requested by ESA for potential EchoStar tests, and gave direct access to the bank account to M17 team members so that they had maximum autonomy and could spend money efficiently.
We helped with a set of meetings to help break down barriers to inclusion in commercial work, and signed several discount deals for M17. We did demos, tested things in Remote Labs when requested, and presented at several ham club meetings. We even pinch hit as net control for the Friday M17 net when no one else was available. 5-6 volunteers across several ORI projects were directly involved in all of this work. A few others along the way have pitched in from time to time.
We made it clear we were ready to help apply for more grants as soon as any additional funding was needed.
ORI made a long-term commitment to M17 and followed through on it. We incorporated the protocol into our uplink plan for Phase 4 work. We attempted to design it in as the native digital protocol. This path was recommended by Howie DeFelice, who spotted M17 work early on and was the first to bring it up to ORI.
M17 protocol hard-codes in a low bit-rate encoder. Initial talks to interest M17 in developing a higher bitrate version were rejected. They were very focused on CODEC2 3200 bps and very focused on VHF/UHF. And, that is ok. No problem. ORI figured that we could support both M17 and also do a higher bitrate version based upon it. So, we kicked off development of a higher bitrate version for our uplink. It's a substantial departure from M17, but it's based upon it and is proceeding quickly and well. We found some bugs with the most commonly used M17 implementation and we improved documentation about M17. *At every step of the way, M17 was cited, promoted, and included.*
Things were going pretty well across the board. It really is an achievable project. According to the industry studies we have access to, M17 is competing in a crowded market with a shrinking consumer base. It's got an uphill battle, but we were all in.
At Hamvention 2022, Phil Karn and Rosy Schecter (ARDC) met with Ed Wilson (M17). In that conversation, ARDC offered another round of funding ($250,000) to M17. ARDC left Ed with the impression that it would be no problem to get the additional money.
But, only if M17 would dump ORI as a fiscal sponsor.
M17 said that ARDC told them that the reason was because ORI had IRS problems. Chelsea, the grants manager at ARDC, denied it when I asked about this.
However, multiple other people at Hamvention, including an ARDC volunteer, firmly stated that 1) ARDC made an assurance of financial support to M17 at an informal meetup outside the review process and 2) that ARDC was the source of a rumor about ORI having "IRS problems".
No, ORI does not have any "problems" with the IRS. There is no "confusion" about our status. Yes, we can accept grant money. Yes, we might end up a private operating foundation instead of a public charity in another few years. This has been talked about on this list before. No, there isn't a big difference between the two, as it turns out. Yes, ARDC is fully aware of all of this, because we are transparent and kept ARDC fully informed.
This situation is not something that any of us on ORI board have seen happen with any other grant-making organization, in any field. Speaking just for myself, I've executed four SBIRs, one STTR, multiple Catholic Church grants, Rady Children's Hospital grants, Burning Man art grants, was involved with two FCC Covid grants, and gotten pretty far into the process on 6-7 other grants in just the past 5 years or so. Other people on the board have similar backgrounds with granted or funded work in technology, art, and construction. We're in the process of applying for at least one FDA grant for AquaPhage, and we are always looking for NASA grants where our transponder work makes sense.
A funding source approaching a sponsored project like this - offering money but only if the project cuts out the actively contributing and successful fiscal sponsor - is not normal. None of us have ever seen this happen except at ARDC. It looks and smells like a bribe.
Unfortunately, bribes work.
We now know that Ed Wilson and other M17 leads started working on a proposal to take advantage of this "totally awesome" offer. They accepted the idea of dumping ORI and set themselves up to get ready to spend another quarter million dollars. This was done in secret, but there were several leaks. The planning document was accidentally published on M17's Discord server, and some of the group started to become uncomfortable with the situation and disclosed what was going on.
This wasn't a hypothetical conversation or a misunderstanding. M17 deliberately did not let anyone at ORI know about this meeting or the work they were doing to "dump" ORI. They justified it amongst themselves in several ways.
1) ORI was simply "fungible", meaning M17 believed that ORI was "interchangeable" with any other sponsor. ORI could be changed out at will without any repercussions. It's unclear where this idea came from. This attitude didn't exist before the conversation with ARDC.
2) Since ARDC has all the money, then ARDC calls the shots, and ARDC is in control of ham radio.
3) Claiming M17 isn't really an organization and therefore really didn't really make any decisions and shouldn't be held accountable.
These aren't positive things.
1) Fiscal sponsors that only provide a bank account and take a cut are in the broadest possible sense "fungible", but the people that sign the contracts are still putting their organization on the line. They are providing a service - even if it's "just banking" - and they really should be treated with respect. Even the most hands-off sponsor should be included in any discussions about additional funding or some sort of change where they're thrown overboard. That's just basic ordinary courtesy towards people that have stepped up to serve. We didn't get this basic courtesy from either ARDC or M17.
ARDC has done this sort of thing before. ARDC aggressively pursued a GNU Radio project lead about funding *on the ORI Slack account*. GNU Radio is a SETI Institute project. This conversation, which is still up on our Slack, was pretty darn lit. Bob McGwier repeatedly demanded that Derek Kozel "give me (ARDC) a number". Meaning, just give ARDC a number of dollars that GNU Radio wanted to receive. GNU Radio had already received a $50,000 gift from ARDC, which was given outside the proposal process. Bob's conversation with Derek looked like an informal deal to arrange for more cash for GNU Radio Project. GNU Radio is not incorporated but it has a functional and involved fiscal sponsor. The fiscal sponsor is who needs to be contacted if ARDC is hot to give away money to a project. Not individuals on a project.
I called Rosy Schecter about this. I said I wanted this to be a private conversation and for this sort of thing to please stop coming from ARDC because it was not helping grant-making. It's not the process we want to see in the community. Money should be given through reviewed proposals, following a process that anyone can look up, and preferably blind. Rosy agreed with me on the phone and she said she understood. However, she then revealed my name to Bob as the person that complained. Bob retaliated.
Instead of stopping this sort of thing, ARDC has kept doing it.
What was even more remarkable about this conversation, that is not obvious from reading it, is that Bob McGwier assured Derek that ARDC would pay for salaries. This is something ORI had been repeatedly and firmly told was not possible. We would have definitely included at least some contract money in the Phase 4 grant if we had not been told differently. When I asked about what seemed to be a big policy change, Bob snapped "Shit changes". Well, ok then. Good talk.
ARDC aggressively pursuing individual project members can and does undermine existing organizations and relationships. This isn't good stuff.
ORI was very involved with M17. We went above and beyond "just a bank account" involvement. Fiscal sponsors really aren't fungible, especially when they are involved and care about a project's success.
2) A worse problem is the belief that ARDC can order projects around like this, dictate or change terms after they've granted money, or reward people to exclude fiscal sponsors like ORI because it has lots and lots of money. If you think money in politics creates problems, then consider how an unregulated monopoly SuperPAC in amateur radio might have some very negative unintended consequences. Some of the money has definitely achieved good things. You can see evidence of this in every weekly report we publish. While ARDC is not our sole funding source, it is as of today the largest one, and money being turned into capabilities and published work is what it is supposed to be about. Threatening and excluding is not what it is supposed to be about, at all.
M17 received additional voicemail messages from John Hayes. John Hayes is the ARDC grants outreach manager. ORI has never received any messages from John Hayes (or anyone else at ARDC) about any problems at all with the M17 grant. If we'd gotten any complaints, we would have certainly acted upon them. In these voicemails, John Hayes told M17 they cannot use ORI any more. Way to manage a big grant, there, John. Super helpful.
3) M17 has no formal structure. However, M17 leads were treated like adults with agency, from the beginning. Either they can make decisions for their own project, or they can't. Since ORI believed they could, and since the respect was not reciprocal, ORI adjusted things to match what M17 said they wanted. Namely, that ORI was "just a bank account". We initiated a requirement that project funding needed to be requested from ORI with justification for specific disbursements. No new requests have been made since that change.
The way ARDC has behaved towards ORI with respect to M17 is part of a pattern of behavior. Here is an exchange about the ORI lab tour with Rosy and Chelsea. This came out of the blue.
https://w5nyv.blogspot.com/2022/07/hostile-email-from-ardc-communications.html
We honestly had no idea how to respond to this. We don't insult and threaten projects. We never expected to be threatened by a funding source. If I had written this email to a customer or client or collaborator, at *any job that has ever employed me*, then I would have been given a box and told to clean out my desk.
I'm sorry to tell you all that Rosy's email was approved, rewarded, and encouraged by the ARDC board. The next communication we received was a strange one, where we were interrogated about technical progress right after giving an hour-long interview about... our technical progress. There were no technical questions. Bob McGwier insisted that this email was constructed by the board specifically for ORI. It was a list of objectives in our five-year plan screen-shotted from our original grant request. There was no context. We had already achieved most of these goals. ORI board told me to reply. It felt like a trap, and it was.
ARDC has missed all of the regular reporting dates since October 2021 for all granted work at ORI. Rosy and Chelsea carry out these interviews. Why haven't we been interviewed about the excellent progress we've made? We don't know.
What else do we now know?
Two other grant applicants have had their proposals deleted before they got to the ARDC grant committee, simply because they wanted to work with ORI. One was told "you can choose any sponsor except ORI" and the other was told they couldn't use ORI as either a sponsor or even as a project partner. But, if they re-applied without us, their application would be welcome.
We suspect there might be more examples of this, since we have had talks with six other projects and (foolishly?) encouraged all of them to apply for ARDC grants and gave them our information as a fiscal sponsor. It is a big waste of time to carry water for ARDC, put time into reviewing or developing proposals, support individuals and groups in the community, and then have applicants treated like this.
We have no idea why ARDC behaves this way, since we have worked hard and have met all requirements associated with any grant awards from them.
What can we conclude from all this? What exactly should we do about it, if anything?
ARDC's fund is approximately the same size as the annual global amateur radio equipment market. Amateur radio is a small commercial market - However, this fund is a large amount of money in a hobby community that needs people and engagement much more than it needs money. Deliberately undermining groups like ORI, that do excellent work, bring in a lot of brand new technical people, and provide solid low-profile service to support projects, is baffling and harmful. Doing nothing about it, or pretending this isn't happening, doesn't seem like a good idea.
There are no other significant sources of funding at this time for amateur radio. All of the other major amateur foundations have accepted a lot of money, possibly with conditions outside the grant request, from ARDC. Funding efforts, like bake sales and kickstarters and club auctions, are much less successful now than they were before. This may be partly due to COVID, but we hear over and over from former fundraisers in ham radio that ARDC simply existing makes it much harder to convince people to donate.
ORI's work objectively and directly benefits amateur radio. This work can continue, but it can succeed only in an environment free of interference.
It's already difficult to do advanced open source work. We all know this. We have already proven we're a capable and functional organization.
The ORI board is a diverse set of volunteers who all have day jobs. Their time should be spent directing technical and regulatory work and not wasted responding to rear-guard actions, insults, threats, and blacklisting from super-wealthy organizations that should at least be benign and should definitely make at least an attempt to be open, honest, and fair.
ORI spent time and effort on M17 and has converted every ARDC dollar into a very good ROI in both published results and increased community capability. The way ORI's work has been treated over the past year by ARDC has been extremely disappointing. The ORI board has spent a lot of time talking about it, has gotten a lot of good legal and ethics advice, and it will need to make some decisions. The next board meeting is in mid-August at DEFCON.
Our focus could simply shift to be "open source digital radio work and any necessary regulatory work needed along the way". Amateur bands are a good place to test and experiment for open source digital radio work. We can continue to use these bands when they are appropriate or useful for space and terrestrial communications work. We are here to collaborate, share, and support.
Participating in the broader open source community has been a very positive experience.
We spend time on open source biomedical. Funding sources and institutional partners have treated ORI volunteers with respect.
ORI members are doing a good job at the FCC on the Technological Advisory Committee. We are active in the AI/ML working group and we co-chair a sub-working group. There's never been a whiff of anything other than respectful and active collaboration among the many industry and academic people that staff up the working groups.
Universities, other research groups, companies, and vendors? All good experiences, even when whatever we were trying to work on didn't pan out.
If you know of any other groups or organizations that have experienced similar things with ARDC, and they are afraid to speak up, please let them know they are not alone.
If you would like to help us do even more open source technical work - rather than letting us be terrified that the next project we generously support and promote will find ORI blacklisted as part of a funding 'deal' with ARDC! - then please speak up when you get an opportunity.
The ORI board takes a lot of risks in supporting what we all do. Those risks were not honored. We cannot afford to take any more chances with organizations that behave this way. Life is too short.
Providing a successful, organized, formal, incorporated space for volunteers *is not easy at all*. This has been just one challenge along the way. It was a big challenge and I'm writing this to all of you because I believe you all need to know about what a lot of us at ORI have been dealing with. It has really sucked. The silver lining is that we have ended up much stronger in the process of dealing with the bad behavior.
From here - what specific things can (or should) we do in order to better achieve our goals?
Comment and critique have always been welcome and encouraged, as have your messages of support and thanks. This letter is no different. If you have feedback about any of this for the board, then please write to board@lists.openresearch.institute
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