Re: [amsat-bb] Who I'm voting for (long)
I see a lot of "old space" vs. "new space" in what you wrote, Steve. To start with:
Some, if not all of the NDAs state that the content of the NDA and its existence will not be disclosed by AMSAT.
The big difference here is confidentiality vs. transparency. New space is represented by organizations that are extremely transparent. LibreSpace https://libre.space/ is a good example: everything they do is 100% Open Source, and they built the satellites that AMSAT-EA is launching, and a huge worldwide ground station network. Those Genesis N and L satellites http://perens.com/static/AppliedIon/AMSAT-EA-Newsletter_11-2019.pdf have electric thrusters by Applied Ion Systems https://appliedionsystems.com/, A USA-based researcher, also 100% Open Source. ORI is similar: USA based, 100% open.
About those thrusters. Those AMSAT-EA satellites are going to
Then, there is AMSAT. You imply (if not confirm) that AMSAT has agreements so secret that they can't tell the membership that they exist.
Why are all of the other guys open? Because 100% openness is the only strategy that protects you from ITAR/EAR and its equivalents in other nations. It is proprietary research that is protected by ITAR, not the stuff you publish. Ask commercial companies like 3D Robotics https://www.3dr.com/, who have the US Government as *their major customer,* and participate in Dronecode https://www.dronecode.org/ because 100% public disclosure is the only good way to get around ITAR.
There used to be a justification for AMSAT's secrecy, in that we thought that nobody would launch our satellites if we didn't act like old space. But those other organizations are getting more satellites launched than AMSAT has been. They are also building more, and designing more.
It illustrates the problem that you were made afraid, by AMSAT's ITAR preoccupation, to publicly distribute the plans for *a plastic model of the appearance of a cubesat.* There just can't be anything that isn't public knowledge about that.
If we all continue to vote for more of the same old stuff, I am convinced that AMSAT will continue its slide toward bankruptcy and irrelevance, and will have a smaller and smaller working group, and eventually there won't be an AMSAT and the open guys will take over anyway. It would be much better for AMSAT to join the present.
I will be voting for Bob and Howie, because they are unquestionable space professionals with a long history of innovation, and after Tom steps down we won't have anyone else who is close to Bob and Howie's level. And Jeff, because while he's more of a regular ham than a rocket scientist, he is open to the future where others are not.
Thanks
Bruce
Oops, sorry to leave a piece out:
About those thrusters. Those AMSAT-EA satellites are going to
They will do:
Orbit change. Orbit maintenance. Collision avoidance. Deorbit.
That is not coming from AMSAT-NA or any non-Open organization.
On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 2:39 PM Bruce Perens bruce@perens.com wrote:
I see a lot of "old space" vs. "new space" in what you wrote, Steve. To start with:
Some, if not all of the NDAs state that the content of the NDA and its existence will not be disclosed by AMSAT.
The big difference here is confidentiality vs. transparency. New space is represented by organizations that are extremely transparent. LibreSpace https://libre.space/ is a good example: everything they do is 100% Open Source, and they built the satellites that AMSAT-EA is launching, and a huge worldwide ground station network. Those Genesis N and L satellites http://perens.com/static/AppliedIon/AMSAT-EA-Newsletter_11-2019.pdf have electric thrusters by Applied Ion Systems https://appliedionsystems.com/, A USA-based researcher, also 100% Open Source. ORI is similar: USA based, 100% open.
About those thrusters. Those AMSAT-EA satellites are going to
Then, there is AMSAT. You imply (if not confirm) that AMSAT has agreements so secret that they can't tell the membership that they exist.
Why are all of the other guys open? Because 100% openness is the only strategy that protects you from ITAR/EAR and its equivalents in other nations. It is proprietary research that is protected by ITAR, not the stuff you publish. Ask commercial companies like 3D Robotics https://www.3dr.com/, who have the US Government as *their major customer,* and participate in Dronecode https://www.dronecode.org/ because 100% public disclosure is the only good way to get around ITAR.
There used to be a justification for AMSAT's secrecy, in that we thought that nobody would launch our satellites if we didn't act like old space. But those other organizations are getting more satellites launched than AMSAT has been. They are also building more, and designing more.
It illustrates the problem that you were made afraid, by AMSAT's ITAR preoccupation, to publicly distribute the plans for *a plastic model of the appearance of a cubesat.* There just can't be anything that isn't public knowledge about that.
If we all continue to vote for more of the same old stuff, I am convinced that AMSAT will continue its slide toward bankruptcy and irrelevance, and will have a smaller and smaller working group, and eventually there won't be an AMSAT and the open guys will take over anyway. It would be much better for AMSAT to join the present.
I will be voting for Bob and Howie, because they are unquestionable space professionals with a long history of innovation, and after Tom steps down we won't have anyone else who is close to Bob and Howie's level. And Jeff, because while he's more of a regular ham than a rocket scientist, he is open to the future where others are not.
Thanks Bruce
Michelle / Bruce (et al),
Per your comments in "[amsat-bb] Who I'm voting for (long)", i'd like to pull the Open Source / ITAR Conversation into a separate thread, because I think it's a good discussion to have. It's really two separate discussions but they do overlap now and then (and sometimes in non-obvious ways). I have independently dealt with the DDTC and gone through the export permitting process for defense articles, however I have never done so for AMSAT. What is your perspective on some of these questions:
1) How does AMSAT benefit by pursuing an open source policy? 2) What are the disadvantages of AMSAT pursuing an open source policy? 3) Say a new project was about to start, where should all the design files, source code files, presentations, virtual machines, etc... live? 4) What license would the items be released under (this one will be interesting to me)? 4.a) Will the license be Free in a FreeRTOS or CGAL sortof way, where it's free for non-commercial use? 5) How can satellite security be mitigated if the source is in the public domain?
Those should be enough questions to kick off a conversation about it. Also, there appears to be at least some AMSAT (related) code and such up on the net already, it seems: https://github.com/FaradayRF/Fox-1-MPPT https://github.com/ac2cz/FoxTelem https://github.com/phase4ground
It would be beneficial to hear-out what existing AMSAT engineers have experienced: 6) Are you satisfied with the way AMSAT development currently takes place or do you feel there is a need to change development practices? 7) Do you think AMSAT would benefit by adopting an open source policy where all materials are placed in the public domain? 8) Can you see any landmines or pitfalls from doing so (technical, legal, etc...)?
I wanted to ask about this, since it's mentioned constantly, but OpenSource is a reasonably loose term that means different strokes to different folks. So, I at least wanted to ping everyone to learn Exactly what they believe it means and ping the existing team to determine their thoughts.
Oh, try not to backquote the email responses, I am numbering the questions, so you can respond to the ones you want to respond to, as you wish.
Joseph Armbruster KJ4JIO
Michelle, working for ORI, hired a lawyer to take up the ITAR matter with the Federal Government, so she probably has some interesting information.
I have left your questions in, so that this will make sense to readers.
On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 6:08 PM Joseph Armbruster < josepharmbruster@gmail.com> wrote:
- How does AMSAT benefit by pursuing an open source policy?
Both ITAR and EAR have a carve-out regarding published research. EAR says that things you publish on the Internet are not subject to the EAR. ITAR is a bit more difficult, they want you to publish it in a journal or put it in a library. There are lots of friendly college libraries who will put a blu-ray disk on a shelf for you. And then, you don't have to deal with ITAR regarding any digital data. You still have ITAR problems if you wish to ship a satellite across a national border, so it is best to fabricate it in the nation where it will be launched. And you must never provide defense services, not even to the USA. That means if someone you know is clearly working on a defense project asks a question on your mailing list, you need to explain nicely that they should get that information elsewhere because it would get you in trouble. And then tell the government. I think the last one I dealt with was from a defense company in Pakistan asking about Codec2. The government says thank you for reporting this, it's important, but doesn't tell us any more.
The whole Open Source community operates this way, and has no problem with ITAR. They are much bigger than AMSAT. And they make AI, cryptography, and many other things that are listed on the United States Munitions List.
2) What are the disadvantages of AMSAT pursuing an open source policy?
It's really difficult to see any at this late date. Michelle and I have been to NASA meetings where it is really clear that they embrace Open Source internally. So does SpaceX, ULA less but Tory (CEO) is very easy to talk with. ESA is all over Open Source and there is a Librespace guy in European Central Bank who can make introductions for us. Legally, we could even cooperate with nations on the embargoed list, but at that point I would want explicit permission, no need to antagonize the government just because the law allows you to do something.
3) Say a new project was about to start, where should all the design
files, source code files, presentations, virtual machines, etc... live?
It's really easy to put everything on Github or Gitlab, in public mode. I wrote a script that mirrors ORI's github repositories to its own server, and we can just burn a disc from that and put it in a library.
4) What license would the items be released under (this one will be
interesting to me)?
The important thing is that everyone have the right to read. Then, you satisfy the requirements in the ITAR and EAR carve-outs, *if *you also publish it on the internet and make it available in a library. Libraries often have web terminals, so I think that Internet is enough, but getting a library to host a disc is easy. So even a Creative Commons license would be adequate, but I suggest BSD if you want it to be available for commercial use without getting modifications returned to the community, or GPL if you would rather have modifications returned to the community. This is a short explanation of Open Source licensing, and I could go into subtleties at length.
I generally prefer that hardware designs be placed in the public domain. Currently hardware is dubiously copyrightable due to 17 USC 102(b) and court cases I could discuss at length too. It is not to our advantage for courts to take our own example of attempting to copyright hardware designs and decide that hardware designs are actually copyrightable.
4.a) Will the license be Free in a FreeRTOS or CGAL sortof way, where
it's free for non-commercial use?
You can do that, since it is only necessary that it not be trade secret. But everyone else doing this goes 100% Open Source, and we want to be able to share their work and have them share ours. The fact that AMSAT-EA works with Librespace and AMSAT-NA does not is suboptimal.
5) How can satellite security be mitigated if the source is in the
public domain?
You mean command and control? The simplest answer is that you use encryption to command the satellite, and you don't have to publish your cryptographic key. It's data, not the software. However, I have a design for terrestrial cryptographic signature that fits the FCC rules that prohibit cryptography that *obscures the message. *Digital signature does not obscure the message, it just authenticates it.
AMSAT used to use a secret data word and exclusive-OR to encrypt communications.Very primitive and implemented in discrete logic chips. This is explicitly permitted by FCC for satellites rather than terrestrial ham radio. I would hope that we could do digital signature today.
- Are you satisfied with the way AMSAT development currently takes place
or do you feel there is a need to change development practices?
My personal opinion is that a lot of the ITAR mess we are currently in would go away if AMSAT went to a 100% Open Source policy like most of the newer Amateur Space organizations. Unfortunately, we have engaged ITAR attorneys who have only worked with proprietary companies, where trade secret is necessary, and thus ITAR must apply. Open Source is new to them.
One of the most difficult jobs of a manager is managing legal counsel. Most managers don't understand what counsel is saying OR what questions to ask. And I have seen few managers that are equipped to push back or who even understand that pushing back is possible. Sometimes you have to bring your lawyer into new areas they have never explored - although that is less so than 20 years ago when Open Source was new, and they are very likely to give you the determinations that they made for some proprietary corporation which are entirely wrong for your public benefit non-profit.
In my consulting business, which mainly services law firms and their customers, I have met many attorneys who are up to speed on Open Source and intellectual property. There are fewer attorneys who are up to speed on Open Source and ITAR, and I would spend some time with them to discuss the issues.
- Do you think AMSAT would benefit by adopting an open source policy
where all materials are placed in the public domain?
There are two "public domains". There is public domain in the sense of copyright abandonment and patent and copyright expiration, and then ITAR 121 uses the words "public domain" to mean "public knowledge". In general most Open Source communities do not use public domain, because the laws of many nations, including the United States, do not actually define that an affirmative dedication of a work to the public domain has legal meaning. They define public domain only in the sense of copyright and patent expiration. So, we have contrivances like the CC0 license to work around that, which is a public domain declaration if the national law and court likes that, but a liberal license otherwise. But most Open Source teams would choose a very liberal license like the BSD, where the only real requirements are that you preserve attribution (and everyone likes attribution) and the license text. Or, you use the GPL where you want companies to participate more, rather than just take your stuff and modify it in private, never returning anything.
8) Can you see any landmines or pitfalls from doing so (technical,
legal, etc...)?
I really put myself out there trying to attract the attention of the Federal Government in protesting ORI's ITAR/EAR policy, and got no interest. This may have been because of the Defense Distributed case, which was about gun plans online, and I don't want to get into a 2nd amendment discussion, but once the Federal Government lost that they didn't have much to go after _us_ about.
The landmine is that if you need lawyers. If you don't do this, you also need lawyers :-)
I wanted to ask about this, since it's mentioned constantly, but
OpenSource is a reasonably loose term that means different strokes to different folks.
The Open Source Definition at Opensource.org is the one I wrote.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce,
You did not really answer the first question: "How does AMSAT benefit by pursuing an open source policy?" The question is really unrelated to EAR/ITAR. What i'm wondering is, if AMSAT published all of its hardware and software designs for everything, how does this benefit AMSAT? This is probably the most important question from an organizational standpoint.
I had been through a similar discussion with a private company that I worked for about a 3D visualization / Earth rendering product that was developed by the company. It was a product that was similar to Google Earth and could easily compete with it from a rendering / efficiency / user experience standpoint. The question was: Do we open source the software and give it out to the world to attract more people to the product / generate a new ecosystem for publicity, or do we keep it closed and generate revenue off custom software services. The company chose option 2. The bottom line was, if we put all the source out in the open, most engineering types would not pay us anything, even if we did an open/commercial licensing scheme. Because, let's be honest, generally speaking, no-one wants to pay for anything, and that is especially true in the OSS world. And even when you ask people to pay for something, they find clever ways to work around licensing and rip you off. I think consulting services become more practical, when the technology that is being utilized is more technically challenging and there are deadlines involved. That's why certain OSS products can use that model (of course, there are not many consulting opportunities for libtiff know-how :-).
One comment on what you said about GPL "you use the GPL where you want companies to participate more, rather than just take your stuff and modify it in private, never returning anything." This is a common misunderstanding / mis-representation of what the GPL does. Companies are not required to 'return anything'. It only protects the rights of down-stream recipients, not up-stream. Examples in case others reading are not aware of this:
- If an organization downloads, compiles and integrates a GPL libWhatever onto a chip in a satellite and the satellite is launched into space, there is no downstream recipient of the binaries. The changes can remain within the private organization ad-infinitum. The hardware floats around in a vaccum, maybe burns up in the atmosphere and we end up breathing it, outside of that, nothing needs to be given back to the community.
- If I download, compile and integrate a GPL libWhatever onto a chip and then deliver the binary to say a University team for integration or to a customer for use. Then, the University team or customer has a Right to be able to edit the source, etc... Their rights to edit/modify are protected. But, that still doesn't mean the creator of libWhatever is guaranteed to receive anything back.
AMSAT could establish an open source policy that would only provide licensed code to parties/organizations that agreed to integrate according to their terms and conditions. These terms and conditions could be contingent upon AMSAT being a downstream-recipient of the software/hardware source/designs (work-products, etc...) This would establish a symbiotic relationship between AMSAT and others with mutual benefit. Others wish to utilize AMSATs software/hardware stack, integration know-how, etc... and AMSAT would be guaranteed to be on the receiving end of the changes. AMSAT could also establish something like others have, where they have a licensed version that is not-permitted-to-fly and a "Pay-For" version that allows you to fly it. It's an interesting idea and along the lines of what several other OSS projects do with dual oss, commercial options.
On the whole protesting of ITAR/EAR and Defense Distributed, when you say the Federal Government lost, from a practical standpoint, that's not really true. Legal hardship is real. The end result was a private organization, unnecessarily being jerked around by the fed in a politically-motivated legal attack. And then, being jerked-around again, by several states. That cost them and it is still costing them, time and money. The organization could not function during that period and is now forced to function differently. Rules were re-written by the DOS, there was an ad-hoc "settlement" including an 'exclusive license'. Isn't that awesome that a company is given an 'exclusive license' after being jerked around vs, just being left alone in the first place? Also, Defcad requires you to create a login, submit Personally Identifiiable info (PII) to them (ID, etc...), etc... before you download anything from them. That's, NOT Open. I am not certain what they would do if a non-US Person attempted to sign up. It's antithetical to a true, public open source process really. If anything, this case is a shining example of why an organization Should:
i) be very selective about what is publicized ii) work very cautiously with others in a way that reduces risk
Basically, how AMSAT appears to operate right now. Why? Because if the wrong politically-motivated person in the Department of Whatever (or friend of a girlfriend of a mistress of whomever) gets an itch, they can make your life a living hell. And, while they sit back and collect a paycheck and have their pension well-funded during that time frame... You're left with a ruling in your favor (yaay!) but financially strapped, physically deteriorated due the stress and likely out of business. This doesn't just happen in the ITAR realm either, look at what happened to the buckyballs company that sold the little magnets that you could build little structures out of. They got dragged through the mud for years, for literally selling little round magnets...
Joseph Armbruster KJ4JIO
On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 10:20 PM Bruce Perens bruce@perens.com wrote:
Michelle, working for ORI, hired a lawyer to take up the ITAR matter with the Federal Government, so she probably has some interesting information.
I have left your questions in, so that this will make sense to readers.
On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 6:08 PM Joseph Armbruster josepharmbruster@gmail.com wrote:
- How does AMSAT benefit by pursuing an open source policy?
Both ITAR and EAR have a carve-out regarding published research. EAR says that things you publish on the Internet are not subject to the EAR. ITAR is a bit more difficult, they want you to publish it in a journal or put it in a library. There are lots of friendly college libraries who will put a blu-ray disk on a shelf for you. And then, you don't have to deal with ITAR regarding any digital data. You still have ITAR problems if you wish to ship a satellite across a national border, so it is best to fabricate it in the nation where it will be launched. And you must never provide defense services, not even to the USA. That means if someone you know is clearly working on a defense project asks a question on your mailing list, you need to explain nicely that they should get that information elsewhere because it would get you in trouble. And then tell the government. I think the last one I dealt with was from a defense company in Pakistan asking about Codec2. The government says thank you for reporting this, it's important, but doesn't tell us any more.
The whole Open Source community operates this way, and has no problem with ITAR. They are much bigger than AMSAT. And they make AI, cryptography, and many other things that are listed on the United States Munitions List.
- What are the disadvantages of AMSAT pursuing an open source policy?
It's really difficult to see any at this late date. Michelle and I have been to NASA meetings where it is really clear that they embrace Open Source internally. So does SpaceX, ULA less but Tory (CEO) is very easy to talk with. ESA is all over Open Source and there is a Librespace guy in European Central Bank who can make introductions for us. Legally, we could even cooperate with nations on the embargoed list, but at that point I would want explicit permission, no need to antagonize the government just because the law allows you to do something.
- Say a new project was about to start, where should all the design
files, source code files, presentations, virtual machines, etc... live?
It's really easy to put everything on Github or Gitlab, in public mode. I wrote a script that mirrors ORI's github repositories to its own server, and we can just burn a disc from that and put it in a library.
- What license would the items be released under (this one will be
interesting to me)?
The important thing is that everyone have the right to read. Then, you satisfy the requirements in the ITAR and EAR carve-outs, if you also publish it on the internet and make it available in a library. Libraries often have web terminals, so I think that Internet is enough, but getting a library to host a disc is easy. So even a Creative Commons license would be adequate, but I suggest BSD if you want it to be available for commercial use without getting modifications returned to the community, or GPL if you would rather have modifications returned to the community. This is a short explanation of Open Source licensing, and I could go into subtleties at length.
I generally prefer that hardware designs be placed in the public domain. Currently hardware is dubiously copyrightable due to 17 USC 102(b) and court cases I could discuss at length too. It is not to our advantage for courts to take our own example of attempting to copyright hardware designs and decide that hardware designs are actually copyrightable.
4.a) Will the license be Free in a FreeRTOS or CGAL sortof way, where it's free for non-commercial use?
You can do that, since it is only necessary that it not be trade secret. But everyone else doing this goes 100% Open Source, and we want to be able to share their work and have them share ours. The fact that AMSAT-EA works with Librespace and AMSAT-NA does not is suboptimal.
- How can satellite security be mitigated if the source is in the
public domain?
You mean command and control? The simplest answer is that you use encryption to command the satellite, and you don't have to publish your cryptographic key. It's data, not the software. However, I have a design for terrestrial cryptographic signature that fits the FCC rules that prohibit cryptography that obscures the message. Digital signature does not obscure the message, it just authenticates it.
AMSAT used to use a secret data word and exclusive-OR to encrypt communications.Very primitive and implemented in discrete logic chips. This is explicitly permitted by FCC for satellites rather than terrestrial ham radio. I would hope that we could do digital signature today.
- Are you satisfied with the way AMSAT development currently takes place or do you feel there is a need to change development practices?
My personal opinion is that a lot of the ITAR mess we are currently in would go away if AMSAT went to a 100% Open Source policy like most of the newer Amateur Space organizations. Unfortunately, we have engaged ITAR attorneys who have only worked with proprietary companies, where trade secret is necessary, and thus ITAR must apply. Open Source is new to them.
One of the most difficult jobs of a manager is managing legal counsel. Most managers don't understand what counsel is saying OR what questions to ask. And I have seen few managers that are equipped to push back or who even understand that pushing back is possible. Sometimes you have to bring your lawyer into new areas they have never explored - although that is less so than 20 years ago when Open Source was new, and they are very likely to give you the determinations that they made for some proprietary corporation which are entirely wrong for your public benefit non-profit.
In my consulting business, which mainly services law firms and their customers, I have met many attorneys who are up to speed on Open Source and intellectual property. There are fewer attorneys who are up to speed on Open Source and ITAR, and I would spend some time with them to discuss the issues.
- Do you think AMSAT would benefit by adopting an open source policy
where all materials are placed in the public domain?
There are two "public domains". There is public domain in the sense of copyright abandonment and patent and copyright expiration, and then ITAR 121 uses the words "public domain" to mean "public knowledge". In general most Open Source communities do not use public domain, because the laws of many nations, including the United States, do not actually define that an affirmative dedication of a work to the public domain has legal meaning. They define public domain only in the sense of copyright and patent expiration. So, we have contrivances like the CC0 license to work around that, which is a public domain declaration if the national law and court likes that, but a liberal license otherwise. But most Open Source teams would choose a very liberal license like the BSD, where the only real requirements are that you preserve attribution (and everyone likes attribution) and the license text. Or, you use the GPL where you want companies to participate more, rather than just take your stuff and modify it in private, never returning anything.
- Can you see any landmines or pitfalls from doing so (technical,
legal, etc...)?
I really put myself out there trying to attract the attention of the Federal Government in protesting ORI's ITAR/EAR policy, and got no interest. This may have been because of the Defense Distributed case, which was about gun plans online, and I don't want to get into a 2nd amendment discussion, but once the Federal Government lost that they didn't have much to go after _us_ about.
The landmine is that if you need lawyers. If you don't do this, you also need lawyers :-)
I wanted to ask about this, since it's mentioned constantly, but OpenSource is a reasonably loose term that means different strokes to different folks.
The Open Source Definition at Opensource.org is the one I wrote.
Thanks Bruce-- Bruce Perens - CEO at stealth startup. I'll tell you what it is eventually :-)
On Wed, Jul 15, 2020 at 7:21 AM Joseph Armbruster < josepharmbruster@gmail.com> wrote:
You did not really answer the first question: "How does AMSAT benefit by pursuing an open source policy?"
Oh, come on, Joseph. Getting out from under ITAR would be a really big deal for AMSAT, and that is enough of an answer. I can add that a public benefit non-profit should actually *be* of public benefit, and granting its work to the public is how it does that. And there is a vast Open Source collaboration on satellites and radio that AMSAT is mostly not part of. This has resulted in GNU Radio (Michelle serves on their board) and complete satellite designs. As I mentioned in another post, there are also Open Source thruster designs which I support, and having the ability to change orbit, maintain your orbit, avoid a collision, and deorbit using them is a big deal.
I had been through a similar discussion with a private company that I
worked for about a 3D visualization
Yes, but that was a private company. There is way too much private company thinking around here! We aren't a private company and should not act like one.
One comment on what you said about GPL "you use the GPL where you want companies to participate more, rather than just take your stuff and modify it in private, never returning anything." This is a common misunderstanding / mis-representation of what the GPL does.
Ahem. You really do not have to school me about the GPL, and this is sort of insulting in that way. Yes, I know that there are ways in which sometimes people don't have to give back. There are also disadvantages to them if they work that way, one being that they must re-port their version to every new one released by the public project, if they want the improvements made by the public project, which are often desirable and sometimes have security implications.
The fact is that there has been a many-times multiplier of my one month of evenings creating Busybox and the subsequent work by embedded systems companies and public projects. I wrote the first 35 commands into Busybox. It was at 135 the last time I looked, and is probably a lot more now. This is entirely because of GPL. It also spawned several other projects including an embedded libc and a program that builds your whole embedded system for you.
On the whole protesting of ITAR/EAR and Defense Distributed, when you say the Federal Government lost, from a practical standpoint, that's not really true.
And not entirely relevant to AMSAT, since we are not making firearms and don't have *states* chomping at the bit to sue us. We have an entirely Federal issue. I know legal hardship very well, having just won a GPL-related suit. But the fact is that the path I laid out explicitly follows the law and has little chance of legal hardship.
Because if the wrong politically-motivated person in the Department of Whatever (or friend of a girlfriend of a mistress of whomever) gets an itch, they can make your life a living hell.
Unfortunately this is true whatever strategy AMSAT takes, and the secretive nature we currently have is NOT protective! The ITAR strategy I laid out would be more protective, since it uses a very clear carve-out to take our work outside of the scope of ITAR.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce,
I've heard the carve-out mentioned in the past but i'm not entirely certain about the details. Can you explain how it works and provide any input you (or others) may have received from the DDTC or DOS to substantiate this? From what i've heard in the past and just read from your writings, it goes something like this:
IF information is "published in a journal" (placed in the public domain?) THEN the information is no longer subject to ITAR
You're not the only person I have heard mention this but it sounds like you may have information that could at least help me and others understand exactly how it works, because I honestly have no clue. I've heard others within AMSAT mention it in the past but there's always been reasonable shadows of doubt over whether or not it's valid or not.
And just for clarification, I did not intend to "school" you on GPL nor insult you in any way with my statements about it. I know nothing about your professional or technical career, experience with software licensing / etc... but will try to look up your resume now. All schooling aside, what I said is in fact the way that it is. There is no give-back requirement in GPL. The terms only apply to those to whom the work is conveyed. There is no guarantee that once a GPL-sourced code base is placed into the public sphere, that anyone who takes it and edits it will return their changes to the source.
That's not to say that people who do contribute to OSS, aren't doing a good thing, obviously that's the entire spirit of it.
Joseph Armbruster KJ4JIO
On Wed, Jul 15, 2020 at 1:17 PM Bruce Perens bruce@perens.com wrote:
On Wed, Jul 15, 2020 at 7:21 AM Joseph Armbruster josepharmbruster@gmail.com wrote:
You did not really answer the first question: "How does AMSAT benefit by pursuing an open source policy?"
Oh, come on, Joseph. Getting out from under ITAR would be a really big deal for AMSAT, and that is enough of an answer. I can add that a public benefit non-profit should actually be of public benefit, and granting its work to the public is how it does that. And there is a vast Open Source collaboration on satellites and radio that AMSAT is mostly not part of. This has resulted in GNU Radio (Michelle serves on their board) and complete satellite designs. As I mentioned in another post, there are also Open Source thruster designs which I support, and having the ability to change orbit, maintain your orbit, avoid a collision, and deorbit using them is a big deal.
I had been through a similar discussion with a private company that I worked for about a 3D visualization
Yes, but that was a private company. There is way too much private company thinking around here! We aren't a private company and should not act like one.
One comment on what you said about GPL "you use the GPL where you want companies to participate more, rather than just take your stuff and modify it in private, never returning anything." This is a common misunderstanding / mis-representation of what the GPL does.
Ahem. You really do not have to school me about the GPL, and this is sort of insulting in that way. Yes, I know that there are ways in which sometimes people don't have to give back. There are also disadvantages to them if they work that way, one being that they must re-port their version to every new one released by the public project, if they want the improvements made by the public project, which are often desirable and sometimes have security implications.
The fact is that there has been a many-times multiplier of my one month of evenings creating Busybox and the subsequent work by embedded systems companies and public projects. I wrote the first 35 commands into Busybox. It was at 135 the last time I looked, and is probably a lot more now. This is entirely because of GPL. It also spawned several other projects including an embedded libc and a program that builds your whole embedded system for you.
On the whole protesting of ITAR/EAR and Defense Distributed, when you say the Federal Government lost, from a practical standpoint, that's not really true.
And not entirely relevant to AMSAT, since we are not making firearms and don't have states chomping at the bit to sue us. We have an entirely Federal issue. I know legal hardship very well, having just won a GPL-related suit. But the fact is that the path I laid out explicitly follows the law and has little chance of legal hardship.
Because if the wrong politically-motivated person in the Department of Whatever (or friend of a girlfriend of a mistress of whomever) gets an itch, they can make your life a living hell.
Unfortunately this is true whatever strategy AMSAT takes, and the secretive nature we currently have is NOT protective! The ITAR strategy I laid out would be more protective, since it uses a very clear carve-out to take our work outside of the scope of ITAR.
Thanks Bruce
I've heard the carve-out mentioned in the past but i'm not entirely certain about the details.
Maybe I'm weird, but I found ITAR 120 pretty easy to read. It bothers me that more people do not read law, since it is a framework they must live within. Of course there are complications like case law that make this a never-ending project.
I am going entirely by the published law in ITAR 121. DoD is often loath to issue determinations, and we continue to work on that, but the law is clear enough. This is all work I wrote for ORI and is on their web site:
ITAR is the International Trafficking in Arms Regulations. The sections of ITAR that concern us are 120 https://www.pmddtc.state.gov/regulations_laws/documents/official_itar/ITAR_Part_120.pdf and 121 https://www.pmddtc.state.gov/regulations_laws/documents/official_itar/ITAR_Part_121.pdf. Various technologies are declared “munitions” which can not be exported to nations on an “embargoed list”, for example North Korea.
All items which are subject to our international collaborations carried out over the Internet are technical data under ITAR. This includes software as well as other information. Our ITAR strategy does not apply to physical objects such as space satellites, but to their designs and the software which is part of them, which are techical data under ITAR. We can expect to deal with ITAR and EAR when physical objects are transferred to individuals other than U.S. nationals or across national borders.
We must not not provide defense services. Specifically, we do not answer questions or perform any requested services for individuals who are identified as asking for information to use for a military purpose for any nation, including the United States – since we must comply with the export regulations of many nations other than the U.S.
ITAR includes a carve-out for “Public Domain” which we make use of. First, let’s look at the ITAR text and how it defines what it restricts:
§ 120.2 Designation of defense articles and defense services.
The Arms Export Control Act (22 U.S.C. 2778(a) and 2794(7)) provides that the President shall designate the articles and services deemed to be defense articles and defense services for purposes of this subchapter. The items so designated constitute the United States Munitions List and are specified in part 121 of this subchapter.
…
§ 120.6 Defense article. Defense article means any item or technical data designated in §121.1 of this subchapter. The policy described in §120.3 is applicable to designations of additional items. This term includes technical data recorded or stored in any physical form, models, mockups or other items that reveal technical data directly relating to items designated in §121.1 of this subchapter.
…
120.10(a) Technical data means, for purposes of this subchapter:
…
120.10(a)(5) This definition does not include information concerning general scientific, mathematical or engineering principles commonly taught in schools, colleges and universities *or *information in the public domain as defined in §120.11.
*…*
§ 120.11 Public domain.
(a) Public domain means information which is published and which is generally accessible or available to the public:
(1) Through sales at newsstands and bookstores;
(2) Through subscriptions which are available without restriction to any individual who desires to obtain or purchase the published information;
(3) Through second class mailing privileges granted by the U.S. Government;
(4) At libraries open to the public or from which the public can obtain documents;
5) Through patents available at any patent office;
(6) Through unlimited distribution at a conference, meeting, seminar, trade show or exhibition, generally accessible to the public, in the United States;
(7) Through public release (i.e., unlimited distribution) in any form (e.g., not necessarily in published form) after approval by the cognizant U.S. government department or agency (see also §125.4(b)(13) of this subchapter);
(8) Through fundamental research in science and engineering at accredited institutions of higher learning in the U.S. where the resulting information is ordinarily published and shared broadly in the scientific community. Fundamental research is defined to mean basic and applied research in science and engineering where the resulting information is ordinarily published and shared broadly within the scientific community, as distinguished from research the results of which are restricted for proprietary reasons or specific U.S. Government access and dissemination controls.
University research will not be considered fundamental research if:
(i) The University or its researchers accept other restrictions on publication of scientific and technical information resulting from the project or activity, or
(ii) The research is funded by the U.S. Government and specific access and dissemination controls protecting information resulting from the research are applicable.
—
So, according to ITAR, public knowledge is not subject to regulation under ITAR. The meaning of the words “Public Domain”, as used in ITAR, is that knowledge is known to the public, rather than that copyrights have been abandoned and that material has been dedicated to the public domain in a copyright sense.
ORI’s general method of making sure that all research and development is public knowledge is to keep it visible to the public via our web site, both during and after development. Updates are often on a daily basis, and developers are instructed not to allow any development to remain invisible to the public for long. Similarly, the teams collaborate using online discussion which is archived and available for anyone to read as it happens.
However, ITAR 120.11 doesn’t explicitly include publication on a web site as a means of assuring knowledge is in the public domain (EAR does). ITAR specifies a list of activities which make knowledge public, many of which we can perform.
Let’s look at the individual means of placing technical information in the public domain as spelled out in ITAR 120.11. Consider that we make a physical distribution, say a Blu-Ray disc or USB stick, of all of our software and other content. ITAR then allows us to make this public domain:
(1) Through sales at newsstands and bookstores;
If we sell (or give away) our physical distribution through a newsstand or a bookstore, we are in compliance with ITAR 120.11(a)(1). The material in the distribution is considered to be in the public domain under ITAR 120.11, and is not subject to regulation under ITAR. Amazon.com is a bookstore, perhaps the world’s most popular. So, we could make our physical distribution available for sale by Amazon.
(2) Through subscriptions which are available without restriction to any individual who desires to obtain or purchase the published information;
I would argue that subscriptions to access our web site satisfy this term. However, we can also take the physical distribution and send it to subscribers who have paid a fee for that service.
(3) Through second class mailing privileges granted by the U.S. Government;
Why won’t first-class mail work? Because second-class mail was used for periodical publications and the United States Postal Service has a qualification process to allow periodicals to make use of it.
The Postal Service is an “establishment of the executive branch of the Government of the United States”, under 39 U.S.C. § 201, as it is controlled by Presidential appointees and the Postmaster General (a federal appointee).
Today the name “second-class mail” has changed to “periodical mail”. Periodical mail requires printed material, and a schedule at least quarterly, an application fee and some forms (some of which must be filed periodically). It does allow incidental material to be in another medium such as a Blu-Ray disc or USB stick. So, we could send out a quarterly journal with printed papers, including our physical distribution as above.
(4) At libraries open to the public or from which the public can obtain documents;
We could fulfill this requirement by submitting our physical distribution to the *Library of Congress, *and arranging for it to be distributed by other libraries.
But arguably, if a library offers access to the web, and can thus access our web site, that would fulfill this requirement.
…
(6) Through unlimited distribution at a conference, meeting, seminar, trade show or exhibition, generally accessible to the public, in the United States;
This applies to our technical presentations. Perhaps we could also arrange to distribute our physical distribution to all of the attendees of such a conference.
And this section could also apply to *online *meetings, seminars, and exhibitions, as long as they are available in the United States.
—
So, this gives us five methods through which we can easily place our work formally in the Public Domain, as defined by ITAR, as well as the continual publication of our technical data on our web site. If we do these things periodically, publish new material on our web site as close to instantly as possible, follow a policy not to perform defense services or distribute physical objects to certain people or nations, we can operate an Open Source collaboration internationally for information that would otherwise be restricted under ITAR. EAR Strategy
The text of the Export Administration Regulations is here https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/regulations/export-administration-regulations-ear. We are concerned with keeping our work out of EAR definition “subject to the EAR”, which covers all things which are regulated under EAR. Here are the regulations concerning “subject to the EAR” and published material. They contain a similar carve-out to ITAR regarding published material. § 734.2 SUBJECT TO THE EAR (a) Subject to the EAR – Definition (1) “Subject to the EAR” is a term used in the EAR to describe those items and activities over which BIS exercises regulatory jurisdiction under the EAR. Conversely, items and activities that are not subject to the EAR are outside the regulatory jurisdiction of the EAR and are not affected by these regulations. The items and activities subject to the EAR are described in §734.2 through §734.5 of this part. You should review the Commerce Control List (CCL) and any applicable parts of the EAR to determine whether an item or activity is subject to the EAR. However, if you need help in determining whether an item or activity is subject to the EAR, see §734.6 of this part. Publicly available technology and software not subject to the EAR are described in §734.7 through §734.11 and Supplement No. 1 to this part. … § 734.7 PUBLISHED (a) Except as set forth in paragraph (b) of this section, unclassified “technology” or “software” is “published,” and is thus not “technology” or “software” subject to the EAR, when it has been made available to the public without restrictions upon its further dissemination such as through any of the following: (1) Subscriptions available without restriction to any individual who desires to obtain or purchase the published information; (2) Libraries or other public collections that are open and available to the public, and from which the public can obtain tangible or intangible documents; (3) Unlimited distribution at a conference, meeting, seminar, trade show, or exhibition, generally accessible to the interested public; (4) Public dissemination (i.e., unlimited distribution) in any form (e.g., not necessarily in published form), including posting on the Internet on sites available to the public; or (5) Submission of a written composition, manuscript, presentation, computer-readable dataset, formula, imagery, algorithms, or some other representation of knowledge with the intention that such information will be made publicly available if accepted for publication or presentation: (i) To domestic or foreign co-authors, editors, or reviewers of journals, magazines, newspapers or trade publications; (ii) To researchers conducting fundamental research; or (iii) To organizers of open conferences or other open gatherings. (b) Published encryption software classified under ECCN 5D002 remains subject to the EAR unless it is publicly available encryption object code software classified under ECCN 5D002 and the corresponding source code meets the criteria specified in § 742.15(b) of the EAR. … 742.15(b) Publicly available encryption source code (1) Scope and eligibility. Subject to the notification requirements of paragraph (b)(2) of this section, publicly available (see § 734.3(b)(3) of the EAR) encryption source code classified under ECCN 5D002 is not subject to the EAR. Such source code is publicly available even if it is subject to an express agreement for the payment of a licensing fee or royalty for commercial production or sale of any product developed using the source code. (2) Notification requirement. You must notify BIS and the ENC Encryption RequestCoordinator via e-mail of the Internet location (e.g., URL or Internet address) of the publicly available encryption source code classified under ECCN 5D002 or provide each of them a copy of the publicly available encryption source code. If you update or modify the source code, you must also provide additional copies to each of them each time the cryptographic functionality of the source code is updated or modified. In addition, if you posted the source code on the Internet, you must notify BIS and the ENC Encryption Request Coordinator each time the Internet location is changed, but you are not required to notify them of updates or modifications made to the encryption source code at the previously notified location. In all instances, submit the notification or copy to crypt@bis.doc.gov and to enc@nsa.gov. — Since EAR allows publication on a web site under 734.7(a)(4), we can easily make sure that all of our work but cryptographic software is not subject to the EAR. Development of cryptography is not specifically a goal of ORI, and is being carried out well by other Open Source projects, for example OpenSSL and GNU TLS. However, it is expected that such software will be included in our projects. The main reason is that all popular web browsers are being programmed to deprecate or reject unencrypted web sites for ample security reasons. And of course our software can be expected to make use of authorization, authentication, and communication facilities for which encryption is useful for critical.
In order to make sure that our encryption software qualifies as not subject to the EAR, we will make the email notifications required under 742.15(b)(2). - This may be obsolete - I think the government announced that encryption was no longer under the EAR but I haven't looked carefully, and given that the current administration doesn't like end-to-end encryption in social networks, laws may change.
Here are the answers.
1) It allows free and open international collaboration. 2) It removes bankruptingly expensive data management requirements intended for proprietary companies. 3) It is the best way to reduce legal liability for volunteers in non-commercial settings.
Taking advantage of the public domain carve outs is safe, sane, legal, and will galvanize AMSAT engineering.
It requires publishing work as it is created, at minimal cost to an organization.
It has been repeatedly recommended to AMSAT by experts as the way to go, for over 10 years.
-Michelle W5NYV
On Wed, Jul 15, 2020 at 1:03 PM Joseph Armbruster via AMSAT-BB < amsat-bb@amsat.org> wrote:
Bruce,
You did not really answer the first question: "How does AMSAT benefit by pursuing an open source policy?" The question is really unrelated to EAR/ITAR. What i'm wondering is, if AMSAT published all of its hardware and software designs for everything, how does this benefit AMSAT? This is probably the most important question from an organizational standpoint.
I had been through a similar discussion with a private company that I worked for about a 3D visualization / Earth rendering product that was developed by the company. It was a product that was similar to Google Earth and could easily compete with it from a rendering / efficiency / user experience standpoint. The question was: Do we open source the software and give it out to the world to attract more people to the product / generate a new ecosystem for publicity, or do we keep it closed and generate revenue off custom software services. The company chose option 2. The bottom line was, if we put all the source out in the open, most engineering types would not pay us anything, even if we did an open/commercial licensing scheme. Because, let's be honest, generally speaking, no-one wants to pay for anything, and that is especially true in the OSS world. And even when you ask people to pay for something, they find clever ways to work around licensing and rip you off. I think consulting services become more practical, when the technology that is being utilized is more technically challenging and there are deadlines involved. That's why certain OSS products can use that model (of course, there are not many consulting opportunities for libtiff know-how :-).
One comment on what you said about GPL "you use the GPL where you want companies to participate more, rather than just take your stuff and modify it in private, never returning anything." This is a common misunderstanding / mis-representation of what the GPL does. Companies are not required to 'return anything'. It only protects the rights of down-stream recipients, not up-stream. Examples in case others reading are not aware of this:
- If an organization downloads, compiles and integrates a GPL
libWhatever onto a chip in a satellite and the satellite is launched into space, there is no downstream recipient of the binaries. The changes can remain within the private organization ad-infinitum. The hardware floats around in a vaccum, maybe burns up in the atmosphere and we end up breathing it, outside of that, nothing needs to be given back to the community.
- If I download, compile and integrate a GPL libWhatever onto a chip
and then deliver the binary to say a University team for integration or to a customer for use. Then, the University team or customer has a Right to be able to edit the source, etc... Their rights to edit/modify are protected. But, that still doesn't mean the creator of libWhatever is guaranteed to receive anything back.
AMSAT could establish an open source policy that would only provide licensed code to parties/organizations that agreed to integrate according to their terms and conditions. These terms and conditions could be contingent upon AMSAT being a downstream-recipient of the software/hardware source/designs (work-products, etc...) This would establish a symbiotic relationship between AMSAT and others with mutual benefit. Others wish to utilize AMSATs software/hardware stack, integration know-how, etc... and AMSAT would be guaranteed to be on the receiving end of the changes. AMSAT could also establish something like others have, where they have a licensed version that is not-permitted-to-fly and a "Pay-For" version that allows you to fly it. It's an interesting idea and along the lines of what several other OSS projects do with dual oss, commercial options.
On the whole protesting of ITAR/EAR and Defense Distributed, when you say the Federal Government lost, from a practical standpoint, that's not really true. Legal hardship is real. The end result was a private organization, unnecessarily being jerked around by the fed in a politically-motivated legal attack. And then, being jerked-around again, by several states. That cost them and it is still costing them, time and money. The organization could not function during that period and is now forced to function differently. Rules were re-written by the DOS, there was an ad-hoc "settlement" including an 'exclusive license'. Isn't that awesome that a company is given an 'exclusive license' after being jerked around vs, just being left alone in the first place? Also, Defcad requires you to create a login, submit Personally Identifiiable info (PII) to them (ID, etc...), etc... before you download anything from them. That's, NOT Open. I am not certain what they would do if a non-US Person attempted to sign up. It's antithetical to a true, public open source process really. If anything, this case is a shining example of why an organization Should:
i) be very selective about what is publicized ii) work very cautiously with others in a way that reduces risk
Basically, how AMSAT appears to operate right now. Why? Because if the wrong politically-motivated person in the Department of Whatever (or friend of a girlfriend of a mistress of whomever) gets an itch, they can make your life a living hell. And, while they sit back and collect a paycheck and have their pension well-funded during that time frame... You're left with a ruling in your favor (yaay!) but financially strapped, physically deteriorated due the stress and likely out of business. This doesn't just happen in the ITAR realm either, look at what happened to the buckyballs company that sold the little magnets that you could build little structures out of. They got dragged through the mud for years, for literally selling little round magnets...
Joseph Armbruster KJ4JIO
On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 10:20 PM Bruce Perens bruce@perens.com wrote:
Michelle, working for ORI, hired a lawyer to take up the ITAR matter
with the Federal Government, so she probably has some interesting information.
I have left your questions in, so that this will make sense to readers.
On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 6:08 PM Joseph Armbruster <
josepharmbruster@gmail.com> wrote:
- How does AMSAT benefit by pursuing an open source policy?
Both ITAR and EAR have a carve-out regarding published research. EAR
says that things you publish on the Internet are not subject to the EAR. ITAR is a bit more difficult, they want you to publish it in a journal or put it in a library. There are lots of friendly college libraries who will put a blu-ray disk on a shelf for you. And then, you don't have to deal with ITAR regarding any digital data. You still have ITAR problems if you wish to ship a satellite across a national border, so it is best to fabricate it in the nation where it will be launched. And you must never provide defense services, not even to the USA. That means if someone you know is clearly working on a defense project asks a question on your mailing list, you need to explain nicely that they should get that information elsewhere because it would get you in trouble. And then tell the government. I think the last one I dealt with was from a defense company in Pakistan asking about Codec2. The government says thank you for reporting this, it's important, but doesn't tell us any more.
The whole Open Source community operates this way, and has no problem
with ITAR. They are much bigger than AMSAT. And they make AI, cryptography, and many other things that are listed on the United States Munitions List.
- What are the disadvantages of AMSAT pursuing an open source policy?
It's really difficult to see any at this late date. Michelle and I have
been to NASA meetings where it is really clear that they embrace Open Source internally. So does SpaceX, ULA less but Tory (CEO) is very easy to talk with. ESA is all over Open Source and there is a Librespace guy in European Central Bank who can make introductions for us. Legally, we could even cooperate with nations on the embargoed list, but at that point I would want explicit permission, no need to antagonize the government just because the law allows you to do something.
- Say a new project was about to start, where should all the design
files, source code files, presentations, virtual machines, etc... live?
It's really easy to put everything on Github or Gitlab, in public mode.
I wrote a script that mirrors ORI's github repositories to its own server, and we can just burn a disc from that and put it in a library.
- What license would the items be released under (this one will be
interesting to me)?
The important thing is that everyone have the right to read. Then, you
satisfy the requirements in the ITAR and EAR carve-outs, if you also publish it on the internet and make it available in a library. Libraries often have web terminals, so I think that Internet is enough, but getting a library to host a disc is easy. So even a Creative Commons license would be adequate, but I suggest BSD if you want it to be available for commercial use without getting modifications returned to the community, or GPL if you would rather have modifications returned to the community. This is a short explanation of Open Source licensing, and I could go into subtleties at length.
I generally prefer that hardware designs be placed in the public domain.
Currently hardware is dubiously copyrightable due to 17 USC 102(b) and court cases I could discuss at length too. It is not to our advantage for courts to take our own example of attempting to copyright hardware designs and decide that hardware designs are actually copyrightable.
4.a) Will the license be Free in a FreeRTOS or CGAL sortof way, where it's free for non-commercial use?
You can do that, since it is only necessary that it not be trade
secret. But everyone else doing this goes 100% Open Source, and we want to be able to share their work and have them share ours. The fact that AMSAT-EA works with Librespace and AMSAT-NA does not is suboptimal.
- How can satellite security be mitigated if the source is in the
public domain?
You mean command and control? The simplest answer is that you use
encryption to command the satellite, and you don't have to publish your cryptographic key. It's data, not the software. However, I have a design for terrestrial cryptographic signature that fits the FCC rules that prohibit cryptography that obscures the message. Digital signature does not obscure the message, it just authenticates it.
AMSAT used to use a secret data word and exclusive-OR to encrypt
communications.Very primitive and implemented in discrete logic chips. This is explicitly permitted by FCC for satellites rather than terrestrial ham radio. I would hope that we could do digital signature today.
- Are you satisfied with the way AMSAT development currently takes
place or do you feel there is a need to change development practices?
My personal opinion is that a lot of the ITAR mess we are currently in
would go away if AMSAT went to a 100% Open Source policy like most of the newer Amateur Space organizations. Unfortunately, we have engaged ITAR attorneys who have only worked with proprietary companies, where trade secret is necessary, and thus ITAR must apply. Open Source is new to them.
One of the most difficult jobs of a manager is managing legal counsel.
Most managers don't understand what counsel is saying OR what questions to ask. And I have seen few managers that are equipped to push back or who even understand that pushing back is possible. Sometimes you have to bring your lawyer into new areas they have never explored - although that is less so than 20 years ago when Open Source was new, and they are very likely to give you the determinations that they made for some proprietary corporation which are entirely wrong for your public benefit non-profit.
In my consulting business, which mainly services law firms and their
customers, I have met many attorneys who are up to speed on Open Source and intellectual property. There are fewer attorneys who are up to speed on Open Source and ITAR, and I would spend some time with them to discuss the issues.
- Do you think AMSAT would benefit by adopting an open source policy
where all materials are placed in the public domain?
There are two "public domains". There is public domain in the sense of
copyright abandonment and patent and copyright expiration, and then ITAR 121 uses the words "public domain" to mean "public knowledge". In general most Open Source communities do not use public domain, because the laws of many nations, including the United States, do not actually define that an affirmative dedication of a work to the public domain has legal meaning. They define public domain only in the sense of copyright and patent expiration. So, we have contrivances like the CC0 license to work around that, which is a public domain declaration if the national law and court likes that, but a liberal license otherwise. But most Open Source teams would choose a very liberal license like the BSD, where the only real requirements are that you preserve attribution (and everyone likes attribution) and the license text. Or, you use the GPL where you want companies to participate more, rather than just take your stuff and modify it in private, never returning anything.
- Can you see any landmines or pitfalls from doing so (technical,
legal, etc...)?
I really put myself out there trying to attract the attention of the
Federal Government in protesting ORI's ITAR/EAR policy, and got no interest. This may have been because of the Defense Distributed case, which was about gun plans online, and I don't want to get into a 2nd amendment discussion, but once the Federal Government lost that they didn't have much to go after _us_ about.
The landmine is that if you need lawyers. If you don't do this, you also
need lawyers :-)
I wanted to ask about this, since it's mentioned constantly, but OpenSource is a reasonably loose term that means different strokes to different folks.
The Open Source Definition at Opensource.org is the one I wrote.
Thanks Bruce-- Bruce Perens - CEO at stealth startup. I'll tell you what it is
eventually :-) _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. AMSAT-NA makes this open forum available to all interested persons worldwide without requiring membership. Opinions expressed are solely those of the author, and do not reflect the official views of AMSAT-NA. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: https://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
I should also note that our request for the government to clarify that our interpretation of their rules is "valid" (in quotes because courts have the final say) has been delayed by COVID-19 issues in their offices.
Bruce, I know you only show up at election time, but AMSAT is NOT in financial trouble. That was the false narrative Patrick, Michelle, and you spread in last year's election cycle. Since you have been gone, please refer to AMSAT's Treasurer's Report, published March 18, 2020.
amsat.org/amsat-treasurers-report/ AMSAT is on a solid financial footing and headed in the right direction. Under the great leadership of our Officers, we have successfully reduced costs and on track to further reduce overhead by year's end, all while adding benefits for our members and expanding our educational outreach. The level of our reserves, ability to generate more revenues than expenses, and ability to continue to grow our membership has AMSAT fiscally positioned to accept whatever challenges and opportunities tomorrow brings. If you truely want to help AMSAT, please get your facts straight and STOP making false, defamatory statements. Respectfully, Robert Bankston, CPA, KE4AL Treasurer Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT)
Robert,
On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 4:58 PM Robert Bankston via AMSAT-BB < amsat-bb@amsat.org> wrote:
I know you only show up at election time
Snark if you want, but I am working on Amateur Space quite often. My latest was the pocketqube ion thruster project, see http://perens.com/static/AppliedIon/ where my work successfully raised the necessary funds and got the project on its feet again.
AMSAT is on a solid financial footing and headed in the right direction.
Well, that is wonderful. But you must understand where my trepidation about AMSAT's finances comes from, since AMSAT presidents in their annual reports at AMSATs own meetings have been really grim about AMSAT's finances.
I also hear that around the start of April, you reported "Without cash flows, we (AMSAT) can't afford to pay our bills." At which point AMSAT applied for the government salary protection program. That is after the report you just cited, isn't it? We are all suffering from COVID-19 related austerity, and we can expect AMSAT to lose funds that it would have received around conferences, etc., so best wishes with that.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce, I see you "borrowed" your retort from Patrick's misleading "directors" report on his personal website. I would think someone as learned as you would at least provide the proper citation. <AMSAT presidents in their annual reports at AMSATs own meetings have been really grim about AMSAT's finances> You are confusing projected budgetary deficits, with actual financial performance. This is a common mistake for individuals without business and nonprofit backgrounds, and why I devoted my time in time in the May/June 2020 issue of The AMSAT Journal to fully explain this. <I also hear that around the start of April, you reported "Without cash flows, we (AMSAT) can't afford to pay our bills."> Patrick purposefully took this quote out of context, when he secretly recorded the AMSAT Board of Directors meeting. If Patrick would have shared the entire conversation, your would know that we were discussing the economic uncertainty at the very beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. No one knew at that point what effect the coronavirus would have on our economy and still do not fully know today. So, yes, I was concerned about cash flows and having access to our accounts, just as every for profit and nonprofit business in the World was. I would have been derelict in my duties as AMSAT Treasurer to not advise our Board of Directors of this threat and recommend a course of action. To say otherwise is disingenuous. I am happy to share that through our preemptive actions and the hard work of our Officers and volunteers, we have weathered the storm. Our biggest concern was with the cancellation of Hamvention, where a large part of our membership stop by the booth, catch up with everything going on, and pay their annual dues. Luckily, with the May 1st launch of our new Member Portal, AMSAT achieved a record amount of monthly membership revenues in May. Robert Bankston, KE4AL Treasurer Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT)
On Tuesday, July 14, 2020, 09:38:13 PM CDT, Bruce Perens bruce@perens.com wrote:
Robert,
On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 4:58 PM Robert Bankston via AMSAT-BB amsat-bb@amsat.org wrote:
I know you only show up at election time
Snark if you want, but I am working on Amateur Space quite often. My latest was the pocketqube ion thruster project, see http://perens.com/static/AppliedIon/ where my work successfully raised the necessary funds and got the project on its feet again.
AMSAT is on a solid financial footing and headed in the right direction.
Well, that is wonderful. But you must understand where my trepidation about AMSAT's finances comes from, since AMSAT presidents in their annual reports at AMSATs own meetings have been really grim about AMSAT's finances.
I also hear that around the start of April, you reported "Without cash flows, we (AMSAT) can't afford to pay our bills." At which point AMSAT applied for the government salary protection program. That is after the report you just cited, isn't it? We are all suffering from COVID-19 related austerity, and we can expect AMSAT to lose funds that it would have received around conferences, etc., so best wishes with that.
Thanks
Bruce
Excellent!
On Jul 15, 2020, at 11:29 AM, Robert Bankston via AMSAT-BB amsat-bb@amsat.org wrote:
Luckily, with the May 1st launch of our new Member Portal, AMSAT achieved a record amount of monthly membership revenues in May.
Robert Bankston, KE4AL Treasurer Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT)
On Wed, Jul 15, 2020 at 8:33 AM Robert Bankston via AMSAT-BB < amsat-bb@amsat.org> wrote:
I would think someone as learned as you would at least provide the proper citation.
The statement was properly attributed to you. If you had made your report to the membership I would have the whole thing, as it is I must rely on an incomplete report.
you would know that we were discussing the economic uncertainty at the very beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
That was always obvious. I would not expect that AMSAT even *could *be doing excellently when we would not be getting the people walking up to the booth at Hamvention, etc. And I would encourage members to pony up! I just renewed my membership through 2022, and put $120 in the President's Circle.
But Robert, if I understand the Salary Protection Program, AMSAT is now carrying debt, and this will increase for a while. I trust you to do everything necessary to get the government to forgive that debt, and to impress on the board that this is one thing that they just can't allow to fail.
Thanks
Bruce
participants (5)
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Bruce Perens -
Jeff Davis -
Joseph Armbruster -
Michelle Thompson -
Robert Bankston