Because questions have arisen here that are well answered by
a short series of postings from the 44net mailing list, at the
request of the author [Phil Karn] and others, I am reposting
them here.
- Brian
Hello all,
I've not been active here, but some of you may remember me as the guy
who first got TCP/IP going on amateur packet radio way back in 1986. At
one time, my name was registered as the owner of the block. This makes
me one of a VERY small group of people with any arguable personal
property interest in network 44. And yes, 25% of this space, which is
VERY unlikely to ever be used by hams, has been sold to Amazon.
Rather than try to personally profit from this, we all readily agreed to
place the *entire* proceeds of this sale into a 501(c)(3) charity
chartered to support amateur digital radio and related developments. No
one is buying a yacht or a mansion. As a tax-exempt charity, our tax
returns and related documents will be publicly available so you can see
what is being done. Like the rest of the amateur community, all of you
will have the opportunity to apply for grants and do good things for
amateur radio with them.
73, Phil