[vox] [OT] On Bill Gates, philanthropist

[Peter Jay Salzman]

On Fri 05 Dec 03, 10:20 AM, Richard Crawford <rscrawford@mossroot.com> said:
> Bill Kendrick said:
> 
> > I wonder what strings are attached there, though.  "Heres a bunch of
> > money, but you can have to spend X% of it on books about Microsoft"...?
> 
> There's an article in this month's _American Libraries_ about Bill Gates'
> donations to libraries.  I haven't read it yet, but I'm sure the strings
> are there.  Most of the librarians I know, though, get really twitchy when
> they're told that they *must* have certain books on their shelves (almost
> as bad as being told that they *must* remove certain books from their
> shelves).  I'll let you know what I find.
 
i'd be a little surprised if there were strings attached, for a few
reasons:

1. i wonder what the tax exempt status of the money would be if you said
   "my money can only be used for X and Y" or "you must do Z to receive
   my donation".  i'm sure tax exempt status gets affected somehow.

2. i honestly believe bill gates is a good person, and i also believe his
   philanthropic endeavors are separate from his business life.

3. it would be VERY bad PR, both for him and for his company.

4. MS is in the book business as well.  i don't think they want their
   books in libraries.  they want people to buy their books.
 
> > -bill!
> > (get back to work, damnit!)
> 
> I'm working!  I'm working!  Um.  Even though we use Solaris and Oracle at
> my office, my boss sort of expects me to be an open source advocate. 
> There, justification.
 
i think bill was talking to himself.   ;-)

pete

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