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> They can buy things. They can't give money away. Can someone explain this to me? Many corporations support the Red Cross, the American Cancer Society, youth
by humanrebar 11y ago
> They can buy things. They can't give money away.
Can someone explain this to me? Many corporations support the Red Cross, the American Cancer Society, youth basketball clubs, etc. in various ways.
Why is contributing to the advancement of science and public goods any different? It seems like that should be easier to justify if certain technology is critical to your business model.
- bcg1 11y agoThat money is usually budgeted for charity, and probably can only go to "legal" charities (at least in the US there are tax benefits to this) It is probably much harder to compete for a piece of that budget, and also there are a lot of hoops to jump through to become a "legal" charity (in the US, I don't know about other places). Since companies are already used to purchasing software, that is probably a much simpler way to go.
- dhimes 11y agoI think they can. Just call it a purchase. That's what I do. I have "purchased" licenses from many MIT licensed projects. I intend to do it for every one I put into my project (once I have it figured out). Also, libre office, mozilla, etc. It just goes into the 'software' account. I don't think the IRS is going to give a shit. Other companies may have shareholders who cry a little, but they could do it, at least to some level. Sending some love to Debian is a better option than paying for a MS license in some cases. I think that the companies can and should support FOSS more. Especially if they don't want everything to end up GPL'd.