“A group of “concerned individuals” wants to save the
soon-to-be-dismantled Iridium satellite by converting the system
into an ‘open source’ network for public use.“
“The group, operating under the name Save Our Sats (we’ll ignore
for the moment that the satellites aren’t actually ours), wants
open source supporters, scientists, technologists and entrepreneurs
to cough up donations, spend money on SoS merchandising, even sign
up for a mooted SoS credit card – ‘IridiumCard – never leave orbit
without it’ – in order to pay Iridium not to knock its satellites
out of orbit….”
“Then there’s the issue of how you open source a network. A
publicly-owned network is another matter, and is, provided SoS can
raise the phenomenal sums required, buy up the network, form a
holding company to operate it and give donators shares in the
holding company. But the use of the term ‘open source’ does seem
either naive or used to tickle the interest of techies. Either way,
it suggests that the offer might not be quite as “serious” as it
suggests.”