[Ground-station] Kraken SDR and ITAR

[Michelle Thompson]

Thank you to the many people both on and off this email list that have
mailed ORI about the Kraken SDR software repository removal. Yesterday
I received the 11th inquiry about it, from someone with a lot of
experience in both technical and regulatory matters deeply involved in
education.

Here are two articles about Kraken.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/passive-radar-with-sdr

https://hackaday.com/2022/11/19/open-source-passive-radar-taken-down-for-regulatory-reasons/

Yes, we know about this issue. We were contacted very soon after the
takedown happened. We have offered assistance, we recommended Thomsen
and Burke LLP, and we will do whatever is necessary to help Kraken
moving forward.

We know Syed. As some of you are aware, we support another project he
is deeply involved with, called Skylark. This is a wonderful open
source satellite project.

The number and diversity of people contacting us about Kraken, and
asking us to do whatever we can to help, shows several things.

Passive radar is of great interest to the SDR community. Kraken is an
important product that people are interested in and want to see
successful. ORI's work in ITAR/EAR has not gone unnoticed. People
trust us to stick up for them when it comes to difficult regulatory
issues.

This makes the ongoing censorship, threats, insults, and interference
to ORI's consistently competent and meaningful work, from AMSAT and
ARDC, even more embarrassing for amateur radio than it already was.

If we want more freedom, better regulations, more open source, and
more innovative designs for amateur and open source digital radio,
then we need more people to speak up in defense of the work and the
people doing it.

We always need more volunteers as well. You do not have to be an
expert to join, either. You just have to be willing to become more of
one along the way.

How can you help Kraken? Follow their project and support their work.

https://www.crowdsupply.com/krakenrf/krakensdr

-Michelle Thompson