HamOpen.org is the name of our organization. We are a non-profit that sponsors:
- The development of advanced technology for Amateur Radio as Open Source or Open Hardware. Inevitably our developments have important non-ham applications as well.
- Charting the way forward for Open Source, including the development of Post-Open, a possible successor.
- Sponsoring speaking programs related to Open Source or Amateur Radio, including Bruce Perens K6BP’s global series of keynote speaking engagements.
We are running several fund-raising campaigns:
- Please join, or renew your membership for 2024: $10
- Please donate to HamOpen.org
- Bruce Perens Speaking Expenses: Help Bruce promote Open Source and What Comes After Open Source.
News
We will be exhibiting at Orlando Hamcation on February 9-11. We are showing FreeDV and M17 at booths 64-65 in the main building. Hamcation kindly moved us to an end-cap double-wide booth from the double-wide in the middle of an aisle that we had. This is a great high-traffic location.
HamOpen.org has a 501(c)3 fiscal sponsor, so your donations are now tax deductible (and past ones are as well – due to the IRS 2-year window for new non-profits to get their 501(c)3 status). Our sponsor is Non-Profit Accounting Service. A fiscal sponsor is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that helps other non-profits with the government, tax, and clerical load of running the organization, without requiring them to go through the 501(c)3 process themsleves (although we probably eventually will), so that we can focus on its operations.
Every non-profit or fiscal sponsor has overhead, because running a non-profit includes a lot of tax documentation, bookkeeping, etc. Ours charges 5% of revenue and $50/month, and provides a CPA to do essentially all of the paperwork of keeping the organization afloat and legal. This is lower than other fiscal sponsors or what it would cost to do the work on our own. Having attempted to do this work with volunteers in a number of organizations, I’m really glad to hand it over to a pro.
This provides us with some advantages that we can pass on to you. If you would like to go for a grant for an Amateur Radio Open Source or Open Hardware project, we can handle the grant administration for you. Many ham radio clubs and some Open Source projects we work with, like M17, have gone for grants from ARDC. We also have access through GrantWatch to reach other grant sources.
We’ve requested two grants from ARDC: one is to support our exhibiting Open Source for Amateur Radio at four high-traffic Hamfests yearly (I’ve been paying almost all expenses personally up to now), and to sponsor my keynotes at Open Source conferences (distant ones cost around $2000 for travel and lodging and if I wasn’t reimbursed, that too came out of my pocket). The second is to sponsor development of Post-Open, a path forward for Open Source (see this article in The Register).
If you’ve been following my work on the $14 remote rig controller, I’m working on the final stage of that: a web-based general station control system that is so awesome that I think it will take over remote ham radio entirely, and a lot of non-ham device control applications. It’s not ready for display by Hamcation – it should be there by Hamvention.
Please feel free to write to me at bruce at perens dot com, or call +1 510-DX4-K6BP if you have questions. – Bruce Perens