This is a first-person account of how ARDC has corrupted amateur radio work. It does have a happy ending, but isn't a fun read if you're a fan of Michael Ossmann or Great Scott Gadgets.
After converting a community asset into a privately controlled fund without notice or discussion, it seems that a large majority of the happy new owners of $100+ million at ARDC decided that whatever they wanted to happen should happen, regardless of the reality on the ground or who people wanted to work with.
Grants at ARDC have done some good, but there's been a lot of silly power mongering, control freak behavior, and interference. This negative stuff has seriously impacted the potential good.
Below is just one example.
This is a conversation between the CEO and founder of Great Scott Gadgets, and the CEO of Open Research Institute, about a project that GSG wanted ORI to partner with.
Emails referred to in the conversation has been inserted into the record.
The documents referred to in the conversation are available on request.
And, a thank you to everyone that has supported ORI's mission and efforts. Experiences like this, coming out of non-technical and unprofessional motives, can definitely harm people that aren't ready for them or don't have support. Others have not be as fortunate as ORI in avoiding harm.
Merit, ethics, and consistently good results can win in the end. Stay true to doing the right thing regardless of temporary setbacks.
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mossmann — 4/22/22, 07:11
Might ORI be interested in partnering with Great Scott Gadgets for an open source hardware development project? It's something we'd like to do, and I think ARDC may like to fund it, but we are a for-profit company. I was wondering if we could do the work as a subcontractor via ORI
abraxas3d — 4/22/22, 07:48
We'd be happy to help. Please feel free to use us.
EIN 82-3945232
Current address
#1873 3525 Del Mar Heights Road, San Diego, CA 92130-2199 USA
Let me know if you need anything else.
mossmann — 4/22/22, 08:42
Cool! So do we submit the application ourselves but name ORI as primary? Does ORI want to review our application before submission?
abraxas3d — 4/22/22, 08:49
Yes you would submit, name ORI as the primary, and the ORI board would enjoy the opportunity to review the application, but consensus is that it would meet or exceed the standards we have. You understand open source, design, manufacturing, and finance.
We can do as little as simply provide a formal structure and stay out of the way, or we can help with anything that we might be good at.
We bank at Wells Fargo as a default, but if that is inconvenient or impossible for any reason I am sure we can figure something out.
Ready to help however we can.
mossmann — 4/22/22, 08:56
I think we're well equipped to run the project on our own. Assuming minimal ORI involvement, how much should we budget for ORI's cut
abraxas3d — 4/22/22, 09:02
Whatever ARDC allows as customary overhead would be gratefully appreciated. Default has been 0.
mossmann — 4/25/22, 12:22
We're looking at the application and finding ourselves a bit confused by the statement "Individuals may be eligible if you work with a fiscal sponsor. US-based and international for-profit businesses are currently not eligible for ARDC grants." It seems to suggest that GSG (a for-profit company) would not be eligible even with a fiscal sponsor. Has ORI been the fiscal sponsor for a for-profit company applying for an ARDC grant? Should we list GSG as the Organization and ORI as the Fiscal Sponsor, or should we list ORI as the Organization and just mention GSG as a sub-contractor elsewhere in the application text? (as Affiliation under Authors?)
abraxas3d — 4/25/22, 13:08
Good questions. I am not an expert, but non-profits can work with for-profits, if it's in line with the mission statement of the non-profit. That part is clear under IRS regulatory framework. Yes, we've worked with for-profits twice, both successfully.
If you list ORI as applying and GSG as a sub-contractor, it would fit the best way possible, given my understanding of how private foundations work.
If there's any trouble then we can also try ARRL Foundation. There's three others after that that are open-source friendly.
Like anything else worth doing, patience and persistence can and does pay off.
mossmann — 4/25/22, 13:17
Thank you!
mossmann — 4/27/22, 14:56
Here is our draft application for your review:
Attachment file type: acrobat
ARDCGrantApplication-270422-2154.pdf
20.96 KB
We plan to improve the formatting a bit. This is a direct export from our collaboration tool.
(and/or we'll just paste things into their form)
We propose that ORI retain the $25k "Other indirect costs" and pass the rest through to GSG.
abraxas3d — 4/27/22, 15:14
Thank you, and looking forward to helping out however we can.
mossmann — 4/27/22, 15:33
We didn't notice until after we started working on it that there is a 1 May deadline that we hope to meet. If you are able to review it this week, we would greatly appreciate it!
abraxas3d — 4/27/22, 15:33
Will do.
abraxas3d — 4/28/22, 17:08
First round of review received and here it is.
At Michelle’s request I’ve reviewed the proposal from Michael Ossman, “A Low-Cost Open-Source Universal Radio Test Instrument” as emailed to the ORI Board mailing list on 27 April. Here are my comments.
The first thing that jumps out is that the proposal is about 85% salaries and benefits. That alone may be grounds for rejection by ARDC. There isn’t much to be done about that, on this type of proposal: that’s where the big costs are.
The proposal is apparently for all the work to be done by paid employees at Great Scott Gadgets. This isn’t the best possible look for a grant proposal. If there’s any volunteer help involved at all, it would be advantageous to call that out. Try to put a value on it. The more volunteer hours can be leveraged, the better those salary expenses look. I’d go so far as to say that some extra salary expense to cover a community relations person might be well justified.
A lawyer or somebody more familiar than I with the public support test for non-profits should review the wisdom of including “Great Scott Gadget contribution” as a line item on the budget spreadsheet. It might be better to omit it, reduce the salary amounts by the same total amount, and then have a text paragraph emphasizing how GSG will be paying about half of the salary cost of the project.
The phasing plan has a good level of detail, and makes sense to me. I suspect the schedule of being aggressive.
The phasing plan doesn’t include any work items for documenting and publishing design details and APIs, or for reviewing and accepting any feedback that might result. These steps are essential to creating a viable open-source user community. The earlier in the process these documents can appear, the better.
I have solicited more and am standing by, gently nagging people.
mossmann — 4/28/22, 19:31
Thank you! This is excellent feedback. I think the suggestions for further commitments to open processes, patents, etc. are excellent
mossmann — 4/28/22, 19:38
We struggled with how to present the budget and with the "could be funded by hardware sales" paragraph (which we considered cutting entirely, but I wanted to see what feedback we would get). We thought of presenting the budget in three ways: 1) Only listing budget items that we're seeking help for (as the reviewer suggested), 2) Listing all budget items for the full scope of development and deducting the amount that we're prepared to invest (which we did), or 3) Listing all budget items and asking for the full amount (which seems greedy since we are prepared to self-fund part of the project).
Another thing we might mention is that the reason we are seeking external funding is to hire more help for the project. While we do have talent on staff that could perform the work, they are quite busy with other important things. We can ask them to spend only a small portion of their time on this project, so we are looking for outside funding that would allow us to grow the team in order to complete this project.
Also we do have a community manager on staff whom we do anticipate helping with this project. We maybe should have included that in the budget.
abraxas3d — 4/29/22, 07:26
Understand. I'd definitely include the community manager. Hiring people to do open source work should be exactly the sort of thing this fund spends money on. We proposed that ARDC should hire people and loan them out to projects on a proposal basis. Sort of like a clearinghouse for extra horsepower. We've heard nothing back from this. We've proposed hiring people directly to do this. We've heard nothing back. Seeing more proposals might tip the balance over. We know for a fact they reversed their "no salaries! volunteers only!" rule. It's just a matter of matching up excellent work with what they can say yes to. This goes for any fund, not just this one.
Emphasis on growing the team to do open source work from a totally proven and active supporter of open source work (GSC) seems like it would be a high-probability-of-success proposal to me.
mossmann — 4/29/22, 07:41
Thank you for the insight into ARDC and for your efforts to influence them! It’s pretty shocking that they had to be convinced to spend money on labor.
abraxas3d — 4/29/22, 07:54
They did. They had to be convinced that a CoC was a good idea as well. So far, they've posted a survey about CoCs on Twitter.
mossmann — 4/29/22, 07:54
I would be happy to mention that we will have a CoC for our project (as we do for our other projects and Discord server).
abraxas3d — 4/29/22, 07:56
Yes. ORI requires a CoC from projects, and uses one for the "thin client" organizational structure that we have.
Am familiar with yours, having read over it at least twice.
It's essentially industry standard.
Yes, orgs can paste up a CoC and never enforce it. It ends up being something on a website and not "really real". But, it's clear GSC inhabits the policies.
It's just not something that can be faked.
mossmann — 4/29/22, 09:12
Just went for a run and couldn't stop thinking about this. Literally the only significant barriers to open source development are outreach and folks being able to spend time on open source development. 🤦
abraxas3d — 4/29/22, 09:25
Yes. I could not agree more.
We constantly get people asking if they could possibly work for ORI.
Sustainability in Open Source (which is now a significant part of truly important infrastructure, and responsible for trillion dollar companies being successful) is not where it needs to be.
outreach is punishingly hard.
Repetition is the cornerstone of propaganda. Maybe it just needs to be repeated more. We even named it: "Engineers General". Like Attorneys General, but with technical people.
At some point you have to pay people to do this work. It's really and truly important. It really and truly exists. It really and truly is profitable. It really and truly is already a completely irreplaceable part of the economy.
I'm not sure why it's been so hard. There seems to be a large fraction that expects people to volunteer and be passionate and also produce the sort of complex designs that modern open source absolutely has to have.
This means the volunteer corps is extremely limited to independently wealthy people.
It cannot happen if that's the contact patch.
abraxas3d — 4/29/22, 09:34
Trying to go in through schools has been interesting. The thinking here was "we have professionals donating their time. Maybe students are easier."
And the answer there was "no, not really, but not because of the students"
It was because of the way Universities work
Universities wanted a lot of money.
And then, and only then, would the project be put in front of students.
And maybe they would choose it. And maybe they wouldn't.
Either way, the money was gone.
Sometimes you can get a professor that "keelhauls the kids in". But that's retail politics right there, and not scale-able or sustainable either.
So, we have done both.
You are on the right track.
We will help however we can.
mossmann — 4/29/22, 09:56
Can you tell me more about exactly what you mean by "Engineers General"?
abraxas3d — 4/29/22, 09:5
Yes, it was our name for "let's try and hire people to tackle the work that open source never seems to have enough time to do". Mainly sustaining engineering and "making it work well" issues.
Not blank paper "fun" design work.
Engineers General would be salaried people that could be assigned to projects that needed more reliable seat-time human resources.
To accomplish specific goals.
Like a Peace Corps for open source amateur radio work.
Multiple conference calls, long email threads, interviews with 40+ people that wanted to do this.
So far crickets from ARDC.
We found that women engineers would simply not take a single-year contract. We found that the right number for everyone was somewhere around 3 years for anything substantial.
We got IEEE salary data and made a salary model and presented it to ARDC.
There is definitely a need for an organized response to open source employment.
Maybe the Ford Foundation or something like that would give some feedback.
Another path is the COSS or commercial open source software world. Need hardware to run software, and COSS funding is surprisingly large.
It's quite the landscape out there.
mossmann — 4/29/22, 11:59
Have you approached any universities outside the US?
abraxas3d — 4/29/22, 12:18
Yes - University of Wurtzberg. They do UWE-Sats. Polite answer; no traction on collaboration.
abraxas3d — 4/29/22, 15:40
Second reviewer:
Concurrence with previous comments, and would also add to the comments about open process that I'd like to see releases of code, information and related documentation by phase, as described in the schedule.
Especially agree with wanting more details about what the plans are for sales after completion of the design - otherwise this reads a lot like "Hey, pay for our product development. We'll open source it!"
Third Reviewer
I'm not sure of whether there will be widespread adoption at a price point close to $1K. There's a large gap between the nanoVNA, HackRF One, PortaPack, and the proposed product. On the other hand, it might be really useful for the classroom. Also, I'm not sure whether this sort of analysis is even relevant to the grant request.
I do think that the device might be useful for a lot of the sorts of things that ORI volunteers are working on.
I think that their description of how the project fulfills ARDC's goals is about as good as can be.
Third reviewer:
I would emphasize that the grant will result in 50 units being in the hands of community contributors and experimenters.
Second reviewer:
I think that if anyone can deliver on this it's Michael and GSG
mossmann — 4/29/22, 15:49
Awesome! Thanks! I'm almost done with the (hopefully) final draft.
mossmann — 4/29/22, 18:24
Here's our second (possibly final) draft:
Attachment file type: acrobat
a-low-cost-open-source-universal-radio-test-instrument-proposal.pdf
131.60 KB
mossmann — 4/29/22, 18:35
We greatly appreciate the feedback from ORI. I'm sure it has helped us make the proposal much stronger.
mossmann — 4/30/22, 10:18
This was submitted with some very minor changes from last night's draft. You should have received an email (probably two because Elizabeth experienced an error with the form) with a link to the submission. Thank you so much for all your help!
abraxas3d — 4/30/22, 10:20
Happy to help! Yes, I see the email confirmation. Looking forward to hearing back.
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ardc@ampr.org
Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 9:28 AM
to me, Elizabeth, Michael
Thank you for submitting your grant application to ARDC!
Title: A Low-Cost Open-Source Universal Radio Test Instrument
Authors: Michelle Thompson (Open Research Institute)
Michael Ossmann (Great Scott Gadgets)
Elizabeth Hendrex (Great Scott Gadgets)
Site: https://mailman.ampr.org/hotcrp/paper/272?cap=0272a2whDZRztHx8
Thank you for submitting your proposal! We will contact you with any
questions we have.
<ul>
<li>For proposals submitted before February 15, 2022 we will let you know
if it was accepted by April 22, 2022</li>
<li>For proposals submitted before May 1, 2022 we will let you know if it
was accepted by July 8, 2022</li>
<li>For proposals submitted before July 15, 2022 we will let you know if it
was accepted by September 15, 2022</li
<li>For proposals submitted before October 1, 2022 we will let you know if
it was accepted by December 16, 2022</li>
<li>For proposals submitted after October 1, 2022 we will let you know if
it was accepted in early spring 2023</li>
</ul>
We encourage you to reach out with questions of your own: giving@ampr.org
- ARDC Grants Submissions
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Chelsea Parraga <giving@ardc.net>
Tue, May 17, 2022, 2:01 PM
to me, Michael, Elizabeth, board
Dear Great Scott Gadgets and Open Research Institute,
We regret to inform you that we are declining your grant proposal to ARDC for “#272 A Low-Cost Open-Source Universal Radio Test Instrument."
We'd like to encourage Great Scott Gadgets to reapply with a different project partner and fiscal sponsor. If you have any questions you may contact our staff.
Thank you for the time you invested in your applications, we know this news is disappointing.
Sincerely,
Chelsea
Grants Manager
chelsea@ardc.net
520-471-6903
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
No technical or capability objection was made. In fact, the exact same grant application from GSG was accepted in a back room deal and assigned to Tucson Amateur Packet Radio (TAPR) as fiscal sponsor. TAPR is a legacy organization in amateur radio. ARDC decided to simply choose TAPR as the "winner", even after ORI had contributed materially to the quality of the technical content, and even after ORI proved to have a very successful track record on all prior projects including all grants with all funders.
So why the weird rejection and backroom deal?
ARDC simply didn't want ORI to be part of the grant because the CEO of ORI had repeatedly turned down romantic and sexual overtures from the then President of ARDC, Phil Karn. Phil had proposed better grant access if the CEO of ORI attended a sex party with him, to "discuss possible work in a more comfortable venue".
Comfortable for him.
He repeatedly asked the female CEO of ORI out for dinner, alone.
Politely declining all of these invitations resulted in "tension" and retribution from ARDC.
Michael Ossmann knew about this history. The sexual proposition happened in 2019. Michael was told about it in person at the 2019 GNU Radio Conference in Huntsville, AL.
Unfortunately, it doesn't matter how sympathetic many people seem to be to unfair or disgusting behavior. When it comes down to their self interest, they will choose themselves. Not everyone is like this, and ORI probably made a bad bet in spending time and energy with Great Scott Gadgets. It did seem like a good bet based on previous positive interactions. However, the amount of cash created from selling off a valuable community asset proved to be irresistible.
ORI volunteers immediately started working on alternative funding sources for the test equipment project, with established funding sources that would be much more positive to work with. We offered our own fundraising portal for an in-house effort. This was a big step, but we believed in the project and were confident of its success.
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abraxas3d — 5/17/22, 14:03
I have it in writing from earlier today where the ARDC board admits to rejecting any ORI proposal. I've never seen anything like it, but based on the personalities of the board members, I'm not surprised.
I think it might be a good fit for NSF SBIR/STTR, if you wanted to try there. We're registered and have participated in the past. We made the final round with Open Lunar Foundation for a radio project last year.
abraxas3d — 5/17/22, 16:38
IEEE Foundation is another one to consider, but I haven't read through their application guidelines yet.
From the overview page "EPICS in IEEE (Engineering Projects in Community Service) supports community based projects. The project must involve a non-profit organization partner, and must provide a technical solution in IEEE fields of interests to problems in one or more of the EPICS in IEEE categories. Learn more."
abraxas3d — 5/20/22, 08:03
Would you like me to talk to NSF and IEEE?
We also have our own fundraising portal. We use Commit Change.
mossmann — 5/21/22, 08:32
Hey, thank you, Michelle! I'm just starting to catch up after being offline while busy moving out of my house and lab in Colorado. I'm now en route to my new home in Ontario, Canada. I'll follow up with you next werk.
abraxas3d — 5/21/22, 08:43
Ontario! It's beautiful there!
Safe journies and talk to you soon.
abraxas3d — 6/3/22, 10:14
Checking in.
mossmann — 6/10/22, 13:01
Hey! Sorry I've been distracted, but we are definitely interested in following up with you regarding the funding opportunities you suggested, particularly NSF.
Is this the solicitation you had in mind? https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2022/nsf22551/nsf22551.htm?org=NSF
abraxas3d — 6/10/22, 13:25
Yes - that's the general class of grant that I think this work could get funding for. You wouldn't need us as a fiscal sponsor, I don't think - it's designed for small business, directly.
The societal benefit of what you do in general, and what this particular thing would do specifically, does light up the program goals.
You are, to me, exactly what it should be helping.
we'd be happy to be a partner research institution (required)
it's a parallel thing, not a fiscal sponsor thing.
or you could choose any other research institution you like.
The primary investigator "must have a legal right to work for the proposing company in the United States, as evidenced by citizenship, permanent residency, or an appropriate visa." so if you have that, and are the PI, then it's good.
I know you mentioned moving to Canada and I am not up to date on that or what it means or implies with respect to GSC, but there is a lot of latitude in NSF grants because people willing to do the work you have been doing are kind of thin on the ground, to be honest.
This is just one option - there are others.
mossmann — 6/10/22, 13:51
I'm a US citizen and certainly eligible to work for GSG. So far I am a temporary resident of Canada and still maintain my primary residence in the US (Michigan).
abraxas3d — 6/10/22, 13:52
I see zero impediment.
abraxas3d — 6/11/22, 07:08
IEEE EPICS too - let me dig in and try and figure out what's still needed to apply there. Locally, SDSU is putting in an application through IEEE SD Section (I'm currently the section chair) and I can use what I learn in the process of that, for an application for GSC.
Test equipment for ham radio could get an ARRL club grant (up to $24,999) but we're not a club, so we'd have to find someone to apply. I don't think that would be very hard at all.
abraxas3d — 6/11/22, 07:57
I can ask SBMS, if that would be ok with you?
mossmann — 6/11/22, 07:58
sure!
abraxas3d — 6/11/22, 08:00
It might rule out commercial work in the rules. I'll check and then ask if it can go ahead. And, I'm looking out for more sources too.
abraxas3d — 6/12/22, 13:29
No commercial awards for ARRL - not surprising.
abraxas3d — 9/9/22, 12:02
Hello from webinar!
Sent you email about sam.gov registration.
We had to do the 2022 ID check the old-fashioned way - with a paper letter sent to us with a code. Sort of like LoTW 😄
mossmann — 9/9/22, 12:03
Thanks for letting me know about the webinar.
abraxas3d — 9/9/22, 12:03
of course
very curious about the details.
ESA has something very similar, that is quite excellent, but isn't as general purpose as this one seems to be.
abraxas3d — 9/9/22, 12:12
This is very promising so far.
abraxas3d — 9/9/22, 13:27
TIP division might be something to look at too
And CCSI. I think that's where the 4 grants I was working on with Dr. Moberley came from.
abraxas3d — 9/9/22, 13:59
ok we're going to talk about it at the board level and see what we can come up with.
abraxas3d — 9/12/22, 08:12
Derek Kozel says they're going to apply for GNU Radio. I thought that was interesting, since I view GNU Radio as having an established ecosystem already. Derek doesn't feel that way. He views GNU Radio as in crisis and burning out volunteer leaders. POSE seems to be something he believes can fix the problems that he perceives.
mossmann — 9/12/22, 08:30
That seems reasonable to me. Even if the ecosystem appears healthy, it's worth applying for funding if you could make the ecosystem even better with that funding.
abraxas3d — 9/12/22, 08:30
I view GNU Radio as trapped in a local maximum.
mossmann — 9/12/22, 08:31
fair
abraxas3d — 9/12/22, 08:32
Given what Derek described, it sounds like some stagnation and stress is going on. I'm not clear on how money can kick it clear of that trap. My gut instinct is that it needs a lot more engaged people enforcing some processes that might not be working as good as they should.
I sent Derek the link to the webinar page and told him the slides had a LOT of stuff about the life cycle of the grant and what tests were going to be applied. I think that will help them a lot.
If funding can get engagement (doesn't always happen) then the things Derek is talking about could get fixed pretty fast. It's a mature product (in my opinion) but the number of PRs and stuff seems to be piling up.
I found a really good book about open source software (Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software) and it talks about this sort of thing.
You can get to a state where the "upper part" like the PRs and issues and swirling about in the github repos starts to dominate, and the original product vision starts to get pulled off track. I guess it's because people assume the product is "done".
This isn't necessarily bad, I don't think. You have to have some sort of base to modify. You have to say something is done enough to be made or sold or withstand scrutiny or review.
Derek sees the core dev team of GNU Radio as not letting the software be "done" but also not touching the runtime, which to him is pretty creaky and needs attention.
Hence wholesale changes that nuke all older flowgraphs, or blocks being written out from under people, things like that.
abraxas3d — 9/12/22, 08:39
He wanted a code freeze back in 2020 just to catch up with what he thought were necessary maintenance and documentation issues. This didn't happen.
I didn't ask him if SETI was helping write the grant. The application to POSE is pretty daunting. Steve Conklin, our CFO, is reading through all that stuff they linked to in the webinar.
mossmann — 9/12/22, 08:41
Yeah, It is quite daunting. I'm going to discuss some possibilities with Elizabeth this week, but I suspect we will not pursue an application because it's so difficult and costly to apply.
abraxas3d — 9/12/22, 08:43
If there's anything I can do to help out let me know. We might try with Opulent Voice, especially if it can be an alternative to VARA.
I wish I'd known about the Phase 1 before it happened - I read over that page and it was simpler.
Someone in Q&A asked if they were going to do another full round (starting at Phase 1) but I don't remember that question being answered.
abraxas3d — 11/7/22, 12:06
Checking in - ready to apply for anything that might help GSG.
mossmann — 11/7/22, 15:28
Hey, Michelle! We ended up getting our project funded by ARDC after reapplying with TAPR in the late spring. We haven’t announced it yet as there are a few loose ends we’re dealing with in our arrangement with TAPR.
We decided that POSE isn’t for us.
We were considering the NSF SBIR/STTR solicitation for a longer-term project, but we weren’t able to act in time and now are very busy trying to ramp up the project with TAPR. We may be interested in exploring similar opportunities in 2023.
abraxas3d — 11/7/22, 21:01
You went with ARDC even though you knew about the sexual harassment from ARDC's president? I shared this with you at Huntsville GRCon.
I declined Phil Karn's repeated advances. He tied dating him to future grant requests. I complained to their board in private. They have done all they can to cover it up. The retribution has been deeply unfair and damaging.
abraxas3d — 11/7/22, 21:10
It has ranged from simply bribing projects at ORI to leave, to lies about our qualifications and status.
abraxas3d — 11/7/22, 21:17
I feel sad that we were not included as volunteers or collaborators, after we made a commitment to support this. Was there a reason?
It would be reassuring to hear about this longer term project you have in mind.
Schedules for SBIRs can be long. They do not tend to have rolling deadlines.
abraxas3d — 11/8/22, 07:51
I'm copying your reply above to the ORI board, so I don't get anything wrong. They were very enthusiastic about working with GSG.
mossmann — 11/10/22, 04:36
I was troubled by your report of Phil's behavior. It is one of the reasons I came to you first when we began to consider ARDC as a funding source.
I would not donate to ARDC, but I will take their money and put it toward something that I believe is a positive contribution to the community. We felt that the universal radio test instrument project was a better fit for ARDC's program than for any of the other funding sources we had identified.
We plan to gift prototype hardware to volunteers but have not yet made the project public. GSG will be running the project, not TAPR or ARDC. You are welcome to be involved if you would like.
The longer term project we have in mind is a research project exploring hardware designs and DSP techniques for SDR using high speed digital transceivers as 1-bit ADCs or DACs. This would, at least initially, use the 5+ GHz SERDES available in many FPGAs.
abraxas3d — 11/10/22, 07:09
Thank you. It's been incredibly painful.
abraxas3d — 11/10/22, 07:22
I have stories about TAPR, but maybe some other time.
abraxas3d — 11/10/22, 07:32
ARDC doesn't solicit or take donations. They don't need money in any way. Four men decided that they personally owned a huge block of IPv4 addresses. These addresses were given to the amateur radio community and were supposed to be managed for the benefit of all. They woke up one day, decided to sell them to amazon without any community involvement, discussion, notice, or feedback, and have asserted ever since that they personally and privately own this money. They've asserted other even more out there things, but that's the original sin of this money and that's one of the reasons they act the way they do.
Yes, you should use it for the good. We do.
According to ARDC, ORI "tricked" them into any money we've received from them.
Those applications were written by NSF grant managers, so it's not like they were bad applications.
abraxas3d — 11/10/22, 07:41
I'll do what I can do to lay groundwork for highspeed SERDES. We have a lot of this sort of thing working already in Remote Labs. Get back to me when there's opportunity to move forward.
abraxas3d — 11/11/22, 08:20
How much can I say about the research project? Today's our weekly report.
mossmann — 11/11/22, 08:49
I’d rather not have it mentioned in public yet.
abraxas3d — 11/11/22, 11:29
Ok.
abraxas3d — 11/27/22, 09:47
I think that you are assuming we'll survive wealthy organizations like ARDC poaching project after project, lying about our volunteers and work, and telling amateur radio organizations to ignore us "or else".
It's not clear that anyone, not even me and the wonderful people that work with me at ORI, can survive this.
Do you have a timeline for the SERDES project, so we can line things up for it to be a success?
abraxas3d — 1/14/23, 09:22
I'd like an answer.
mossmann — 1/16/23, 04:29
I'm sorry, but I haven't had time to think about future projects lately. We do not have a timeline.
abraxas3d — 4/5/23, 08:55
The experience with the GSC ARDC grant turned out to be the final attempt from ORI to serve the amateur radio community. We were all stunned that you waited months to reveal you'd dumped us for quick cash. If you'd been honest about it at the time, it would have been appreciated. TAPR never had any intention of including ORI, since they'd already been "instructed" to blacklist and exclude ORI volunteers, on penalty of losing their TangerineSDR grant. We got this in writing because Scotty Cowling forgets who is included on TAPR Slack, and they freely discussed how best to cut us out of the things in order to ensure grant money. None of the years of service and public promotion of TAPR, collaboration with that organization, and effort mattered, at all.
I'm now 50, and I have had a hard life full of starting over. I've been able to tackle each of these transitions with quiet optimism and a fair amount of competence, and succeed. I'm honestly just too old to completely start over after being wiped out again by a hobby-consuming SuperPAC that apes venture capital firms.
abraxas3d — 5/23/23, 09:49
Still very disappointed in a sex pest interfering with grants and activity in amateur radio. I expected so much more from you, and many others in the community.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
No reply from Michael Ossmann since then. I can understand. If I had done what he had done, I would avoid the person he took advantage of, too. I'd be deeply ashamed and would want to hide it or get away from it as soon as I possibly could.
ORI, in anticipation of a successful outcome for the GSG grant, had invited TAPR to collaborate on the work. Multiple coordination phone calls with Scotty Cowling, TAPR's President at the time, had happened, keeping him in the loop and starting the planning process for producing hardware for the community.
TAPR returned this open and honest effort by... taking the secret backroom deal that ARDC offered GSG, which required ORI to be excluded. There was no explanation for the exclusion to anyone, and no one involved asked about it or objected to it, despite the obvious "Mean Girls" methods.
TAPR wanted the overhead percentage from the grant more than they wanted the ongoing and productive relationship with ORI, so they accepted the terms. TAPR hid this backroom deal from ORI, with the TAPR President literally having phone conversations where TAPR was informed, invited, and included to participate, *after* the backroom deal had been struck.
Maybe TAPR hoped that ORI wouldn't notice?
What comes around goes around. TAPR has fewer paid members than are on the #fpga channel of ORI's Slack account. TAPR is no longer able to field their annual event (DCC) and struggles to fill their newsletter. ORI continues to grow, has an active calendar, hosts their own events, and has a newsletter with a lot of content. At nearly 100 repositories on GitHub between the terrestrial and space projects, it's clear where the momentum and activity is happening.
We think the SERDES project mentioned only in this conversation, and appearing nowhere else, was something that Michael made up on the spot. This proposal was never serious. If it had been, then he would have provided at least some level of detail and wouldn't have resisted publicizing it in order to recruit volunteers. It just smelled bad, as if it was a way to distract attention from a raw deal. Moving on quickly was the best solution.
Our advice based on this experience?
Follow an ethical path. Never lie to or hide things from your partners, especially when they show up and deliver solid work for you. Don't accept weird, sexist, gross behavior from people with money. That is indeed what happened here. Do not trust the enablers and excusers of weird, sexist, and gross behavior. Those people will only do you harm in the long run.
It may feel temporarily that you're alone or harmed if you refuse to accept corruption, but that feeling fades very fast when you find a cleaner and more successful environment.
And, you will find those environments.
-mdt
