I think what he is saying is that it's easy for him to buy a commercial licence for Open Source software (even if the licence doesn't grant him any additional r

I think what he is saying is that it's easy for him to buy a commercial licence for Open Source software (even if the licence doesn't grant him any additional right or service) but donations are legally harder to pay before tax. I think it boils down to the fact that you can have business expenses, you deduce that from your revenue and it's all good, but other than that if you want to get money out of your company (salaries, dividends, etc.) you're being taxed. I guess the tax office wouldn't want you to just "donate" money from your company to get it out without paying taxes.