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Gates Pledges $750M to Vaccinate Children
chriskzoo5 writes "The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is pledging $750M to vaccinate children worldwide over the next 10 years. Much maligned for his business practices, is this proof that sometimes the ends justify the means? Let's see if the Linux community can match his generosity."
Does the Linux community have $750 million? Just curious.
haha... against viruses... har-dee-har-har
Ehta nyeh IBM, ehta Macintosh!
"Let's see if the Linux community can match his generosity." There cannot be some charity contest between Linux and Windows! Anyway, most of the Linux community's displeasure is with Micro$oft and its activities, not Bill Gates the individual himself
Regardless on weather you like Microsoft or not, you have to admit this is great. But about the Linux community matching, maybe the same percentage of thier profits would be possible. The truth is however, that these are two completely diffrent situations.
-- Nic
steals from the rich, donates to the poor
The Linux community will match it when they have as much money as Gates. Not many people or companies have $750Mil to give.
Is it possible to mod a news article as flamebait?
Let's see if the Linux community can match his generosity.
How can we? We don't sell anything.
However, we can provide these children with a free open-source operating
system that runs will on older machines, and comes with thousands of applications,
tutorials and how-to's.
Someone mod this -1 Troll...
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
Well, about 1/7 of the worlds population would have to give a dollar. Only counting working people, that goes way up.
Just think, to amass this much 'generosity' how much the world must have already paid to him (including developing countries).
Money fades, Linux stays forever. Of course, if everyone who uses Linux were to donate the cost of a winXP home license to a needy cause, that would be sensational.
Good pulicity for them though. In other news SCO donate free 'SCOnix' (?) licenses to hungry children.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
$750 Million = about 375 million vaccinations = about 300 million living adults in 14 - 18 years = at least an additional 250 million Windows XP-2020 licenses. At $400 USD each that's $10 BILLION.
This outperforms Microsoft stock even. Genius.
The original poster says:
"...Let's see if the Linux community can match his generosity."
But as there aren't quite as many Linux users as there are Windows users out there, it'd only be fair to expect us to raise an amount proportional to the $750M raised by the Windows users.
This is just the beginning of his campaign to create a more secure human being, which will eventually include various bug fixes, tracking chips, emotion inhibitors, and one bionic extendo-grab arm.
linux community? It's ganna take a lonnng time for any normal individual to cough up 750 million dollors. However, we'll look to big linux distributors for the answers :D
...done by free software developers is charity, anyway. It might not be vaccinating kids, but at least they'll be able to afford a free OS when they don't die of whatever would have killed them before Mr Gates came along.
-- Even if a god did exist, why the fsck should I worship it?
Yeah, too bad the money will be used to buy our (American) drugs at our ridiculous prices. That money could go so much further if the vaccinations were purchased in other countries.
feh. stuff.
The difference? One of them is someone who can afford to make such a generous donation, while the other is still making his software available for free over the Internet. That makes that last remark pretty insensitive and gratuitous, IMHO.
I know which one I admire the most. But, heck, that's a personal view.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Will someone please think of the computers?
Oh wait, that should beWill someone please think of the children?
>> Let's see if the Linux community can match his generosity.
It already did. Several times.
Think of all those "donations" that happen implicitly every time a poor guy in a 3rd world country uses a legal Linux box instead of commiting piracy.
This is kind of "give me all your money and I'll donate 5% to charity!" compared to "I don't want any money from you".
...when we said MS should do something about viruses.
I am friends with the daughter of the head of the Gates Foundation... Bill has told her (my friend) that his goal is to give as much as possible of his money to charity. He actually really cares about the world and his foundation and its work is proof of his commitment.
Many may disagree with Microsoft's practices but Bill Gates is extremely committed to the world.
Let's see if the Linux community can match his generosity.
We did, we made an operating system that doesn't result in you taking an angle grinder to your computer.
There's many Linux clusters hard at work calculating new drugs and new treatments against illnesses.
Linux doesn't cost money, it costs effort. Linux also doesn't donate money, the community donates effort.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
Vaccinating children worldwide can only be a good thing. Indeed, Microsoft pumps a lot of money into various charitable causes --- again, only a good thing.
But what does this have to do with the Linux community? Microsoft's raison d'etre is profit, and given the amount it makes, it has a social obligation. In this way, it fulfils it. The Linux community is driven by the product itself, not sales figures. "Let's see if the Linux community can match his generosity" is not only irrelevant, it verges on being not very nice.
When I'm worth 30 billion, I will also donate 750 million to my pet charity.
Dammit I will donate 20 billion. I know I will only have 10 billion to keep me in food and shelter, but that is the kind of generous guy I would be...
Also I won't even claim my tax perks from it...
Choose your allies carefully, it is highly unlikely you will be held accountable for the actions of your enemies
If a gangster throws a block party for his neighbors, it doesn't justify all the people he killed in his work. It's still a nice party, and he's still a gangster.
Get her a mac and stop whining.
We moaned and bitched and complained about wanting something like this, now we got it, and your STILL complaining?
liqbase
So he's spending his monopoly money for the children. Thank God someone's finally thinking of the children.
The ends justify the means only if you have a corrupt morality. If you commit a crime, but use the proceeds in some "altruistic" way, is the crime then excusable?
The Robber Barons of old used charity to improve their image. Rockefeller, for instance, handing out shiny new dimes to children.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
To say the end justifies the means is to assume that his business practices, many disagree with were done, with this end in mind. Have you seen any evidence of this?
Bill Gates is a capitalist. He's also a philanthropist. They're not mutually exclusive; in fact, some claim it's the "rich man's burden" to help society when they can. But they're also not inextricably entertwined, either. Why do people persist in judging one by the other?
four guesses:
1) he feels bad for ripping of so many people and forcing thousands of people out of work
2) he wants tax breaks
3) he wants people to like him, and he can spare 750m for that cause (like when mr burns does in the simpsons, except mr burns throws pennies off a bridge)
4) he's a good man, except in business
personally, i wouldn't go for 4
What ELSE can a super rich man do with his money?
And since he got it by rather dubious business practices in the first place, I can't say I am terribly impressed.
As for the Linux jibe - the existance of Linux ensures that when those kids grow up they won't have to buy overpriced buggy software to generate more dodgy profits for a character like Bill G...
Find Japanese addresses in English on Google Maps Japan: http://diddlefinger.com/
give XX billion of dollars doesn't matter, if the capitalism structure stay in place.
Gates give less than 4% of his fortune, it's not really a lot, and on the other hand he continue to say that open-source advocacy are communists, refering to old social structures and ignoring the open society concept.
the solution of the worldwide problems is in sharing the ressources, not by driopping some peanuts.
(sorry for my bad english)
I'm glad a lot more children will live to a higher age. However, should this not be backed-up by a contraception-campaign as well? Population pressure is a big cause for the spreading of disease and ecological disturbance.
Handing out fish is a commendable act.
" I've seen horrors...horrors that you've seen. But you have no right to call
me a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that...But
you have no right to judge me. It's impossible for words to describe what is
necessary to those who do not know what horror means.
Horror. Horror has a face...And you must make a friend of horror. Horror and
moral terror are your friends. If they are not then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies. I remember when I was with Special Forces...Seems a thousand centuries ago...We went into a camp to innoculate the children.
We left the camp after we had innoculated the children for Polio, and this old
man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn't see. We went
back there and they had come and hacked off every innoculated arm. There
they were in a pile...A pile of little arms. And I remember...I...I...I cried...
I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it. I never want to forget. And then I realized...like I was shot...Like I was shot with a
diamond...a diamond bullet right through my forehead...And I thought:
My God...the genius of that. The genius. The will to do that. Perfect,
genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were
stronger than we. Because they could stand that these were not
monsters...These were men...trained cadres...these men who fought with
their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with
love...but they had the strength...the strength...to do that. If I had ten
divisions of those men our troubles here would be over very quickly. You
have to have men who are moral...and at the same time who are able to
utilize their primordal instincts to kill without feeling...without passion...
without judgement...without judgement. Because it's judgement that
defeats us. "
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
The Linux community has ALREADY "matched this generosity." Rather than charge money in exchange for software and then give some small fraction of that money back as charitable donations, the Linux community lets people keep all their money in the first place. That's more efficient, and I think a lot more generous, than charging for the software in the first place.
Free software is also going to help the third world develop more quickly than it would under a purely proprietary model, so there's an extra kicker that'll help the next generation too, not just this generation. "Teach a man to fish..." and all that, ya' know?
I hope that after I die the one word people use to describe me is "resurrected."
Gate's dying regret is going to be, "I could have done more."
A bit of research on the subject of vaccination is pretty eye opening actually. Turns out, vaccination != immunisation. A lot of the 'scientific' evidence that supports the "vaccination == immunisation" myth gives wonderful stats that show disease rates dropping dramatically at approx the same time as vaccination was introduced, but completely ignores other data, like the general improvement of public hygeine, the introduction of running water, the recognition that things like washing hands and sterilising surgical instruments are good.
Now a lot of the stuff I've read that claims that vaccination != immunisation and/or vaccination is bad has been written by total crackpots with not a single ounce of actual scientific or academic validity, but at the same time, some of it is valid. A close look, as I've said, at a lot of the 'proof' that vaccination is good is also fatally flawed.
It's a really difficult psychological situation. There's plenty of scientific evidence to show that vaccination is bad. But since the day we grokked what was going on around us, we've been told that vaccination is good, necessary, and that people who don't vaccinate their kids are nutbags. It's really tough, when you become a parent, to decide which way to go.
Which brings me full circle. After your GP/Doctor answers that question honestly (and in the negative), ask them why.
I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
until I realized that the worst thing you could do is decrease child mortality without changing the conditions that require having large families, e.g. poverty mostly. If you don't do that then you end up with a huge populations of mostly young, poor, unemployed people. A recipe for social unrest.
Let's add all the open/free sofware value "donated" to hospital, schools and public libraries worldwide to see how is giving away more.
DNA in your Linux: DNALinux
I concur with this completely. It's easy to be 'generous' when you have more money than you can spend!
In short, no - Microsoft's corporate actions are not justified just as most abusive monopolist's actions are not justified. However, it is very generous of him and his wife to donate such a large share for their excess wealth to charities. But don't kid yourself, it's not like he's going to have to sell his 300,000 acre mansion and live in a normal three bedroom house because he's given so much of his money away.
Bill and Melinda are fine people. Bill is an incredibly shrewd businessman and Microsoft can be ruthless. Please don't confuse the issue for the sake of boiling people's blood and getting a reaction.
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
...and the potential worth of that help is greater than $750 million.
My guess is the reason for Bill's philanthropy is the same as for (nearly) all rich people -- he sees that he cannot take it with him, and he wants to do something to have the rest of mankind remember him fondly when he is gone. Carnegie and Rockefeller did the same thing.
Only less so, because when you've got countless billions in the bank, you've got more money than you could ever possibly need, so if you give it away you really won't miss it at all. If you've only got a small amount of money, and you give the same proportion away, you might feel the pinch.
Let's face it, when you get to Gates levels of wealth, it's just numbers. The only reasonable thing to do is put it to some practical use for the good of humanity, whether that's eradicating disease, building libraries or whatever. I commend him for this, but I really don't see what else he could spend it on, anyway.
Call me a cynic, but there is always an ulteria motive involved in moves like this, as seen from past donations made from the fund.
MSAV is back! In needle form!
Given that there are plenty of weathly people who give nothing to charity, anything Bill gives is better than that - whatever the percentage.
Is this a huge amount for him? It would be like if I had a hundred bucks and I gave the homeless guy on the street a $1.50
Unless you live in your parents basement and own nothing, I very much doubt you are worth only $100.
Your post makes it sound like you don't think that his 750 million is particulary generious. Given that he didn't have to make the donation and could have easily kept the money for himself (benefiting no-one but him), I would say you're wrong.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
Sure we can. There is an estimate that the cost of the software on a typical Linux distribution disk is $4 billion (i.e. 4x10^9). Which we're giving away for free (as in gratis) in most cases.
If that's not generous, I don't know what is.
Stefan Axelsson
This story looks like both a troll and flamebait, and it gets me to wondering about the submitter. What a shocker. He's a known troll.
Good that he's helping a much needed cause. Don't diss Gates for helping because this sure beats letting the money rot in a bank somewhere.
Also, it's not about how much you give, it's about how much you can afford to give. Remember the widow's mite. Those who give, despite being needy themselves, are really something.
Gates secret business plan:
1. Spend $750M to vaccinate children
2. ??????
3. Profit!!!
First of all, I'm quite sure that 750 million is more than 1.5% of his total assets.
Second of all, even if it's only 1.5% of his assets, it's a good thing, how many of you have donated 1.5%?
Why don't we all try to donate 1.5% of our assets instead of whining about the poster's flamebait.
I am not exactly a fan of Microsoft, but come on. The knee-jerk anti Microsoft tilt of /. is amazing. I can see it now. There will be some post rated funny talking about how little Gates has spent to vaccinate Windows PCs against viruses, and it will completely trivialize what is being done here. I can't understand how anyone could come up with any negative aspect of this $750 million gift. Does an orphan in Guatemala care about how terrible Windows is? At least give the guy credit where credit is due.
E = m c^3 Don't drink and derive E = m c^3
Let's see if the Linux community can match his generosity.
We have already given much more. And it's not just a Linux community, you know.
Yeah, but I bet Bill gets a much more meaningful tax deduction from his $750M than you would from your $1.50...
The problem I have with wealthy philanthropists is that regardless of the reasons for their generosity, be it a tax-write off or a genuine out-of-the-blue heartfelt donation, the donation is subject purely to the mercy of one very rich individual.
I would rather see the same level of funding coming from a democratically represented government in which a greater number of people have a say.
Why should a charity make or break it on the say of one man? I would prefer to have a vote in the distribution of that wealth through the representation I enjoy in the democratic system, instead of seeing such an obscene amount of money in the hands of one man.
Good for him for his choices of charities so far but the potential for abuse is frightening.
Let's see if the Linux community can match his generosity."
What is this "linux community". Aren't the people using other kernels included? "Free and/or OSS community/ies" would be more accurate. Unless they mean the Linux developers, which I doubt. Kernels are not important, the idea of free software is.
I doubt if the entire Linux community combined has even SEEN $750 million combined in our lives.
Well, at least some fraction of the unused Windows license that automatically came with my new Dell Insiron (The first thing I did was install RHFC3) goes to a good cause. Unfortunately a larger percentage goes to stockholders and board members who threaten, abuse and manipulate hardware vendors to their own advantage still (boot loader? You'll install what we want or no Microsoft licenses for you! Bwahahahaha!!!!)
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
If you need a Free Software example to follow, turn to that of the author of Vim who has used his work to entreat users to donate to the needy in Uganda. But don't piss on a $750 million donation to some of the worst off on this planet; that's really low class and unless you've solved the problem already don't disparage the people who are taking a crack at it.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
I rember hearing a story in Sunday school once that is quite simular to this. There were all these noblemen donating tons of money to the church. A poor woman walks by and gives about two cents. While the noblemen scoff at her because of her "megar" donation. The priest then points out that it was thier donation that was "megar" because they only gave a little of what they have, while she gave all of what they have. My point is, yes Bill Gates gave a great donation. However, it is still only a small part of his money.
-- Nic
One could argue that the open source software community is already philanthropic enough by offering an extremely high but unknown amount (in dollars, mind you) software free to anyone who has the hardware to run it on.
I don't want to contrast this with donating money to vaccinate children, which is an extremely grateful endeavor. But to _hint_ that the Linux/OSS community isn't philanthropic because they do not donate cash is quite asinine.
And... slashdot editors really suck! Sometimes I don't even understand why this site is so famous... Do you?
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
Considering the average american gives somthing on the order of 53 dollars per year (including givings through taxes). Thats about a dollar a week. Average person pulling in a decent job probably makes 35,000 a year. That is .015% per year. Bill is doing his share.
Let's see if the Linux community can match his generosity.
I think there's some penicillin growing on an old meatloaf in the back of my fridge. The little tykes are more than welcome to help themselves.
This is absolutely rediculous. Bill Gates has amassed a fortune on the backs of and at the expense of others. MS business practice has put many others out of business.
What else are 2 people going to do with that kind of money? At this point being worldwide charitable is no longer a nice thing but is necessary to still call yourself a human being. If they sat on that fortune letting it do nothing I think it puts them at the level of tyrant for holding back.
Don't get me wrong, it is still a great thing that they do. So congratulations on continuing to realize what a fortunate life you have lived Bill, and using that realization to help those that have not been fortunate at all.
I still do not approve of how you got there.
At this level Gates is simply paying lip service to charity. He has over 40 *billion* in the bank. That's enough to end povery the world over... twice!
It's a start and believe me, I'd never lok a gift hors eint he mouth, but this is akin to me pledging £4.50. Everything is relative.
can't a man post news about some rich guy donating money to a good cause without this turning out to be yet another (rolleyes) WINDOWS VS *NIX turf war? And why is everybody linking gates' money-donation to where it came from? It's there, and it's going to charity. Those are the _facts_ . All the rest you're discussing are at most your personal opinions( as widespread as the may be)
... as being somewhat similar to so-called 'celebrities' announcing million-dollar donations to charity. The fact that they seem to expect everyone to fall on their knees and worship this display of magnanimity doesn't alter the fact that it is a worthwhile gesture, but any charitable donation should be a matter of private conscience rather than a public show.
Also, as other posts have pointed out, Gates can comfortably afford the amount that has been pledged. Does that make it somehow more worthwhile than a private individual lending a hand to a stranger, be it through a few quid in a charity box or a few hours of work on a free software project?
i must say it is really pathetic how you people find it within you to completely overlook what an immense humanitarian acheivement thie gates foundation is. it goes a long way to alleving poverty, disease and other horrors. if you are in need of someone to despise, start with with your politicians who have long been killing and torturing in order to make their evil way in the world. bill gates, after all, is only a businessman.
Take the number of linux instalations running. Multiply it by what Microsoft would charge for each of those OS seats. I'm sure it comes out to a large number. When BG donates computers he writes the software off his taxes at full cost.
"brxref
Melinda probably hid the remote control and told Bill he'd get it back when he made a large donation.
It is all well and good to say that "if I had that sort of money, I'd donate huge amounts of it too", but he is actually doing it. If you are an American (or Canadian, or Western European, or reading /. pretty much anywhere), then you likely *are* affluant consiering that a full half the world's population lives on less than $2 per day (http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Poverty. asp). And we (as affluant societies) could and should do more to help close this gap.
Okay let's say Bill is worth 50 billion dollars on paper. 750 million is something like 1.5% of his total worth? Is this a huge amount for him? It would be like if I had a hundred bucks and I gave the homeless guy on the street a $1.50
How much of your total worth do you use to donate?
I think it sounds like a pretty normal amont.
1.5% of my total worth would be much more than I donated for the Tsunami victims recently.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
That's a pretty loaded story. 1) To bring up the name that is hated by the majority of savvy computer users and 2) to challenge the underdog in a competition of dollars and cents. Bleeding the world, then saving children is an interesting series of moves, Mr. Gates. At least Linux is accessible to the developing countries for a cheaper computing resource so that they can move up economically and never have to worry about starvation and disease again.
It's HIS MONEY! Do you get it? It's HIS MONEY! What makes people like you think you have the right to rob him, or anybody else of what's rightfully theirs?
eTrade SUCKS
Of course Bill Gates has a lot more money than he is donating. Many people with a lot of money are not eager to give it away though, even if it's a small share of what they have. I applaude Gates' effort.
Sample this!
Philantropic organisations are good things. This money being made available is a good thing. I don't mean to disparage a charitable foundation - but I can have a go at the founder. The question is, "does the end justify the means" and the answer is very definitely no.
In terms of what impresses me about people, it's not making a song and dance about how generous you are, particularly if such generosity coincided with the emerging public knowledge of what a calculating bastard you really are. Being a control freak, breaking the law, abusing your power over others to make so much money you're the richest man in the world, and then publicising how much you give away - makes my skin crawl.
Two things to consider:
1. The amount of money involved is roughly similar to the fine just set by the EU, and is spread over ten years. You could interpret that as Bill isn't giving away any more money than than he's earned by breaking the law. So it sounds impressive, but could a just be a cost-effective form of PR.
2. The Open Source movement is clearly never going to have a huge bank account to make such headline grabbing donations. But just think - free software for many IT requirements such as OS, email, office apps, research clusters, communication and access to world news for people living in repressed countries.
IT is changing the world, and open source makes it possible for many people that wouldn't other otherwise have access. And it makes things cheaper for researchers, hospitals and governments. Either it competes with MS, enabling a hospital trust for example to negotiate better prices, or is simply free should they adopt Linux.
Open Source is therefore contributing a huge financial boon to the world. And in some cases, saved money means saved lives.
It's a beautiful thing, no matter the flaws, disputes, arguments and court cases. In comparison, Microsoft is an ugly thing, precisely because of all the flaws, disputes etc... Giving away money doesn't justify things, it's just an easy way for a rich person to try to make amends. If Bill gave up something important, I'd be impressed. Even just a genuine apology for the monopoly thing would be a start (plus corrective actions), and that's free!
Actually, if all you had was $100 to your name, and you gave $1.50 of that to the homeless guy on the street, that'd strike me as pretty generous on your part, having only $100 to your name.
The Ends never justify the means, people who belive they do are going to hell.
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
That is the logic here, isn't it: that it doesn't matter who you shit on or how many people's lives you destroy as long as you use some of the money you made in the process to someone even worse off than your victims. I don't buy that any more than I buy the idea that the Free software movement isn't worth $75m per year in benefits to poor countries.
Gates was born into priviledge, has never had to work a day in his life if he didn't feel like it, and has devoted his professional life to preventing other people from using their talents to make an honest living. He is the reincarnation of all that America was supposed to stand against in the form of old George III. Fuck him and his dirty money. He was a bastard yesterday, and he's still a bastard today.
Story is bullshit, poster is bullshit, Gates is bullshit.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
First of all, no. The ends never justify the means. When you find yourself using people not as an end unto themselves, find different means.
Second of all, I know a girl who been getting hospitalized for months on end ever since she was vaccinated as a child. The vaccine is responsible for destroying her liver, among other things. Vaccines do nasty things to a percentage of the population.
Third of all, and this applies to all foreign aid (except of course for countries that have been developed thanks to foreign money--current count: 0), when there are mouths to feed, and you feed them, you now have even more mouths to feed. If you think its ok to make a small percentage of the population who receives vaccines so sick (there's no was she would have lived long outside a 1st world country, and she's not being killed naturally, this was purely for the betterment of society as a whole) then why not go whole hog and let the whole lot of them go?
Anyones who's ever been annoyed at the idea of antivirus companies should cringe at the idea of vaccines. You can write all the code you want to identify and stop a virus, but the vulnerability only goes away when the program gets fixed. Vaccines don't stay in the gene pool. Natural immunity does.
Direct away from face when opening.
Admittedly, a VERY bad pun.
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
I have a feeling this is going to be the worst discussion I've ever seen for a story...
Contries that use Gnu/Linux or free software, dosen't use so much money on software, so there are more money for thing like vaccines for example. The greatest problem on developing contries isn't the money, but what they do with the money. Brazil have a law that mandates a percentage of all government money must go do health, other areas that dsosen't have this kind of legal protection year over year lose money for paying debts.
"[...] I'm after a man whom I want to destroy. He died many centuries ago, but until the last trace of him is wiped out of men's minds, we will not have a decent world to live in."
"What man?"
"Robin Hood."
Rearden looked at him blankly, not understanding.
"He was the man who robbed the rich and gave to the poor. Well, I'm the man who robs the poor and gives to the rich-or, to be exact, the man who robs the thieving poor and gives back to the productive rich."
"What in blazes do you mean?"
"If you remember the stories you've read about me in the newspapers, before they stopped printing them, you know that I have never robbed a private ship and never taken any private property. Nor have I ever robbed a military vessel - because the purpose of a military fleet is to protect from violence the citizens who paid for it, which is the proper function of a government. But I have seized every loot carrier that came within range of my guns, every government relief ship, subsidy ship, loan ship, gift ship, every vessel with a cargo of goods taken by force from some men for the unpaid, unearned benefit of others. I seized the boats that sailed under the flag of the idea which I am fighting: the idea that need is a sacred idol requiring human sacrifices - that the need of some men is the knife of a guillotine hanging over others - that all of us must live with our work, our hopes, our plans, our efforts at the mercy of the moment when that knife will descend upon us - and that the extent of our ability is the extent of our danger, so that success will bring our heads down on the block, while failure will give us the right to pull the cord. This is the horror which Robin Hood immortalized as an ideal of righteousness. It is said that he fought against the looting rulers and returned the loot to those who had been robbed, but that is not the meaning of the legend which has survived. He is remembered, not as a champion of property, but as a champion of need, not as a defender of the robbed, but as a provider of the poor. He is held to be the first man who assumed a halo of virtue by practicing charity with wealth which he did not own, by giving away goods which he had not produced, by making others pay for the luxury of his pity. He is the man who became the symbol of the idea that need, not achievement, is the source of rights, that we don't have to produce, only to want, that the earned does not belong to us, but the unearned does. He became a justification for every mediocrity who, unable to make his own living, has demanded the power to dispose of the property of his betters, by proclaiming his willingness to devote his life to his inferiors at the price of robbing his superiors. It is this foulest of creatures - the double-parasite who lives on the sores of the poor and the blood of the rich - whom men have come to regard as a moral ideal. And this has brought us to a world where the more a man produces, the closer he comes to the loss of all his rights, until, if his ability is great enough, he becomes a rightless creature delivered as prey to any claimant - while in order to be placed above rights, above principles, above morality, placed where anything is permitted to him, even plunder and murder, all a man has to do is to be in need. Do you wonder why the world is collapsing around us? That is what I am fighting, Mr. Rearden. Until men learn that of all human symbols, Robin Hood is the most immoral and the most contemptible, there will be no justice on earth and no way for mankind to survive."
Rearden listened, feeling numb. But under the numbness, like the first thrust of a seed breaking through, he felt an emotion he could not identify except that it seemed familiar and very distant, like something experienced and renounced long ago.
( excerpt from Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" )
Circumcision is child abuse.
Now if Gates pledged to vaccinate 750million HIMSELF, now THAT would be interesting...
I am a speak english. Do you not? - Saroto
Okay let's say Bill is worth 50 billion dollars on paper.
"On paper" means he doesn't actually have $50bn sat in the bank. I have to wonder quite how much of his total worth is tied up in shares (especially of MS), and quite what it would do to the share price(s) if he tried to sell them all at once.
Just because you're worth X on paper doesn't mean you can quickly and easily get your hands on that money. That's not to say that he doesn't have a staggering amount of cash at his disposal, just that you're using the wrong figure.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
So how much of your savings do you donate? More than 1.5%, I guess?
Al Capone was a wonder of the age. It should be pointed out that Capone was the 'generous' gangster. He actually helped build Cicero and Chicago projects, gave to the needy, helped the elderly, and was great with kids. While he may have consciously did this for improving his image, he did try to be an active member of the community. He liked sports, baseball, boxing, and horse racing. He gave away a lot of his ill-gotten gains, and it was part of the defence for his tax evasion trial. But Capone ultimately went to prison for tax evasion, and died in 1947 from complications arising from syphilis.
From http://www.btinternet.com/~dreklind/valentine.htm
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
This is really, really good. Preventable disease is high on the list of tremendous world problems that are actually relatively easy to solve, we just don't. I recall some WHO report saying that 3 million people die anually from diseases that can be prevented with a pill or shot that causes next to nothing and wouldn't be hard to get to them with just a little funding. So politics aside, I'm enormously happy to see this.
xkcd.com - a webcomic of mathematics, love, and language.
Let's put it this way. One individual (via a Foundation, granted) donated considerably more to charity than the entire US government committed in aid for the recent tsunami disaster. Also more than the entire US population gave in private donations for that same disaster.
a world in progress...
let me let you in on a little secret about Bill and MelindaGates so-called "Foundation." Gate's demi-trillionaire status is basedon a nasty little monopoly-protecting trade treaty called "TRIPS" - theTrade-Related Intellectual Property Rights rules of the World TradeOrganization. TRIPS gives Gates a hammerlock on computer operatingsystems worldwide, legally granting him a monopoly that the RobberBarons of yore could only dream of. But TRIPS, the rule which helpsGates rule, also bars African governments from buying AIDS, malaria andtuberculosis medicine at cheap market prices.
c fm?ItemID =15294
Example: in June 2000, at the urging of Big Pharma, Bill Clintonthreatened trade sanctions against Argentina for that nation's daring tooffer low-cost drugs to Southern Africa.
Gates knows darn well that the "intellectual property rights" laws suchas TRIPS - which keep him and Melinda richer than Saddam and the Mafiacombined -- are under attack by Nelson Mandela and front-line doctorstrying to get cheap drugs to the 23 million Africans sick with the AIDSvirus. Gate's brilliant and self-serving solution: he's spending anitsy-bitsy part of his monopoly profits (the $6 billion spent by Gates'foundation is less than 2% of his net worth) to buy some drugs for afraction of the dying. The bully billionaire's "philanthropic"organization is currently working paw-in-claw with the bigpharmaceutical companies in support of the blockade on cheap drugshipments.
Gates' game is given away by the fact that his Foundation has invested$200 million in the very drug companies stopping the shipment oflow-cost AIDS drugs to Africa.
Gates says his plan is to reach one million people with medicine by theend of the decade. Another way to read it: he's locking in a tradesystem that will block the delivery of cheap medicine to over 20million.
The computer magnate's scheme has a powerful ally. "The president couldhave been reading from a script prepared by Mr. Gates," enthuses theTimes' cub reporter, referring to Mr. Bush's AIDS plan offered up thisweek to skeptical Africans. The US press does not understand whyAfricans don't jump for Bush's generous offer. None note that the moneyheld out to the continent's desperate nations has strings attached or,more accurately, chains and manacles. The billions offered are mostlyloans at full interest which may be used only to buy patent drugs at aprice several times that available from other nations. What Africanswant, an end to the devastating tyranny of TRIPS and other trade rules,is dismissed by the Liberator of Baghdad.
We are all serfs on Microsoft's and Big Pharma's 'intellectualproperty.' If Gates' fake philanthropy eviscerates the movement to freeAfricans from the tyranny of TRIPS, then Bill and Melinda's donationscould have the effect of killing more Africans than then even their PRagents claim they have saved. And for our own Republic, we can onlyhope that when the bully-boy billionaire injects his next wad of lootinto the Bush political campaign, he uses a condom.
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.
Now M$ is certain that some big US pharma will stay
away from OSS...
just one innoculation will prevent:
Linuxitis
Sun scabies
Delirium Transmeta
OS Pleurisy
AMDementia
Creutzfeldt-Steve Jobs disease (CSJD, human variant)
---
Clinical tests on patients such as Steve Ballmer, have shown occasional spasms of restlessness and dancing, accompanied by involuntary male breast-zone enhancement, research is on-going.
THe state owns everything under communism. The state pays all salaries. Why would they want to tax anyone if they pay the salaries in the first. You might wanna consider reading something on the subect before making a fool of yourself on Slashdot....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
I've looked through all the comments for this story and everyone's discounting Gates' contribution. I can only assume it's because you're all feeling guilty about not even donating a lousy $50 to charity from your birthday money.
I think Gates won't miss $750 million, so he's decided that he'll donate it to vaccinations. Well, that's logical because if a disease starts in some isolated backwater and nobody's vaccinated, it could easily turn into a nasty pandemic.
In fact, logically, it makes sense to forego a luxury or two every now and then to make sure that world health is well cared for.
So, stop making excuses and start making contributions! Consider - if we all dig deep, then maybe Billy will be inspired to donate another couple of billion. But remember, the world is a community, and this silly bickering hurts us all (see the above bit about the pandemic).
*#*#*#*#*#******* I love peanut butter sandwiches!
Why should Gates give it all away now?
No-one gives away their whole fortune in a single go. What would it achieve?
Far better to give big donations when they are needed.
... Loudly donate the millions.
It's the practice of cut throats, executives and vagabonds the world over to legitimise their ill gotten gains by 'generously' returning a small part of their swag to the needy while quietly keeping the rest for themselves.
Again, that $750 million was not stuffed into mattresses or piled in a huge Scrooge McDuck vault for him to swim in.
Whether cash in the bank or value of stock, it is being invested and used to create jobs and grow businesses, create new products and services, fund the infrastructure we use every day.
Bill Gates' money benefits an enormously large number of people, just not directly coins-in-the-pocket style. That didn't change when he donated it to this cause.
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
3/4 Billion dollars to vacinate millions of people might sound a great idea...... But think of what might be the implications... Firstly, there is already a child mortality rate..... This program will decrease this rate, so more children live... If so, we will need more Food/space to feed them? Will we end up in 10 years or so with mass hunger, with exponentially more people dieing of starvation, or with more and more forrests cut down due to a rapidly increasing population?
Also, What would be the effect on the Vaccination? Using it this many times, I would imagine that the diseases it protects against may grow immune. So, this would leave us with no vaccinations.... and in 10 years time, us in the western world might end up dead when untreatable plagues run riot....
Of all the things to help those without, I just think that this idea has not been well thought out.
billionaires like gates should be subject to wealth taxes and heavy income taxes. We could use the money to pay for healthcare for all Americans.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
This is really Microsoft's Anti Virus software initiative
I am not sure what to say about people who complain about something like this. He donates hundreds of millions to charity, and people try their best to find something wrong with it. How weird could it possibly get?
Asking the vague Linux community to match the donation of an extremely wealthy individual is completely asinine. Of course, I see why this article was approved, because it generates more plenty of controversy with its summary line.
300 million cheap coders for "offshoring" in 15 years. This is Gates' real ulterior motive.
Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!
If Bill weren't pumping his own portfolio and occasionally using such "charity" for coercion, I'd take a less cynical point of view towards his approaches to public health
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
He gives 750M over 10 years. That is 75 per year. He probably has a lot more in his back account, so it merely is the interest he gives away. Why not give the 750M in one go and let the people he gives it to handle it?
Say he has 1.500M in a backaccount and he gets 5% per year, he still will become not poorer.
Although the amount given is great, I was more moved by a little boy of about 6 years who gave 15EUR towards the Tsunami victims on the Dutch tv show for the victims. For that little boy the 15 EUR must look like a small fortune.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I don't see how the MS - Linux competition has anything whatsoever to do with Bill and Melissa's charitable work. I'm no fan of Microsoft and I do avoid using MS products wherever possible, but the comparsion here should be with other of the worlds wealthy. How do Larry Ellison's charitable contributions stack up, for example?
Not everything about Bill Gates is a Microsoft vs Linux issue.
Personally, I think that my use of free-as-in-beer alternatives to commercial products does increase my charitable donations because I have more disposable income available to me. In theory it means that Bill et al have less available to them to donate to their favourite charity, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over that.
In case you are wondering what to do with the money you saved from using free software, here are some of my preferred charities. Enjoy:
According to the Constitution, America is for the people, by the people, and operated for the "general welfare".
We own this country. If you do business here, we take a cut. If you do really well, we take a really big cut. You don't like it? Tough!
eat shiat and bark at the moon
I think you'll find that Bill steals from the poor (who are not in the media spotlight) and gives to the poor (who are in the media spotlight).
I recall how Microsoft ruthlessly audited poor schools a couple of years ago, forcing them to pay out and license all of their machines - and then 'generously' donated money to schools... the ones that didn't fail the audit (of course).
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
Not only your English is pretty bad, your ideas are wrong as well. What poor countries NEED is precisely what they do NOT have: capitalism, full-blown capitalism, in both economical and philosophical senses.
Circumcision is child abuse.
I don't think you appreciate why he is doing it. Very rich people, i.e ones with more money than they can possible spend in there life time. get to the point when they start thinking about how history will see them.
By donating large amounts of money to charity they hope to rewrite the history books so future generations will see them as philanthropists. Its the only thing their money has not boughtthem(and until immortality comes on the market in a pill form, it is the only way to achieve it) rather than the ruthless buisness men they really were. Look up Carnegie, Rockerfeller, Getty.
The truth is altruistic people do not become multi billionaires. They do not suddenly have a mid life conversion to nice people. They still look at the world in terms of profit and loss.
If this was'nt the case it would not be the Gates foundation, it would be the third world foundation or anonymous donations to the red cross.
When you judge these things you should not look at the botom line, but at the whole history. If someone robs a bank of 10 million, but gives 5 millionj to charity does that make him a better person?
Choose your allies carefully, it is highly unlikely you will be held accountable for the actions of your enemies
The very airs the submitter adopts is obviously geared towards riling up a negative response against Gates. I think most slashdotters will realize this and see the donation for what it is - providing help to the less fortunate and not an avenue to decry Gates for not giving 99% of his net worth.
I mean, please people....it's not flamebait to point out that Linux isn't the answer to help starving and sick kids in the 3rd world. You can't compare a free OS to food/medical care.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
This $750 million is on top of his existing annual charity donations which already total a commitment of about twice that. Plus a considerable amount of his wealth (in terms of MS stock) belongs to his foundation.
Compare this with other multi millionaires.
May I simply point out the artciles More than a Gigabuck: Estimating GNU/Linux's Size and Linux Kernel 2.6: It's Worth More! by David A. Wheeler. That last one shows, that just the Linux kernel alone matches this gift easily. Just add up the rest of the GNU system and no individual (or single company) can match this kind of generosity.
No, really. Consider the evidence, Billy Gates steals from the rich (via punative software licences), gives to the poor. With his trusty Little Steve Ballmer at his side, with the quarterstaff of a dodgy salesforce. Ok, so some SME's & govts might get hurt, but that's just collateral damage considering all the megacorps that are giving cash that gets spent fighting diease and poverty!
them back a day. Gates might be doing this just to be nice but given that his company is so good at gouging everyone including some of the poorer countries in the world it seems like a bit of a joke to me. If his company was not intent on gouging every last penny they could from poorer governments then surely those governments could spend the savings on this and much more. Its not right to criticize such a giving as this, but if you sit back and think about it its really just returning some of what has been taken to begin with. Footnote :: Mr Gates, nice gesture, give more. Remember, you cant take it all with you when you die.
Another footnote :: This discussion should never have been about MS v Linux but to put it in perspective, Who here gave money to the Tsunami Victims? Plenty of us, without thinking about it, and we are not sitting on a mountain of cash.
"Carpe Noctem"
1. Microsoft makes a pretty crappy product.
2. Monopolies lead to crappy products. After Windows 95 (and OS/2) there has been no competition and hence no innovation.
3. The only "innovation" has been the integration of Windows NT and 9x/ME. It was planned for 1999. Judge for Youself how well it worked.
4. No GUI innovation. My Grandma can't operate Windows 95 nor XP. If there had been competition there would have been a much, much better product.
5. If this better product would be on the market would OSS have a competitor? OSS can compete, because Microsoft makes such a crappy product, but this is only because Microsoft has a monopoly in the OS market. Think about it.
6. In capitalism any company strives for more profits. Gaining a monopoly and using it is part of this strive. Adam Smith himelf wrote that a strong fed has to regulate the market. Don't blame Microsoft. Blame the regulator.
7. Bill Gates granted most of his money to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. I champion free software because I believe a free information society needs free software. I also think Microsoft makes crappy products and I try not to use them because of this and because they are not free.
Still I don't think Bill Gates is evil in any way. Reasons are stated above.
Looks as though someone else been reading Mark 12:42-44 .....
..... they have the right idea in Cuba ..... the Cuban NHS is empowered to synthesise any life-saving drug, and patent encumbrances be damned, on the basis that saving a human life is more important than earning royalty fees for some fatcat corporation} and turned them over to the Public Domain. Or maybe bribed the Roman Catholic Church to install a woman Pope {who would naturally approve of birth control and the ordination of women into lower orders of the Priesthood, and hopefully seek a reunification with the Church of England reversing the Bull[s**t] of Pope Leo XIII in 1896}. That would have been a worthy gesture.
Of course, Bill Gates does not deserve most of this money in the first place. The whole concept on which Microsoft was founded stinks, and the correct response to this (in)famous document should have been a dragging into the nearest toilet followed by a thorough beating. What can't be owned can't be stolen.
Gates and co. might actually have earned a little respect from me if they had bought out the patent rights on a few life-saving drugs {is this another crazy concept, or what?
Really, this is no different than some ordinary working-class person buying a copy of the Big Issue.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
I don't know. You set the bar pretty high.
Consistent, ongoing good healthcare requires a strong economic infrastructure. You don't get a strong economic infrastructure via a one-shot injection of funds. As another poster already pointed out, it's the difference between giving a man some fish and teaching a man to fish. In the long run, you make the people of the third world healthier by helping them develop a strong economy, not by sending them a shipload of medicine.
I hope that after I die the one word people use to describe me is "resurrected."
Much maligned for his business practices, is this proof that sometimes the ends justify the means? Let's see if the Linux community can match his generosity.
Nah. This kind of behavior is common among robber barons. Take a look at history. Railroads, steel making, and any number of other areas undergoing incredible change produced the same kind of successful people with exactly the same behavior
The Linux community has the head count (and they have the resources) to match this sum. It could be done save for one drawback. Our strengths in software development are our weaknesses here - volunteerism and decentralization. No one has yet volunteered to organize the collection and get it into the right hands, whatever "the right hands" means, or if they have they have not yet published their message sufficiently.
English -- gotta love it! / The engineers refuse to refuse the rocket until the refuse is removed from the launch pad.
Match that one Mr Gates.
- Considering the ethical nature of the Free software movement, etc., is this justification for running the Free Software Foundation, Mozilla Foundation, and others, as charitable organisation?
- Is it more effective to make money in a more ruthless fashion (ie, like a business) and use that money to promote F/OSS more effectively? Think how much progress would be made if the Firefox NYT advert was the rule and not the exception!
- Or is it just that the nature of the beast encourages time-rich rather money-rich contributors to donate to the cause?
It wasn't a troll. It was a question too subtle for you to pick up on.the layman's guide to computer science
Okay let's say Bill is worth 50 billion dollars on paper. 750 million is something like 1.5% of his total worth?
You're ignoring the huge amount of money and resources donated by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in the past. In fact, this $750 million is in additon to another $750 million they pledged in 1999 to the same organization.
But what's another $12.5 million for immunization in India, or $43 million for antimilarial drugs here and there. After all, it's just a drop in the bucket to Bill Gates -- he would donate more if he weren't so greedy and evil, right? They set up that Foundation as a tax dodge, and certainly not as a way of making sure that money gets directed at the right groups doing the right things, and not people just looking for a handout. No, there's definitely no need to make sure the money gets spent making a difference and not pissed away by NGO bureaucracy. You can just "donate" and forget about it, like you do with that $1.50 to the guy in the street who's just going to go buy some Wild Irish Rose and hit you up for another $1.50 tomorrow.
Yeah, I'm kind of annoyed at the way Slashdotters seem to have reacted to this news.
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
The children will be vaccinated in the form of free licenses for Microsoft's antispyware and antivirus Software for an amount of 750M US$.
Votez ecolo : Chiez dans l'urne !
Let's see if the Linux community can match his generosity. Gates' wealth comes from the exploitation of an illegal monopoly. Does the fact that he is using money obtained via an illegal monopoly for vaccines diminish the crime of the illegal monopoly? I would rather the people whom Gates' exploited decide how they would like their money to be spent. They are, after all, the ones who earned that money, Gates' merely stole it from them.
Linux users are mostly just stoners.
Because I have low karma, I need pills.
I think the request for the Linux community to match what Bill Gates has donated is kind of absurd. Because I commit acts of kindness and donate time to worthy causes when I don't have the money.
:-)
Plus, there are plenty of people who think vaccination is really bad for you. While I don't necessarily agree with them, they make some interesting points. So MS-haters can use that as yet another reason to bash him.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
Microsoft's business prectices might not be the best, hell sometimes they are downright illegal, but this type of thing is heartwarming. Business is business ppl and there are millions of ppl that would cut your throat for a nickel in the business world. I commend Bill for sharing his wealth with those less fortunate.
This is a great form of marketing and has been for a long time for corps with an image issue. Mr Gates has an image issue. MS has a bigger image issue. It may be out of the goodness of his heart, as many peoples' hearts turn from stone as they get older, but IIRC, these donations started shortly after consulting a firm about the image problem. Try here, here, and a more positive spin here.
Freud might say that Intelligent Design is religion's ID.
The Linux community does donate to charities around the world. How many not-for-profit organizations use Open Source software? As a rough guess, I'd say that the Open Source community has donated, with their time and the software, an amount far greater than the $750 million that Gate has donated.
The truest measure of generosity is not what a person is willing to give, but what he retains for himself. Though Bill Gates donates millions of dollars, he retains the standard of living of a billionaire. His generosity is less than that of a middle-class man dropping a dollar in a Salvation army kettle, which in turn is less than that of a homeless man doing the same with his last dollar. It is certainly worthy of respect, but no more than these.
It's good to see that there are people out there who don't sit on their fortune, but do something good with it. Way to go Bill. (now please, stop making operating systems and port the other products to OS/X)
if your pants fit well, it's not only because of the pants
The actions of Mr. Gates have ensured his wellbeing. His sharing does not inconveniance him one bit.
With that being said, Mr. gates would not have this much excess cash without over charging for his product. While most can afford his product, little effort has been made to help those who cannot. Sometimes people were sent to the unemployment lines to ensure he gets his cash.
Fine he gives some away. How does that help those whose lives he has destroyed? At least the Linux community allows all to benefit from there own actions.
is this proof that sometimes the ends justify the means? Let's see if the Linux community can match his generosity. This isn't a big swinging dick contest on who can match who. These people need help. Hell if the Linuz community donated 100,000 dollars people would be still be happy because you had compassion.
You DO realizes he donates ALL the time, right? Your math is faulty.
If I had 50 Billion and I donated 500 Mil for Aids, 500 Mil for Cancer, 500 Mil for the homeless, 500 Mil for Education for children, 750 Mil for people that are starving, and 750 Mil for this... would you complain and only look at the ONE donation I made?
I don't think that the original slashdot article was meant to be inflamitory, but as soon as I read it, it pushed my *defense of open source programmers* button. Hard.
The phraise "Let's see if open source programmers can be as generous" was, I think, urging us to give money go good causes, but on first reading, it came across as "Bill has given a metric buttload of greenbacks, and you guys haven't given anything, ergo you should hate Bill more"... which is bogus.
We all know that open source programmers *are* generous, after all, the market value of all the software that we write is in the billions, and we gave it all away on the proviso that anyone who wants to modify it has to give away their work as well.
So. Bill is generous, we're generous... but Bill has seen one thing that I haven't seen posted on Slashdot yet, namely that the vaccenes that he's giving away save a lot of lives. Bill's genious lies in finding a sweet spot, whether it be getting in on the ground floor of the PC revolution or of effectively saving lives without spending billions of dollars. Consider that the number of people who died of the Tsunami has probably already been dominated by preventable disease in Central Africa.
So... let's restate: This is a friendly game of philanthropy. Bill has made a very wise move. What's your move?
Why do we know he donates? Right, he's working on his image! That's the only reason, he doesn't give crap about the poeple he helps... if he did he could use his power to change things fundamentally.
If Microsoft was mass, stupidity would be gravity.
Bill Gates hoards Billions (yes with a "B") or dollars by selling his wares, and his users are left with empty pockets.
Linux users avoid giving to the hoard, so they have the money to pay for their children's vaccinations.
It sort of sounds like Bill Gates is supporting Socialized medicine via the Microsoft Name.
Microsoft Socialized Medicine 2035 (Warning: ship dates for this product may slip due to production delays)
I have a bumber sticker in my cubicle that says
In 1999 he gave $5bn to The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation http://www.gatesfoundation.org/ and in an interview around that time in the Washington Post, it was reported that 90% of his assets will be transfered to the foundation on his and his wife's death. That's an awful lot of money and none of it tied to any government or political doctrine. Innoculating children seems a particularly altruistic gesture as well. It's not like building a statue or a museum where there is a reminder of the donation left behind. Vaccinations save lives, but nobody'll ever notice their not catching a disease, or even having the jab. Whatever your personal views of MS and Bill. He's taken a huge pile of cash from rich corporations and individuals and given it to people who need it - just be happy a good thing happened for once.
Why don't we all try to donate 1.5% of our assets instead of whining about the poster's flamebait.
Can I donate 1.5% of my net worth instead? It'd be a quick way to make a hundred bucks or so : )
Now don't get me wrong, I think the donation is very important and good for everyone involved. I however do remember reading that the Gates Foundation blocked the US Government of selling AIDS drugs to africa at a reduced rate because it could have cost Bill millions if not billions in profits. I remember because I was reading a story about bill donating (I believe 250 or 500million) to help the aids pandemic in Africa. It was then that I noticed a website detailing that if Bill's foundation hadn't blocked the governments attempts to sell drugs at a extremely low price that it would have been 20x or more effective that his donation. This is not a flamebait and I would link to the article but I can't find it anymore. (it was a few years ago).... Anyways, I'm not 100% certain if this is fact or fiction...perhaps someone else can shed some light on this, as I may also be forgetting some of the details.
No, this is
From what I've read about the Gates Foundation, it has little to nothing to do with Gates' company: Microsoft.
Yes sure, if he wants kids in poor countries to start working with computers and give them software he'll use Microsoft products. A normal thing, as it is his company that makes the stuff.
Don't forget Gates is a person like you and me with his own life and feelings.
Maybe more of the rich and famous should share a piece of their money give kids elsewhere a chance.
As for the question asked. Maybe what we (as the 'Open Source' community) can do is collect older computers, make sure they work and put Linux on them. When all is tesed, we just ship them over to the public schools in the country we live in. If we would do that in out free time, like four hours a week, a lot of kids, parents and teachers would be happy people too.
42 + 1 = 42
Let's assume that Gates is worth 50 BILLION. Gates gives 750 million. That's only .15% of his worth! For a person making $50,000 a year, that'd be like giving 75 bucks! Yippie!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
In the long run, you make the people of the third world healthier by helping them develop a strong economy, not by sending them a shipload of medicine.
You're completely right about the first part, but the second part is a means to accomplish devloping a strong economy. The spread of disease has enormous economic costs. It's very hard to develop a strong economy when people are killed, or crippled by disease. Aside from the awfull human costs, someone crippled by childhood polio isn't very productive to the economy (and is in fact probbably a drain). If you can prevent disease in the first place that's a major step to producing a good economy.
AccountKiller
>> Yeah, lets protect the poor from disease and viruses, but we can't fucking write a OS that can deal with them.
Aw man! Fucking LAMER comment! I just don't believe you wrote that! Ughhh!
You should not forget the IRS. Probably, this money is exempt from taxes. In Greece, a person like Gates would probably be in the 40% taxing scale, which means that he would have to give almost half of that amount to the IRS (had he not donated it). So, to him, it's probably more like a donation in the range of $400M (depending on what the US system is).
Other than that, yes it's always a generous gesture to donate. But donating is giving directly back to society instead of funding your government to do it for you (intermediaries always hold something for themselves).
To err is human, but to forgive is beyond the scope of the Operating System...
He has given away 37% of his wealth and that recent dividend he received from Microsoft (some amount over 3 billon), he completely gave to charity (the largest single donation in human history).
Not only that, I read several years ago that any children he and has wife have will only be given 100 million each, the rest of his wealth will be given to charity.
You can say a lot things about Bill Gates, but at least give him credit when credit is due. Just look at the Walton's, they have a collectiive wealth of something like 80 billion and have only give 1% of their wealth to charity.
Including using a borg Gates in light of his philanthropy. It's just plain puerile.
-M
PS: Avid LINUX user.
I think starting with clean water, seeds, vacinations, and education might be a good idea. They can then choose to practise and enjoy capitalism when they're not busy dying of malnutrition or ebola.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
wheres the money for my vaccinations bill? my win2k system is ridden with virii and worms.
Some info for comparison
g en erosity.php?year=2004
did you know the average american gives over 2% of thir income to charity. pretty good considering the government gives less than 1 percent
http://www.catalogueforphilanthropy.org/cfp/db/
Bill and Melinda Gates should be commended constantly for their philanthropic efforts. They're always giving away cash to people who need it.
B&MGF r0x0rs! Huzzah!
(P.S. My xbox runs gentoo.)
Imagine if you weren't allowed to use roads because a bus company complained about your driving 3 times. --skunkpussy
If a starving child hasn't produced any nice artwork or cleaned your floor, it's "needs" don't matter. It is a mediocre child, and not worthy of charity or kindness.
You are morally abligated to let that child die.
You are a good person, unlike those who would take pity on the suffering.
Umm, Linux companies don't represent the Linux "community". Linux companies represent Linux companies. And yes, Linux companies are indeed greedy. They try to make money by not doing any work themselves and just selling stuff that's already available for free. The same nature continues when it comes to putting links to charity organisations on their web pages. The hard truth is, Linux companies are worse than Non-Free Software companies.
No, it is not a good thing that Gates has done that. Vaccinations, while preventing children from getting the disease, can and often does cause hearing and resperatory problems, child arthritis, and a slew of other things - including death.
Vaccinations such as DTaP contain various chemicals such as aluminum sulfate, formaldehyde, glutaraldehyde, and preservatives such as 2-phenyoxyethanol and polysorbate-80. There are some vaccines which contain tissue from aborted fetuses. Vaccines simply aren't good for your body or mind.
Now, if there's an epedemic and threat to one's life, it's understandable to offer voluntary vaccinations. But first get the people involved food, shelter, and a clean living environment. $750K is a trivial amount of money, really, if you look at what could be done with it for such a purpose. That doesn't demean the honorability of donating the money, but I do wonder what Gates' motivation is. He doesn't seem like a terribly humanitarian type.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Let me get this right...
:)
The government vaccinates people in order to inject their mind control drug...
Bill Gates is subsidizing the vaccinations...
Now I do believe in black helicopters and RFID in my dental work!
It simply does not scale like that, not into the millions of dollars. It would be irresponsible of Gates to give away all of his money to one charity, and all at once. A charity that would get that much money instantly could quickly turn in to a Red Cross behemoth where you never know what's happening with the money (except that a large bulk of it is going into the pockets of the executives). Nobody wants that.
the world BILLIONS of dollars. What would have been spent on Microsoft license fees is now used to feed, clothe and educate their children. So Linux HAS topped Gates miserly $750 million which is only 1.25% of his bank roll.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
So do you really think that there are many countries that donate over 1% of their budget to the third world? The UN directive is 0.7 percent per year and only a hand full of coutries comply to that directive.. notibly not the 'richest' country in the world.
some guy has donated a HUGE amount of money to charity, and all he get's is
"it's only loose change to him, I'm not impressed" oh come on, how many of you have honestly donated %1.5 of your assets?
and
"the linux community is providing free software for the people in deprived countries, I know which I prefer" yeah, and I'm sure they'll be greatful for the free sopftware when they have terminal illnesses.
some people really need to grow up. Whatever your feelings on Bill Gates as head of the evil empire, I do not see how you can possibly castigate him for his acts of charity.
a very generous gesture indeed to donate that money... but if Al Quaeda donated that money, how would you see it then? Give a man a fish, feed him for a day... Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime. The analogy can go a long way.
The fact is, Bill Gates is associated with Microsoft, and vice-versa. Everybody does it without thinking.
If Microsoft does something bad, Bill gets flack. If Bill does something good, Microsoft looks good.
Although the donation was from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, it's still bonus points to Microsoft.
Back in 2002, Bill Gates, via the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, donated $100 million towards fighting AIDS in India. He did this at a time when Microsoft's conduct was being questioned in the Anti-Trust case, and at a time where he had said "India is of strategic importance".
Some said that Bill was doing it to 'persuade' India to go with Microsoft (kind of like a guilt trip), and others said that Bill is really just a nice guy. How can we tell?
I have one question for Bill:
Next time you donate large amounts of cash, would you do it anonymously? Or would there be no 'benefit' in this?
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
Last I checked, my net worth was somewhere around -$20,000 (mostly due to student loans). 1.5% of that is -$300. Hell, I'll even go one up and donate 2%! Now who's the generous one, Mr. Gates?
cp /dev/zero ~/signature.txt
We welcome The Gates Foundation to the table, but the local Rotary Club has been at this for a long time betore Mr & Mrs Gates got involved. Thanks to your local folks we are striving to eliminate Polio world wide and in fact have done so in the Western Hemisphere. In addition to the huge financial contribution of the Rotarians, you will also have to recognize in many instances the Rotarians are the only agents to administer vacine to the children in areas of conflict and civil war. The local businessman or educator are the only ones capabile of engendering any trust where governments are suspect. Thanks Rotary......
Cover article "The Good Company" of the current issue of the Economist argues that companies should stop pretending that they are "socially responsible" and instead should focus on behaving honestly and obeying the law - provided they face competition in their market - and do good works without even trying.
"Good works" with lots of publicity are too often just a smokescreen for an evil company.
Let's see, expressed as a total of my reserve capital... minus outstanding debts... carry the one... I've donated twice as much as Bill, with my 20 dollar donation to the Tsunami relief fund.
In general I find the kind of people likely to give their money away, are not the kind of people likely to have any money to give.
(No offence meant to Mr. Gates, as he has given a lot more of his money to charitable causes than a lot of people, and even more importantly he seems to really care about them. No matter what you think about his business practices, the Bill and Melinda gates foundation has the largest endowment of any chairitible organization created in recent memory and will be doing positive things for the world long after the man has taken his blue screen of death to the black screen of death. Plus the B&M tend to be focused on practical things, and are pretty good about how they deal out grants.)
The ______ Agenda
If Bill Gates donates Mega$$$, everytime unsavory pictures of him are making waves on the net, we know what to do, don't we ? :)
I may not like the company, but I'll be damned before I piss on someone elses humanitarian efforts regardless of "how much it really affects their pocketbook."
How many more Windows users can $750 million buy? Not a bad investment.
In case you wondered, why BG is so nice: The vaccine he donated is a vaccine against the open-source virus that threatens the western world.
I don't need a signature.
Now if only children in third-world countries depended on free software for their daily physical needs.
I may be WAAAAY ouf of left field here, but I imagine vaccines against deadly and preventable diseases are much more valuable to these kids than software to install on computers they will likely never own.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
This entire article just blew up my bullshit detector.
First, the Borg icon - this is the Gates Foundation, not Microsoft. As much as I despise Gates, his Foundation is doing a lot of good things.
Second, the business practice hit. Again, this is not Microsoft donating anything to anyone, it's the Gates Foundation. While Bill's money is largely M$ stuff, the shot is just cheap and unwarranted.
Three, the dig at the Open Source community. I'm sure if the community had as much money as Gates, we'd be matching his donation before the day is up, just to show it. But we don't. You can't compare the rich man's $1000 donation to the poor man's $100 donation. No matter how you compare it, in one way or the other it won't be fair.
Finally, the article as a whole - what the f*ck has this to do with "news for nerds" ??? And if it's "stuff that matters", how come we don't read about any similar donations made by other people or foundations?
Both the article author and the editor who let this through should be ashamed of themselves. I'm sure at least 20 more worthy articles were left out today.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Why are you proud as a citizen of a country when one citizen does something good? Why does it make you feel superior?
Come back when YOU do something good instead of just throwing flamebait around. I honestly dont care which country gave most, but if we look at money divided in number of citizens of each contry, "old" europe is still in the lead. But i think its good we all chipped in to help the victims of the Tsunami. So stop using it as a dickwaving contest.
Ok, perhaps some of you should look at your lives long and hard. 1.5% of a average salary of £20 000 is £300 per year. What if everyony put 1.5% of their salary into charity? UK GBP is about £1,200,000million. 1.5% of which is £18,000,000,000. £18billion! from the UK alone. Now pls tell me, if MS had not been invented and u lot had not made him rich would u have collectivly made such a large donation? Its sad that someones good will can be undermined in this way. He had no pressure to do this but he did, we should be greatfull, follow suit and set our machines to dual boot.
They give away code for free that is worth millions perhaps even billions. Driving down the cost of software and bringing computing to millions who otherwise could not afford it. They also give away code for free that enables handicapped people to enter the computing world. People like the blind. The linux community has given. Saving companies money enables them to keep people employed and donate more to other charities. I really don't think you could even calculate just how much the linux community has given back monetarily. Its a silly comparison to make if you ask me.
If you see spelling or grammatical errors don't blame me. I tried to preview but IE here at work borked the CSS
Why don't we all try to donate 1.5% of our assets instead of whining about the poster's flamebait.
Why don't we to donate everything we own in surplus of $500,000? There is no point in anyone owning more than that.
Anyway, my net worth is negative due to student loans and the recent purchase of a house. Still I donate money to people who own nothing and therefore have more assets than I do. Isn't that odd?
What about comparing incomes? There is a wealth of psychological research proving that the utility of your first $50,000 of income is much higher than the utility of your second $50,000 of income.
I am pretty sure Bill Gates doesn't have to deny himself anything because he gave away 1.5% of his assets this year.
Except Gates has pleged to give away the vast majority of his fortune. As another poster said you don't give away all the money at once to one cause. The world is a complex place and is constantly changing. Better to put money in the places where its used most efficiently for the most gain.
AccountKiller
For the record, there are a number of things about Bill and Melinda Gates that we can all be grateful for (and no, his ruthless and unscrupulous business tactics are not among them). One is the fact that they give away so much money that finding effective ways to do so (effective both for the recipients and for themselves, I don't doubt--I don't mean to paint them as saints) is practically a full-time job for Bill's father. Another is that they don't seek to turn their unbelievable wealth into unbelievable political clout. The fact that Microsoft ever was sued by the U.S. government (even though a change of presidents caused the suit to be effectively dropped) is testimony to how willing Gates was to just stay away from Washington--until he found out it won't stay away from him.
Just as there is no way for a man in Bill Gates's position to give away money and not have it look like self-aggrandizement, there is no way for the Slashdot crowd to criticize it without looking like a bunch of crying assholes.
That many people think exactly the opposite.
That achievement he talks about would be ok, if everybody started clean. When you speak about second generation people, they start at different places, so they can achieve less.
That's why it's a fallacy. it's dumb to say that rich people are rich ecause they worked hard, and poor are poor because they are lazy.
Of course that need gives you rights. Everybody is in need, it's just that some can satisfy their need, and some cannot. Earning has nothing to do with it. Most children are born poor, right now, do you think they have earned it? do you think that people who go to harvard have earned it? do they have a right, just because some grand-grandparent hit the jackpot, compared to some boy born in Bolivia? That's just stupid, to say that rich people deserve to be rich, and poor deserve to be poor.
There are food and water-borne diseases, like typhoid and cholera that water and sewer treatment can prevent. There are vector-borne diseases like typhus that vector control can help prevent. You will note that vaccines for these are seldom administered. (except to researchers, and persons travelling to areas where the sanitation systems are not adequate.
A second category are the diseases with a large reservoir in the animal world, from which it spreads to humans: malaria (birds), yellow fever (monkeys), bubonic plague (rodents). Only yellow fever vaccine is routinely given, in areas where the disease is a hazard, and it is extremely effective, to the extent that unvaccinated jungle tourists get yellow fever while their vaccinated guides do not. An effective malaria vaccine has eluded researchers for decades, and the bubonic plague vaccine is really painful and provides limited protection (it's better than nothing in an epidemic).
Then there are the diseases that spread human to human, via airborne or direct contact, like smallpox, diptheria and measles. Just look at the sudden, DRAMATIC decrease in measles deaths and severe disabilities, in the USA, immediately after the introduction of the vaccine in the 1960s. Were we lacking running water before then? Did we suddenly realize that aseptic surgery was a good idea? Nope! The only significant change in the society was the administration of the vaccine.
If it wasn't for the big patent-wielding pharmaceutical companies charging whatever they like for life-saving drugs, then there wouldn't be any money to research the next life-saving druge.
If only it was as easy to steal chemical formulas as it is to steal software a lot more people would be dead due to bad drugs on the market.
Incidentally, since you're picking on Norway: Norway gives 5-6 times more in official and private development aid per person than the US does, including Gates' donations.
Norway, Denmark, Luxembourg, Sweden and the Netherlands are also the ONLY countries that are consistently meeting (and generally significantly exceeding) the UN target of 0.7% of GDP for official development aid. The US doesn't meet this target even if you consider private donations (including Gates') as well.
Yes, I believe the individuals that are involved with FOSS are, in general, more generous than Bill Gates is.
However, that should not undermine the fact that Bill Gates is being generous, and any act of generosity he makes should be accepted with grattitude. Could he be more generous? Yes, he could be... we all could be. He could also be a lot LESS generous. I'm sure thousands of families will thank him for his contribution.
~D
This sig has been enciphered with a one-time pad. It could say almost anything.
First, this is a very good thing. It's too bad, in a way, that it's so noteworthy - all of us, regardless of income level, really should be doing this.
On the flip side, it makes me think of Jesus' parable about the poor widow and her two coins. We make such a big deal out of a rich person giving a portion of their excess; yet we don't even take notice when a more typical person goes overseas to work in a war-ravaged community, or when a young teacher takes a job in the inner city to help out the kids. We should be honoring all those who act selflessly.
#DeleteChrome
Cut the Microsoft Tax by $750,000,000.00 and we'll all have more money to give to worthy causes.
Mr. Gates is trying to put in a deadly virus through his vaccines and make these kids microsoft patrons and finally take over the world... Don't listen to him, run run! Ok, now you can give me a -1 score.
Had Bill Gates not caused so much havoc in the IT industry, there would propably be a lot more money to share from other people. The ends don't justify the means.
Let us see if the others who profix from variants of *nix donate like The Ubergeek Billy Gates does.
See - get a geek laid and look at what he can do in the world!
Visualize Whirled P.'s
Even more than that, the Gates Foundation uses their money that's in holding to invest in Microsoft stock and Microsoft's allies. We're talking about over a billion dollars (tax deductable) being used by a non-profit organization to pump up stock prices. Sure, charity is great and it's the right thing to do. But it should be put in perspective, also. I wish I could find the reputable link where I found that...
Developers: We can use your help.
I'll donate 1.5% of my assets to anyone here - first come first served. So who's willing to take this $340 debt to HSBC off me? :) If there is a worthy recipient out there I might consider giving more (you lucky devil)
But seriously good on bill, raising the profile of a very worthy charity.
Much maligned for his business practices, is this proof that sometimes the ends justify the means?
Well, let me give that the deep thought it deserves. [33 milliseconds later] Uh, no.
--- Ban humanity.
This is the kind of post where people should either shut up or say "wow, now that's something." This is not the time for *stupid* comments like the poster wrote, "see if the linux folks can match that" or for the kinds of responses where some slashdotters do all sorts of analysis on how an open-source OS helps sick kids. I can't even believe what I'm reading here.
What if a percentage of the price of windows actually goes to charities like this one. Would people be more willing to pay for their OS?
If Bill Gates was truly concerned about the welfare of giving, he'd give anonymously and discreetly and not make a huge deal (pardon the play on words) about his gifts every time he gave them. Anonymous charity is what makes a human a good person; Bill Gates just wants to make himself look better than he has been. Also, if he truly wanted to help the world's welfare, he'd stop sucking up money like a sponge and concern himself more with a balanced economy.
As for Linux users, "chriskzoo5," you must realize that Bill Gates is a single entity and that Linux users are far and wide. Additionally, Linux users don't have money growing on their front lawn like Mr. Gates. I'm sure that some donate money to similar causes, but their donations are probably proportionate to their incomes. It's the thought, not the amount that counts.
By no means am I on a crusade against Bill Gates, "chriskzoo5," I just became a little worked up because of your stupid flamebait. I hope that you receive as much hatemail as Parry Aftab. Bah-humbug to all flamebaiters, and happy holidays to the rest of us!
Linux vaccinates Gates' PCs, so it all works out in the end...
Linux is NOT given away. I work for a hospital and we're having to PURCHASE a Linux server license. The truth shall set you free.
Women in developing countries have been accustomed to bearing many, many children. If 8 children are born, with luck one will survive into adulthood.
With such immunizations, these eight children will all survive past infancy. "Great!" you say, and yes, on the surface it is wonderful. However, women will continue having children at this rate unless REPRODUCTIVE EDUCATION is introduced alongside such a vaccination plan. There's already a little problem called starvation rampant in most areas of the world. Now consider the fact that children won't be dying as infants (when they don't eat all that much) due to these vaccinations. We'll now have substantially more mouths to feed, with the same amount of resources. Now, once these children hit puberty and need more nutrition to mature, they'll either starve to death or face serious growth problems. Such worsened food shortages will create more problems then if there were no vaccinations to begin with.
All this plan will do is INCREASE suffering. $750 million would be better spent on alleviating hunger across the globe.
But do they want to learn?
Wrong. The foundation has a lot to do directly with Microsoft. The foundation started investing in drug stocks in 2002, exactly the same time Microsoft started pushing harder for stronger IP laws. The foundation also purchased stock in communication companies at exactly the same time as Microsoft. And these are only the investments we know about. The foundation can invest its $20+ billion in any stocks it likes (no one investment over 20% holdings of a company) and it doesn't have to report it.
At the very least the foundation's massive holdings are being used to invest in Microsoft's allies with tax-free money.
Developers: We can use your help.
One individual (via a Foundation, granted) donated considerably more to charity than the entire US government committed in aid for the recent tsunami disaster.
Is this true? Last I heard, the U.S. government pledged $350 million in relief aid (though at first they spoke of $35 million).
Did any individual pledge more than $350 million?
Phiwum's law: anyone that names an obvious law after himself and then puts it in his own sig is just pathetic.
In 2003 the Gates Foundation was commiting $200 million in AIDS funding to India alone. Gates Foundation hikes AIDS grant to $200 million I can't believe Slashdot has the foggiest notion of the scale on which the Gates Foundation operates.
Much maligned for his business practices, is this proof that sometimes the ends justify the means?
How do you feel about criminals who say, "I only steal to feed my family?"
You may be saying, "for one brief moment, some tiny fraction of Gates' perversion of the free market has been justified by a humanitarian act." That would be entirely valid. Or you might (with a different post) take a Hayek-like position that since the MS monopoly is enforced by the need for interoperability (and not government guns) that it is not a bad thing.
But supposing, as your post does, that even if his business practices do subvert the economy they are justified because some of the ill-gotten booty is used for humanitarian ends is ridiculous. You would have to show that the monopoly profits are exceeded by the effective output of the charitable contributions. Microsoft brings in about 7.5 billion per year, of which about 2.5 billion is profit. If Gates gives three times this one contribution every year, and it is used with 100% efficiency, that would still be one one thousandth of Microsoft's annual profit. I think even Hayek would grant that Microsoft's monopoly garners more than a $0.20 monopoly price increase over the free market price of Windows XP.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
O vaunted noble baron, we bow before thee! Thy generosity is like the Sun!
At one point (about 5 years ago), Bill(zebub) had a net worth equivalent to the net worth of the poorest half of the USA. I gave $50 out of a net surplus of about $300 last month.
Don't forget where that money he has came from: our pockets (either directly, through MS tax, or indirectly, through the costs of all the companies and agencies we buy goods and services from). In a sense, I'm giving twice, since Bill took more than his fair share. I'm not being anti-capitalist here, just anti-feudalist--to the extent that capitalists like Bill(zebub) and the Rockefellers retain the traces of feudalism they purport to replace.
Damn those pesky terrorists
Does a lot of good work for charidee, but doesn't like to talk about if you know what I mean, mate?
Poptastic.
Smokey, this is not 'Nam, this is bowling. There are rules.
When President Bush donated $10k to the tsunami relief effort I did some math. It turns out we would have made the same fractional donation (as in fractions of our pretax income) if Bush made 2 million a year. So sure I didn't donate millions of dollars to charity, but if all the money I donate to charity is added up each year (fsf, npr, Carnegie Library, etc) it's a pretty significant chunk of my income. The irony is that I make so little as a grad student (about 20K per year) that I really don't benefit from itemizing my taxes and I cannot write any of it off --- I'm sure Bill doesn't write any of this off either ;).
-- john
Yes you're compltetly right.
Just don't think "monney". Think "trying to build a better world".
On this news, there's a lot of slashdotter replying "But it's unfair : linux does not have money, we cannot give anything..."
It's not about the money it's also about all the help provided to community.
What has Gates done ? Once in the life time of his enterprise, he gave a couple of % of his fortune to a health organisation (just to buy a new image after the lost lawsuits ?). That's it. That's all.
Meanwhile around the world there are tons of Linux/OpenSource developpers trying to build healthcare information managment systems.
There are a lot of projects. Like Care2x, like FreeMed, like many others.
These systems are developped for free. These systems run in a lot of places already (even in developping countries !).
There are studies that proved these systems helped reducing health-care costs (and this is even more important for developping counrties that have fewer ressources).
There are studies that proved these systems helped increase the quality of health-care (allowing the doctors to better follow the patients that require long-term care, specially HIV patient in developping countries).
Just have a look on linuxmednews (a slashcode-powered news site).
So, like parent poster, we can answer the question asked in the news : Yes, the OpenSource / Linux community have proven to be very generous and usefull in the health domain. Much more than a compagny trying to buy itself a nice public image after a few lost lawsuits.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Guess why these children (or rather the countries they live in) cant afford vaccines? Could it be
is forbidden without licensing American "Intellectual Property".
Remember his "Pinko Commie IP thieves" rant a few days ago?
Whatever part of this money is actually used to buy vaccines, it cant (and won't) be enough for everyone. Thus, it just creates a new market for the pharmaceutical industry ("See, this vaccine is real good. ask those who have been inoculated. It's a real pity we ran out of free shots, so you will have to pay in US dollars" .. "Got no money? We might
accept kidneys and organs").
Plus, it could keep the developing countries from openly revolting against the IP tax. Offering a few breadcrumbs for the first to bend over is just a cheap way of keeping them divided.
Gates donating vaccines is just a strategic move to protect his IP-based income, not to be confused with actual philanthropy.
I've recently been involved in preparing a grant application to the Gates Foundation, and came away with a very positive impression of the institution. These people are serious, they're well-funded, and they're doing their damnedest to make good decisions about how best to address health challenges in the poorest nations in the world. They're placing a lot of emphasis on addressing diseases that don't always get a lot of funding in the West, like tuberculosis and malaria.
(Full disclosure: we didn't get the grant, so I don't like them out of some sense of gratitude. But it did seem clear that they were going through a good peer review process, and they were gratifyingly willing to consider proposals from non-traditional sources - we were a bunch of physical chemists, for example.)
So say what you like about Gate and his operating system, but he's doing a good thing with this Foundation, and shame on anyone who says he's not doing "enough".
He can spend $750M on vaccinating children, but not for vaccinating his GODDAMN Operating System!?!
..Who the fuck is he NOW? ..Michael Jackson?
He's already got TONS of viirii -issues already; why not go for them first!?!
A horse can't be sick, you know, even if he wants to.
I must admit the capableness of the open source community to unite towards a common goal (other than building software) has been proven by the efforts of spreadfirefox.com in their bid to market firefox. This type of community effort could and possibly should be aimed towards relief and social developement projects as well.
Otherwise they get credit, but the blurb is rewritten to be less likely to be flamebait?
Or, if you're Michael, you can just rewrite the blurb any damn way you please.
No, it's proof that rich smucks who cheated their way to the top are always willing to spend a few bucks to make themselves look better.
Ok, sure, why the heck not. According to this, Bill is worth 29.5 billion dollars. A rough estimate of my own "investments" puts me roughly at a paltry $10,000, and ignoring the fact that Bill will probably "donate" things which are of dubious value (ie, Microsoft software), and that Mr. Gates will still have 28.75 billion dollars after this, sure I'm willing to donate $250 dollars to "match his generosity" (2.5%). Or, if he donates Microsoft software, I promise I'll submit a patch to an open source product RSN.
Nathan's blog
It's good that MS gives a lot of money to Washington, because they've screwed the state out of millions, maybe even billions, more. Please read this article for more details.
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -- William James
And political scrambling over whether a woman can serve as an intermediate between you and your imaganiary friend in the sky is SO more important than saving millions of children's lives.
The drug companies together make more than gates does, they don't want to start a trend of free drugs and are probably unbribable.
Gates may be an asshat in the computer industry, but his genorosity to charity is well beyond what I see from anyone else on the planet. He could be spending that 750M on really expensive hookers or buying more lobbyists, but he isn't. He has saved more people than you will probably SEE in yourlifetime (not counting on TV).
Want to point it out when MS engages in illegal and immoral practices, go ahead.
Want to talk about what a dick Bill Gates is to others in the industry, go ahead.
Want to talk about the fact that MS makes a crappy OS, go ahead.
But unless you have donated anything close to him, in either total dollars or precent of total income, shut the fuck up about his charitable donations unless you want to praise him. (Or at least mention that his saving millions of lives at least partialy mitigates the fact that he is overcharging for a computer operating system and driving competitors out of buisness.
Yes, this is a flame. A flame, in this case is warrented.
Little Brother, watching the watchers
I wondered shortly after the tsunami hit, when they were talking about the 6 billion dollars (or thereabouts) that the UN had pledged to the cause from various countries, why Bill Gates didn't chime in with a billion of his own. It was estimated that he was worth $47 billion last April. I understand that it's his money and that he can't afford to donate to every charity that comes knocking. The thing is this isn't just any old charity. A natural disaster like this will probably never happen again in his lifetime, maybe not even in the lifetime of his kids. It seems to me like a perfect opportunity for Bill to do the right thing. My comments aren't directed entirely at Bill either. Bill isn't the richest man in the world any longer. Last I heard Ingvar Kamprad was the richest man in the world. If all these billionaires though their pocket change in a pot we'd probably have a couple billion right there. That would certainly be a fair amount to send over for the relief efforts.
Does the Linux community have $750 million? Just curious. /., I have seen this particular (first) post modded 2 Funny, 3 Insightful, 1 Interesting and 0 Flamebait.
In the few hours since this news first appeared on
I'm new to slashdot, so just wondering:
Is this phenomenon of erratic moderating very common on slashdot?
Moderators are actively suppressing dissent from your opinion as "flamebait" and "troll". I find that a pretty sad statement about the ability to debate in this forum.
Apparently, there are a lot of Microsoft-friendly folks here who simply don't want to have to justify their beliefs.
that the fabulously wealthy king throws the peasants a fucking bone every now and then. Thankyou your majesty.
These big dontations that corporations give are nothing compared to the cumulative donations that private individuals give. They're just big loud PR vehicles to show how "nice" they are. Hey, I'm all for making money. I give approximately 10% of my annual earnings to 3 organizations I believe in. These amounts St.Microsoft dole out are just piss in the wind to them. Let's call a spade a spade.
Microsoft is. Heck, he's not even the head of it any more! Don't get my wrong; I still hate Microsoft- but am I the only one here who sees "Microsoft won't appeal EU Ruling" one day, and then gates donating $750m the next?
Is it me, or did the mass media not have *time* to pick up on the whole we're-an-evil-company thing before gates created a publicity storm?
My UID is prime. Is yours?
Sometimes I wish there was a moderation option to do so. The story uses the donation to take cheap shots at everyone and true to /. culture, everyone has taken the bait.
"When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail." - Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
http://www.it-director.com/article.php?articleid=8 888
2 billion! and 5 billion! You can't argue over numbers like that.
If it's taken from monopolistic rent, then we would have been better off donating the money directly ourselves. If Microsoft sells products that increase economic productivity by more than they cost, then it's a genuine humanitarian act. Given the legal decisions against Microsoft here and in the US, I tend to think it's taken from rent.
It seems that Gates has doubled the amount of the donation to $1.5 billion. Here's a NYT link (yes, I know, registration...): Gates Charity is Doubling Vaccination Gift
While Bill Gates has been generous to 3rd world countries and people living in squalid conditions, the Linux community has helped the affluent stay affluent. Computers are nice, and having a computer virus free or bug free is nicer, but if its a choice between eating and surfing the net worry-free, I don't really see that as a choice. Its true that Gates has used practices that might violate man's law, but at the same time he's keeping true with a higher law of kindness and generosity. Its easy to be cynical of the rich, easy to say "he's only doing it as a tax shelter," but if that were the case, most people would do what he does. They don't, there's a reason for that. It may be that Linux has some greater longterm benefit for humanity, I don't know. I do know that millions of children are dying every year and this money will most probably be very useful in slowing down that rate. Free is good, free is nice, but give me the health to pursue those free things anyday.
As generous a gift as this is, I would hope that it wouldn't require a rich guy to feel philanthropic in order to vaccinate children worldwide. Comparing the open source community effort to the Gates Foundation doesn't quite have parity. Comparing the Gates Foundation with the millions of people who give a small amount on a regular basis, year after year ... that's a better match-up.
Daniel Crawford
I call attention to the 'borg icon...
Egad! Nanoprobes!!!!
-- Just another unsolicited opinion... from the Peanut Gallery.
I cannot BELIEVE you guys are comparing free software on someone's PC to the health and livelyhood of a human being. Software never fed anyone. Gee whiz, how in the world did we feed ourselves until Linux came along? Man, listen to yourselves! Please tell me you aren't serious!
But God demonstrates his love for us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us - (Romans 5:8)
Let's see if the Linux community can match his generosity."
Forbes lists Bill Gates's wealth at 48 Billion, making this donation 1.56% of his worth (just a rough calculation, I'm sure there's a lot more to it)
So, making a 1.56% donation of the accumulated $0.00 licensing fees from Linux sales should be a rather straightforward affair. We can do it!!!
Because donating 1.5% of my assets puts me in the poor house?
I'm sorry, but there's nothing spectacular about one of the world's richest men donating money. It's nice that he did it, but it's night like the guy is sacrificing.
Don't let the lusers get you down.
Unlike software, where the cost of development is relatively low, testing new drugs is a VERY expensive proposition. People can argue endlessly about the "how much is too much" question, but there has to be some mechanism to pay for drug development costs. To expect companies to simply recover their manufacturing costs is unreasonable. /K
Leaving aside the snotty Linux comment and how we feel about Microsoft and Bill Gates... I'm not sure how comfortable I feel about the fact that a billionaire is singlehandedly stepping in to do what the United Nations, and all of its member countries, will not do. It's great that the Gates Foundation has decided to do this, and I think they do a lot of good work, but we're becoming increasingly dependent on the whims of a few billionaires. Sometimes those whims are excellent (we can thank Andrew Carnegie for kickstarting our public library system!) but they are no substitute for national and international policy. Bill Gates's foundation can buy vaccines, but he can't change the regulatory climate for pharmaceutical companies, launch an investigation into pricing practices, stop civil wars in the countries where kids lack vaccination, strengthen the Kyoto Treaty to slow global warming... etc. I think what these large foundations do is great, and they definitely have their important part to play, but I fear that they are also used as an excuse for inaction by our government, and other governments.
1) You can only give so much to a single cause. Its not necessarily possible to even handle huge donations even if you spread them around to a bunch of groups because there just aren't enough people to use the funds.
2) Gates has donated billions in the past and will donate many billions in the future. This is just one single donation. Whats the big fuss? Its like arguing that dropping a dollar in a Salvation Army kettle makes you cheap despite the fact that you donate to lots of other charities throughout the year.
"Let's see if the Linux community can match his generosity."
Let's see if Gates can - as the "richest man in the world" - who only donated $3 million for tsunami relief - match Sandra Bullock - who is far from the richest woman in the world - who donated one million dollars on her own. Anyone for "The Net" - a movie about an egregious computer billionaire who ended up in handcuffs at the end of the movie?
Let's see, the Gates Foundation has maybe TWENTY BILLION in the bank - which they are using to buy stock in places like Cox Communications - so that means Gates' $750 million is less than one-twentieth - 5% - of the value of the Foundation... Anybody want to bet the Foundation's untaxable income this year exceeds 5%?
Meanwhile, Gates - and Microsoft - gets a PR tick the same day it's reported they are dropping their appeal of the EU requirement that they strip their media player out of Windows because of monopoly status...
Get a grip.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Hold it, dude! $750M over 10 years is hardly all Gates' money. More like a small fraction of what he'll earn during the same time. And all of this is tax deductible anyway. Not to belittle Mr. Gates' gift, but it probably cost him less than the 10 bucks I gave to the tsunami victims cost me, relatively speaking.
I don't have much to add.
OSS community donates knowledge and time that should amount an important figure.
For someone who makes 50k a year, 1.5% is roughly 750$.
So who has donated 750+ dollars to charitable donations in the past year?
There are a lot of people who would spend that money on computer upgrades or spending money on a vacation...
An article reads that the 10 richest billionaire could end world poverty (http://www.undp.org/teams/english/facts.htm)
Gates might have non-ethical business practices, but at least HE is doing his part!
It's not the destination that matters, but rather the journey.
Step 1. Vaccinate all the children of the world.
Step 2. Begin secret disease research.
Step 3. Wait for new super-viruses to take hold.
Step 4. Open Microsoft Pharmaceuticals, the only company with vaccinations to stop super-viruses.
Step 5. Profit!
It could happen!
I find laziness to be an excellent motivator.
'Insigtful'? Use your brains , moders!
Think about it! He's got 50 billion, if he gave up 90% he would still have 5 billion and live a happy life. What about you having 10,000 and giving up 90% of it? Hey, you couldn't even afford to rent a house .
KOS-MOS
...should be moderated as a troll. Apples and oranges doesn't cut it as describing the error of this comparison. Apples and dwarf stars maybe... Let's see the Linux community match 750 million? How about you give the nebulous concept of the Linux Community monopolistic control over the corporate desktop for twenty years, add forced upgrades and a pricing system bordering on a pyramid scheme, and they'll get back to you.
Fiat Homos et Pereat Theos
Due to the high costs of prescription medicines and vaccines, a lot of developing countries are looking at the current patent regime as an oppressive blockade to their access to them. Eliminating patent protection for these products would allow them to become more available for these people.
Naturally, Bill doesn't want to see patent protection weakened in markets he sees as growth opportunities.
See also: BILL GATES: KILLING AFRICANS FOR PROFIT AND P.R.
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
No question, on the hierachy of priorities, not being dead is greater than software freedom. But it's silly to talk about this as if providing vaccines has an either/or relationship with providing software.
Once those children are alive, then what?
They should educated and made productive citizens of the world economy, otherwise the next generation of children will be vulnerable and dependent. Free software may help them. What we have learned from the Indian example is that there are great reserves of brain power that have heretofore been untapped.
That said, you shouldn't take your vague contribution to a "Linux Community" as the extent of your involvement with the problems of the world. This is the flip side of the coin: providing vaccines has an either/or relationship with providing software.
Bill's foundation work is laudable, but it doesn't fundamentally affect the way he lives. I'm not belittling this, I think it's great, but I'm mentioning this by way of pointing out that if other people, the great mass of less wealthy people, lifted a finger in a similar way, they could have a huge impact without compromising their lifestyle. For example, in my family we've been taking advantage of Mercy Corps' program where you can buy a package of services for a needy area. You can even buy a sheep or a cow for a family, which may be enough in some cases to lift that family out of poverty. I can assure you that once the money was donated, we never missed it.
If every person who is part of the "Linux Community" (especially us folks who are in effect just hangers on) bought just one mercy kit a year, the impact would be stupendous with virtually no impact on our lifestyle.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
OK, a woman Pope is a bit off-topic. But it would hardly be a bad thing and might do a lot of good, if she made the church less male.
But I can't believe that Gates can't afford to licence even one drug patent that might save even more lives. I just think he doesn't want to, because he still believes deep down that information should have Masters. For that reason I hate him; and as long as he continues to show that he believes that, nothing he does can ever redeem him in my sight.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Of course the ends don't justify the means. Unless you mean a billionaire spending a few months of his income on PR to prove that he's not such a bad guy, after all. Maybe the richest person in the Linux community could donate 1.6% of *their* net worth to something similar, like global contraception, or women's literacy. Since there's no Linux billionaire, Red Hat's Bob Young probably represent's about $270M, sparing something around $40M, or $4M:y in proportion to Gates. That ought to bring some greater chance at a real life to at least 10M people every year, so let's see someone step up.
--
make install -not war
First, this is the 'B&M Gates Foundation' - a charity, not a software company. They get donations from a lot of places - other than Microsoft - and use it for their causes. Their reason for being is to do what they're doing, which is without question a wonderful thing and deserves nothing BUT respect and admiration. But the foundation is NOT Microsoft, nor is it exclusively Bill Gates' personal wealth and effort. Melinda maybe, but I'm not sure if she plays a pivotal role in that organization...
.15 percent (NOT 15%, not 1.5%. .15%!) donation per year over 10 years is a palid and sad compared to my 10%. Nyah. ;)
Microsoft and the open source community both make software - neither is dedicated to charitable causes exclusively. The challenge is totally misplaced.
And finally, I donate close to 10% of my money every year to charities I believe in. I'd say that in comparison to Microsofts' billions, the
The 40 billion is his cash in hand though. Including stock we're looking at more like 80-100.
No, the 40 billion is not cash he has in hand. That's his net worth, meaning that figure includes the stock he owns. The vast majority of his worth is his stock.
Disease does have enormous costs, but you have to change government policies to support free markets and private property before you will have any prosperity.
The US became more prosperous than most sub-Saharan African countries are today even when typhus, polio, and other diseases were rampant, not to mention at a time when antibiotics did not exist. That is because the US had effective policies to support free markets and property rights. The same thing applies to many European countries.
Gates donated some money ( no strings attached ) towards Patrick's medical bills?
I don't see how it would hurt, sure slackware might me somewhat of a competitor, but most Joe Somebody Windows users wont want to deal with Slackware.
I'd be curious to see how much of $750M goes toward production, distribution, and so on and how much ends up as profit for the pharmaceutical companies.
What if they (specifically their parents) don't want a vaccination, due to not wanting to overdose them with mercury, antifreeze and other poisonous substances? Can they have the money instead? Or is this just a cover for BG getting in bed with the pharmacutical companies? Conspiracy theories abound.
Damien
Whatever you think of Microsoft, Gates, with this single, unprecedented act of giving, will make far more of a difference to the well-being of mankind than all Slashdot community put together could ever hope to.
Can't we just do the right thing here or once, and give the man credit where it's due, rather than acting like a bunch of petty, spiteful children?
"Sure thing! We can refuse to procreate. Less children = less sickness worldwide."
It's hard to raise children in your parent's basement, not to mention the problems in actually getting a date, so I think many Slashdotters are doing all they can to fight population growth.
The US became more prosperous than most sub-Saharan African countries are today even when typhus, polio, and other diseases were rampant, not to mention at a time when antibiotics did not exist.
That's mostly due to geography. Sub-Saharan African countries don't have winter, so diseases like Malaria never have a chance to die off with the insects. I'm sure there's other disadvantages to living in the tropics as well.
AccountKiller
I agree, but what BillG is also gaining here is general public. Thats what the OP was jerking himself on, Bill has just dropped $1.50 this shows other ways in which he is benificial to our society. By doing this Bill buys insurance against people swaying their opinion quickly to another alternative given the chance.
/. is obviously pulling some propaganda out of its ass to look for money rather than making an intelligent statement, this post will be modded down to oblivion and OP will be flamed for months to come any way.
Granted in the grand scheme of things if the Linux community was to come up with a comparible offer then it would give people a reason to switch because it shows the nature and character of OSS which would make the public curious and more comfortable with the concept of OSS.
But as I digress the fact
IMHO if they were really smart they would take the role of leaders get IBM, HP, OSDN to chip a couple of mill in to the bucket and I bet most of the lowly coders could probably make another mill or two and that is called progress. Not taking a penny out of your pocket and expecting the working class to make up your share is the same reason you arent getting a penny from me
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
You mean, Microsoft earned their money to give them away?
Or do you think they are aware enough of their image to try and invest in improving it?
SLOGEN [ http://ungdomshus.nu : Sebastian cover music]
None of your business. I can assure you, however, that proportionally it is more than Bill Gates.
Isn't 750M USD a pretty fucking major sacrifice - no matter how rich you are?
No, it isn't. Some people scrimp and save to get $10,000 saved so they can make a down payment on a house. And some people spend that much on a night out. Take that 10 grand away from each person: one doesn't get a house, the other doesn't get a night out. Which one is a bigger sacrifice? Bill Gates can lose a billion dollars and still have many more billions to live comfortably. How is 750 mil over 10 years a sacrifice? Is it a helluva lot of money? Yes. Is it going to a good cause? Yes. Is it a sacrifice for him? No.
Jeezus - some of you mindless slashbots make wanna puke.
Try putting some thought into your posts, and stop putting the C in AC.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
His business practices (and 'vulnerable' software) aside, gates has contributed more to charitable causes than most of the worlds richest people (probably combined). and i've heard that he wants to donate all his money when he dies, instead of giving it to his family. as a philanthropist, he deserves some kudos.
Actually, 1.5% is quite the overestimation. By using $50 billion as your starting figure I assume you are referring to Microsoft's net worth. According to Forbes thier net worth is more like 40.7 billion, though that information may be a couple of years old.
Anyway, 750,000 of 40.7 billion is roughly 0.00001843%. My own net worth (small considering I dont own my own home and my car is from 96) is somewhere around $50,000. Using that same math I would have to donate just over 92 cents to match Mr. Gate's percentage contribution.
Having said all that $750,000,000.00 is still an amazing contribution. I just feel its important to keep everything in perspective
800 mill will not go far in this cause but will make a nice tax break for a man who makes that much cashing in stock in a weekend. It will take something like 12 billion to do this for 90% of kids in the poorest countries.
Maybe we (well they, me not being a programmer) already have...
if you price software like Microsift does and charged for Apache, MySQL, Linux kernel and so forth.
A blog I run for the wealth
The /. entry form does let you specify a "department," doesn't it? And one of the choices is "the ends-justify-the-means" department. Maybe our submitter was just fishing for a category.
(Personally, if I'd submitted this story I might have included a reference to Andrew Carnegie. Maybe that'd have been a hot button too? I've wondered whether B.G. is comparing himself to Carnegie before...)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
GDP per capita of Zimbabwe is $1900 a year. Meanwhile, let's look at two other countries with native malaria. India has a GDP per capita of $2900 per year, and Singapore has a GDP per capita of $23,700 per year.
Malaria can easilly be wiped out in a country of appropriate wealth. Simple tools like repellant-coated mesh nets can dramatically reduce its spread.
Also, do not underestimate the influence of disease in the US in the time before the advance of medicine.
In the late 1800's, the US had epidemics of Yellow Fever, Influenza, Smallpox, Cholera, Typhus and Typhoid.
In 1916, 7,000 people died in the US from polio. In 1918, 500,000 people died in the US from influenza. Today, nearly 500,000 people have died in the US from AIDS.
In 1850, real per capita GDP in the US was about $2000 / year, higher than Zimbabwe today.
I suggest again that government economic policies trump disease in terms of keeping an economy down.
while I'm glad that Bill G is donating his money to worthwhile causes, the ends do not justify the means.
Given the choice, I'd rather that the US government had done it's job and smacked down the Microsoft monopoly a long time ago, which likely would have save the software consuming world at least an order of magnitude more money than the $750 M that Gates is donating. Governments could have collected part of this money through taxes and giving it as foreign aid, giving what could easily be a larger lump sum of aid while simultaneously taking less money (on average) from taxpayers/consumers. I'm sure libertarians as well would have just liked to have the choice of saving money not spent on an illegal monopoly's products and donated at their own choice.
As generous as this donation appears, the tremendous amount of money still in Gates' coffers shows the size of the sinkhole created that would not exist in a truly competetive marketplace.
The ultimate plays for Madden 2006
Once you have the kind of money BG has, well, way way way before you even have that much, the normal laws of money dictating your activity really stop applying so much. Somewhere around 300M, it really becomes virtually impossible to buy enough additional things and actually enjoy them. There really is only so much value an extra dollar, or million, or billion can do for you, and the dropoff happens pretty early on. So, no, its not like this is an amazing contribution from him, because he'll never need that 750 million, but also, it's not like his primary goal nowadays is greed - because he already has more money than he could ever ever spend. He is motivated by ego maybe, or sheer agression and love of the business and its trappings. In terms of the tax argument, sure he gets benefits from doing that, but honestly, do you really think taxes are high on bill's list of things? Sure hey pays more yearly than most of us ever will make, but so what? He's so far beyond needing any of that money that he has been afforded the freedom to do what he wants to do, when he wants, and how, regardless of the monetary consequences. So when he does things, they need to be judged apart from his wealth - if they are right, they are right, if they are wrong, they are wrong. He can't plead either way that he has to do it for the money. If Bill really really thought, you know, I want to be loved, I'm going to get into OSS and put so much money behind it..... he could, easily. But he obviously doesn't believe that. And I believe its an honest process in his head, even if his logic is flawed and he might be dishonest to prove his points - but is HE threatened by OSS? I dont really think so. Maybe some % of his vast fortune, but not enough to affect his lifestyle, goals, or activities in any way.
Instead of arguing over what percentage Gates has given or who is more generous of Gates and a poor man giving the same percentage, I offer a challenge for any honest, rational human to accept:
I will assume that you have more money than you need to cover your basic needs. This will be true if you can ever afford to buy a new computer, buy ice cream or take a few beers at the pub. If you don't have any surplus money then you have nothing to give, and what I say does not apply.
You have your basic needs: food, clothes, shelter, transport, communications -- things which are required for you to live at a level where you do not feel that you are in some sort of distress. These needs take some part of your money, and anything else you have left is surplus. If you were to spend this on yourself, it would be to satisfy relatively trivial desired compared to the unfulfilled needs of large portions of the population of our planet. I will argue that that money would be put to better use if spent on those in need.
There appears that there are effective ways of improving the conditions of those in need on the long term. This could be spening resources (money in this case) on infrastructure, education and possibly famine relief (although it could be objected that feeding the hungry does not attack the root of the problem, but instead helps create another generation of people who will also starve unless the real problems are solved). If you do not agree on any of these measures, consider fair trade, population control, caring for the environmental (greenpeace) or human rights activism (amnesty international and others).
If you have any surplus money, you could (morally ought, I believe) give all or some of this to a cause which you believe will effectively help those in need. But how much? Giving nothing at all is clearly not optimal. Also, giving all of what I have defined as surplus may not be optimal either, as it would exclude you from some social activities (e.g. going to the pub) which may be required to uphold a healthy social life and without which your wellbeing would be at risk, and with it your ability to continue bringing home money to give to the needy. We arrive at the conclusion that you can (ought) give somewhere between nothing and all of your surplus.
Since it is difficult to determine which is the optimal giving rate, I suggest that you set this level in an honest way as you see fit. I feel that for me, as a full time student on state subsidies and loans, half of my surplus is reasonable. In no way am I certain that 50% is the optimal number, but it allows for a simple system which is self-adjusting to my current financial situation.
I suggest a system which is as follows. For each purchase that can rightly be considered surplus consumption, record that amount. When the total amount of money spent exceeds a nice even number like $10, $100 or in my case, 100 SEK, give that money to a cause which you believe will be of high benefit to humans (living or future), non-human animals, the environment or some other cause which you judge to be more important than your own needs (none of which are essential since those needs are already covered, or no surplus consumption could have taken place). Such a system has several benefits:
My claims here have been rather moderate and aimed at finding a practical method of sharing ones surplus. It is possible that the moral obl
Modernizing? Ha! Weather, country size and shear numbers were the primary factor. Many of Zhukov's troops were armed with shovels, because they didn't have guns
The Russian ability to produce tanks overwhelmed the Nazis. Their tanks (at first, until the Germans copied them) had innovations like sloped shell deflecting armour and heavier guns. The Germans focussed on finely engineered vehicles while the Russians built huge assembly line factories to mass produce thousands of tough, heavy, winterized, wide-stanced tanks. They were ugly, with the welds showing, but they kicked ass. And there were many many more Soviet tanks than German.
You think a bunch of guys with shovels alone could hold off the Nazi war machine? Sure there were millions of poorly armed peasants in the front lines but without Soviet armour they would have faced the same fate as the Incans against Pizarro's superiour technology. That was a case where one side was not able to catch up technologically. Each mounted and armoured cavalier accounted for hundreds of Incan footsoldiers killed.
No, the reason the Russians fought off the Nazis is that the Germans were unprepared for winter, which bought the Russians time to ramp up an incredible feat of technological mass production, done in less time than ever before. Keep in mind that at the same time the Soviets also relocated their factories to central Russia during to avoid the Luftwaffe.
The cost they paid in human lives was horrible, but to claim that they didn't modernize is false.
But during those forty years the people lived in poverty, waiting in lines to get bread, while their own government spied on them Let's be objective. Didn't both sides do this?
And the same country sent many of those artists to the gulag. How soon you forget the MacCarthy years.
Yes. The Soviet Union folded. Yes, Russia was a shitty place to live freely. But to just dismiss huge chunks of history like that isn't right. I'm glad to live here and I value my freedom just as much as you do, but I doesn't mean I have to turn off my brain. There are good logical reasons for supporting capitalism but blind faith in our system isn't one of them.
Next on "Numbers that Equal 100", the percentage chance that the poster of this story is a Microsoft employee.
Kind of like Christopher Walken in King of New York. Sells drugs by night, builds a children's hospital by day. He even has a "great" speech about it. Does it sound goofy and incoherent? Yeah, it is.
Monopolies are bad for the economy. They create inefficiencies that propagate into every aspect of our lives and result in traditional economic malaise: substandard goods and services at higher prices, fewer jobs, fewer opportunities, stalled progress.
To have the man at the head of the monopoly put on his King's hat and say "I am magnanimous today" makes you feel kind of like an asshole, doesn't it?
Let alone when one of his lackey-wannabes says "Who is as generous as the King?"
Amazing what America has come to.
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
This donation represents 750 million USD over 10 years, thus 75 million USD per year. For the sake of argument let's say there are 2 million people in the "Linux community". I'm sure that is an underestimate but it doesn't matter for the sake of this exercise. 75 million USD/ 2 million = 37.5 USD per year per Linux user. I'm sure the vast majority of Linux users either live in wealthy western nations or are of above average wealth in the nations in which they live. So 38 USD per year is pocket change for most Linux users. I'm sure this is less than the average annual spending of Linux users on carbonated beverages (for which to total worldwide annual spending is ~200 billion USD). Even 500 per year would hardly be noticed by most Linux users. That would amount to 1 billion USD per year. I would bet most Linux users could afford with some small sacrifice to give 5000 USD per year away. That would amount to 100 billion USD over the 10 year period of Bill Gates' 750 million USD donation which starts to make his gift look like a drop in the bucket. Don't underestimate the power of a large number of people. If anyone is interested I've put together a short "slide show" examining visually what people choose to allocate money to and what they don't. It is at http://joel.mawhorter.org/priorities/priorities-in tro.html
I will warn you that it is graphic and you will likely find it disturbing (but hopefully moving and educational).
Joel
I'm pretty sure the point she was making was that the scum of the world, A.K.A "the peasants" were being propped up by a kind of socialist hero.. and THAT was what really bothered her.
She didn't like the idea that people might bend or break the rules if their livelihoods depended on it.
She didn't like the idea that people who got rich might actually have to pay to help those pathetic dirty vermin climb out of the cesspit of poverty. She wanted each person to save themselves in a sort of anti-socialism, where no-one need feel sorry about his suffering neighbor and no-one need help them.
Those that are incapable of helping themselves and used others to support themselves (the unemployed relying on social aid, for instance) are seen as parasites on their "superiors".
Just because someone donates to "charities" does not change that person's character. By the way here are what those "vaccinations" can do:
http://www.healing-arts.org/children/cdc.htm
What percentage of the money donated actually get's used to buy what the children need?
Alex
"The Brady Bunch is back...working homicide"
I tried, but the person taking my call just hung up on me for some reason. They really need to improve their customer service if they want people to send them donations.
cp /dev/zero ~/signature.txt
While I'm grateful that this money is going to a good cause, I believe Machiavelli mentioned that a tyrant should open a few hospitals and schools to confuse the masses. You give up 10% of your wealth, keep the other 90% ill-gotten gains, and let the peons fight it out.
I was watching a special on, I believe, Noriega. It's been a while. Anyway, once the government came down on his billion-dollar cocaine empire, he started building hospitals and kissing babies. When it didn't work, he had many govt officials shot in the bloodiest street crimes possible.
Sorry. Preview first, post second :-)
n tro.html. I will warn you that it is graphic and you will likely find it disturbing (but hopefully moving and educational).
This donation represents 750 million USD over 10 years, thus 75 million USD per year.
For the sake of argument let's say there are 2 million people in the "Linux community". I'm sure that is an underestimate but it doesn't matter for the sake of this exercise.
75 million USD/ 2 million = 37.5 USD per year per Linux user. I'm sure the vast majority of Linux users either live in wealthy western nations or are of above average wealth in the nations in which they live. So 38 USD per year is pocket change for most Linux users. I'm sure this is less than the average annual spending of Linux users on carbonated beverages (for which to total worldwide annual spending is ~200 billion USD). Even 500 per year would hardly be noticed by most Linux users. That would amount to 1 billion USD per year. I would bet most Linux users could afford with some small sacrifice to give 5000 USD per year away. That would amount to 100 billion USD over the 10 year period of Bill Gates' 750 million USD donation which starts to make his gift look like a drop in the bucket.
Don't underestimate the power of a large number of people.
If anyone is interested I've put together a short "slide show" examining visually what people choose to allocate money to and what they don't. It is at http://joel.mawhorter.org/priorities/priorities-i
Joel
Did anyone else happen to notice that the Gates Foundation came along less than a year after Turner donated one billion to the U.N.?
That might sound like a fragile connection, but the reading I've done on Gates seems to point out that he does most things to one-up someone else.
Oh well, I'm thankful the money goes to a good cause.
As much as I hate your software and your companies monopolistic habits, I thank you.
You are helping the worlds sick more than most governments can or will.
"Never trust a computer you can't throw." -- The Mac
I agree, but there is one major practical difference - the money which people don't spend on free software probably doesn't end up going to charity, it probably ends up at Dominos, Anheiser Bush or LFP! Of course people should be free to spend their money as they see fit, but I just wanted to point out that this donation at least guarantees that the worthy causes get some cash.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
I'm not even going to bother reading what you typed because the title is stupid enough as it is.
If you can afford to buy a MS OS then you're probably not poor.
I don't see how this is stealing from the poor and giving a little back.
Honestly it's more like taking from the wealthy and giving to the poor than the other way around.
I would happily live in a software monoculture where children do not get sick.
Get a grip, OS's are not everything.
The whole purpose of Microsoft is to make money (see the charter of any corporation). Software just happens to be the 'vehicle' they use to make the money and take it to the bank.
A significant amount of Microsoft's money goes to Bill Gates. He can do anything he wants (within the law, of course) with his money.
The whole purpose of "The Linux Community" is to make software. It's not to make money, raise money, redistribute money or to do anything with money.
By the time I press submit there will probably be 1000+ comments on this 'article.' Congrats to the author for successfully trolling slashdot.
Tag lost or not installed.
I suggest again that government economic policies trump disease in terms of keeping an economy down
Possibly, but quite irrelevant to Bill Gates. You can't throw money at a problem like government economic policies. Sure, you could bribe some government officials, but they'd laugh all the way to the bank.
AccountKiller
Re:Don't Pity the Poor, enpower them... But do they want to learn?
I don't know, but they do seem to resist learning how to spell properly.
You gave 2.5% of your "discretionary income".
Bill Gates being worth 50 billion is not the same as earning 50 billion/year (which he doesn't).
So, he gave 1.53% of his worth, not his income. Never mind the fact that he could never turn that 50 billion into cash. The act of him selling any significant portion of those MS shares would drive the value of them into the ground.
That said, you are both to be commended.
----- If communism is a system where the government owns business, what do you call a system where business owns govern
Just give me your address, then I'll kidnap you and blackmail your family - then repeat until I have the funds!
Then of course all my sins would be washed away, just because I did something good in the end.
I guess then the means would be justified, or something like that...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's not a small redeeming act. It's 750 million dollars worth of vaccine for children worldwide.
It's not one act. The Bill and Melinda fund have quite a few of these on their table.
In any other discussion, I would agree with many of your sentiments. Bill is a hardnosed business bulldog who will chew through anyone in his way. HOWEVER, millions upon millions of children will actually have a chance to make it past the age of 5 thanks to this donation.
Believe it or not, it's not always about right and wrong or morraly correct. These are easy debates for those with food on the table. Regardless of motive the final act is judged in and of itself.
C.S. Lewis examined this at length and I do agree. Do a harmful thing for a rightous reason - it's still a bad thing. Do a good thing for a bad reason... good has still been done.
Scream and cry to the blind gods above for truth all you want. They're deaf (if not dead) and we still have a mess to clean up.
I'll personally put all my Bill bashing to the side today and say this, "Good job, Mr. Gates. You may be an asshole, but you're an asshole that's done a few good turns."
#SickNotWeak
"You will see that Bill has given $27 Billion of his $50 Billion fortune"
Since he is a monopolist, a large portion of that $50 billion was leveraged from the pockets of consumers via using monopoly power to maximize profits.
There is a perminant loss to society when monopoly power is exercised (called dead weight loss, and is the same loss to society from taxiation). One would also expect that the consumers who would not have had to pay billions extra for this product would have also donated it to charities.
Its nice that hes doing it, but he is far far away from being St. Bill for the reasons above.
Comparing apples and oranges.
The last dollar that I earn is worth a LOT more to me than the last dollar the Bill Gates earns.
i completely agree. i was merely playing devil's advocate, and trying not to fall for the flamebait. it's not a contest, but morally, i agree much more with what the linux community is doing than with what bill gates is doing. he did not create microsoft with the intention of giving part of its profits to needy children: that is merely a byproduct of his success. clearly, few if none in the linux community can afford to give that much money to charity, so each of them do what they can. the difference is that the goal of the linux community is charity and "giving back", which is much more noble.
BSD is for people who love UNIX. Linux is for those who hate Microsoft.
I've seen this type of reasoning posted all over this story, and I can't disagree more strongly.
What is with this masochistic tendency to claim that giving isn't generous unless it is detrimental to oneself? We're lambasting the man for not putting himself in the poorhouse, now? What purpose would that serve? It would just mean that he would eliminate his ability to give more, later.
You yourself obviously haven't followed through on the vows of poverty you're so quick to enforce on others, or you wouldn't be typing away on your pretty little keyboard and posting through your swanky broadband connection. How many vaccinations would your ISP bill provide?
Geez! Hypocrites! Believe it or not, generosity is still generosity if you don't break the bank. In fact, it is good stewardship of your money to maintain enough to fuel future contribution to society. This is also the immature thinking that leads to the idea that I can't take pleasure or pride in my giving. Wrong again!
Remember, inflicting financial damage on oneself does not make a contribution more generous, and taking pleasure in the act of giving does not make it less so.
SharkJumper
Sure, you could bribe some government officials, but they'd laugh all the way to the bank.
The World Bank and IMF have become experts at exactly that...
They call them development loans or grants, which are immediately put into the pockets of contractors connected to developing governments, and the governments then fail to implement free market reforms they promised to implement in return for the loans/grants. Some countries even then default on the loans...and complain they are "highly indebted."
Everytime Bill Gates "sells" stock, he adds to the current float, and customers have to be found to buy his stock. This competes with everyone else that wants to sell thier stock and the natural marketplace. This is from the view of the marketplace, newly minted stock that now has to be dealt with. With the result that this new stock in a larger pool of stock being sold into a system that does not generate that many new buyers. Since Bill has been selling his stock, Microsoft is down ~75%. It has remained flat during the recovery. The shareholders have been screwed out of BILLIONS in equity.
Shareholders would have been better off in general if the company would pay him the large salary he deserves, and more money was disbursed through dividends. Bill should be paid by the profits of the company, rather than out of the equity hide of the shareholders.
It is really nice that he has been so generous with the Stockholders money.
Other foundations have spent decades bleeding off stockholder value in such a way that the friction does NOT cause a downword valuation in the stock. Bill and Paul have been raping the marketplace, shareholders be damned.
Seriously, what the hell is that doing on the front page.
Jesus saves and takes half damage.
The point is, that when most average people donate money to charity, they have to give something up.
Nobody is suggesting that it is morally wrong to eat anything more expensive than oatmeal, or live in anything bigger than a shed, or to own a car.
However, the fact is that I need to sacrifice less to give $100 to charity than somebody who makes 1/10th my income has to sacrifice to give $10 to charity. It just doesn't scale linearly.
Somebody who makes 10 times my income can consequently give far more than a 10X increase without giving up much.
Somebody with a billion dollars in the bank can pretty much give away everything beyond that and still have more money than they could figure out how to spend. Gates just doesn't have enough time in a day to spend that kind of money on himself, or even on anybody that he personally knows. The extra money is essentially worthless to him.
Don't get me wrong - donations to charity are great. However, when you have that much money you aren't making the same kind of tradeoffs that a normal person makes.
As far as keeping enough to guarantee future contribution to society goes - how much is that?
I don't have even $100k in the bank. Does that mean that I'm unable to contribute to society? Did Bill Gates contribute nothing to society until he had billions of dollars? Arguably he has his money because he DID contribute to society before then.
Go up to one of those kids he's vaccinating and tell them, "It's nice you're being vaccinated, but the money used to vaccinate you was leveraged from the pockets of consumers by the monopoly power of Windows market share. He's not a nice man." They'll just blink at you.
No matter what lengths he goes through to prove that he only cares about vaccinating children, I'll never believe that Arvin Sloan --er-- Bill Gates has really changed his evil ways. Omnifam my ass!
I wish that my inferiority complex were as good as yours.
-RenderHead
You sure are angry, aren't you?
Nope, just stating facts and giving people a little different perspective on things. I am not slamming Gates at all - just those who worship him and refuse to think logically.
Gates has personally given a large percentage of his wealth to charity. Before he dies he will have probably given at least 50-75% of his money to charity. End of story.
And that is something great, which he does not HAVE to do. He has chosen to do it, and I applaud him for that. But I don't see how people can say it is a great sacrifice. If he does give away 75% of his wealth, he will still be one of the wealthiest people in the US. Think about it - if he is worth 40 billion (probably a low estimate), and he gives away 75% of it (30 billion) he will still have 10 BILLION DOLLARS!!!
I am not even suggesting that he give away all his money. I am saying he has so much friggin money that pretty much no matter what he gives away it won't be a sacrifice for him. I am glad he is charitable and gives away millions of dollars. But it is no sacrifice.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I remember reading some astronomy predictions on Gates, and the interpretation specifically mentioned that Gates would donate TONS of money for good causes. This was in the late ninties, and he wasn't really that famous for his donations then.
This donation is just the beginning. Mark my words, when the world needs it, Gates/MS will donate incredible amounts of money in order to restore economic power. I'm pretty sure he will be prominent in getting other rich people along on it too.
I believe Gates thinks he is entitled to all the business opportunities he can get, and frankly, it's only natural for bussiness to try to reach monopoly. So this is not to clear any "conscience".
In the future, Bill Gates will actually become pretty popular because of his big heart (and wallet). Everyone's heart opens when trouble rams, just like the Tsunami.. The idea of having the super-rich will not seem so bad.
It's just too bad people need crisis in order to start to care.. *sigh*
If you are a cynical rationalist this will just seem like empty rambling. Just wait and see though. I'm pretty confident in this source.
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
"Let's see if the Linux community can match his generosity" Was it really necessary to tag that on there?
[WEB] Mark 12:41
41 Jesus sat down opposite the treasury, and saw how the multitude cast money into the treasury. Many who were rich cast in much. 42 A poor widow came, and she cast in two small brass coins, which equal a quadrans coin. 43 He called his disciples to himself, and said to them, "Most assuredly I tell you, this poor widow gave more than all those who are giving into the treasury, 44 for they all gave out of their abundance, but she, out of her poverty, gave all that she had to live on."
Good god man.. gain some perspective.
If the man DID feed all of Ethiopia for years, I submit that you'd be on Slashdot whining about how he could have tossed in Eritrea at no extra burden to himself.
I believe The book of Revelation talks about the anti-christ vaccinating children and ending world hunger..soo.....if Bill gates is the anti-christ, would the mark of the beast be the windows insignia??!
Your post has enough of Ayn Rand's tireless rhetoric to drown a small nation, but it lacks perspective and foresight. That you post it would indicate you agree with it, which is a slippery slope indeed. There is room for this sort of "as rich as I can possibly get" notion as long as there is an opposing force. Not the notion of morality, kindness, or connectedness to your fellow man, but an actual force like a law, tax, etc. I doubt very highly that a majority of the richest people still feel tugs of morality, but some of them still respond to laws. Those of whom haven't bought ways around them. That force can come in the form of a higher tax bracket for the rich, or some other means of a hard limit on personal wealth. I'm not sure who's objective enough to decide what that limit should be, but I would argue that it shouldn't be Rand. I have an image of her as a baby, and her first and only word she's screaming is "MINE....MINE....MINE" over and over again. Was that your first word too?
So you're comparing yourself to the widow with the two copper coins? Have you "put in everything-all she had to live on"? Have you even given away the same percentage of your overall wealth as he has of his?
A totally innocent child will only see the good attributes. It will simply not recognize evil.
You are what you see.
Always seeing the negativity, is really depressing and nothing good will come out of it. The more you hanker and focus on it, you just become more negative yourself.
The media should really learn from this, because the constant onslaught of negative news, are really affecting us. (Try go a week without watching TV and reading the news, you'll be amazed. A month, you will balk.).
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Most rants against Bill are just that, Ad Hominem arguments. I agree with the poster - it's M$ that's often the problem, not Bill Gates. In fact, I'm very impressed with the philanthropic activity of the Gates Foundation, especially regarding malaria. The OS sucks, but flames often disregard that it was in the early days that Bill was a mover/shaker in the company, and now there should be more Ballmer than Gates rants. As for the philanthropic activity of the Gates Foundation, I'm just happy he's not using his excess millions building a M$-themed amusement park.
Consider who is more generous? Someone whose mind is bent on acquisitiveness 99% of the time and on giving only 1% of the time, or someone whose mind is bent on giving 99% of the time and on acquisitiveness 1% of the time?
Someone whose mind is bent on giving most of the time, is such one going to accumulate much wealth?
Consider, who is cleaner? Someone who makes a big mess in his room throughout the year, and does a huge cleaning job on each New Year's Day, or someone who doesn't make any mess to begin with and thus has nothing to clean?
Generosity should not be measured in dollars. Generosity should be measured in mind share and mind time.
How is this insightful? How does the linux community contribute anything? You, using free software doesn't add anything to my life or a poor hungry kid in Somalia. Get a grip. Maybe if you actually contributed to writing and maintaining linux and then bought computers installed linux and flew to Somalia and tought a little Somalian child how to hate Bill Gates, and talk in non-sense like you do, and and hack some C code in emacs to vaccinate her friends could you consider to be helping the world. Wow.
I don't think your analogy works. Gates didn't rob anyone. People elect to buy his products. Unfair competition? Perhaps, but he wouldn't have made his billions without the support of consumers.
Don't get me wrong, it's great that he gave the money, but let's not canonize the guy. He didn't have to give anything, so it's good that he forked it up, but it's hardly all that praiseworthy. At the level of wealth he has, that 1.5% means far less to him than 1.5% would mean to you or I.
Um, that was sarcasm, there are a sizable number of pro-life women. True there are also a great number of pro-choice women, and the maintaining of legal abortions is a femminist platform, but to say every woman would be pro choice to stereotype as assudadably as saying that every man would be against pornography control laws. I wasn't making a value judgement on abortion, but I will now.
I am offended by your insinuation that if I had been born with different chromosomes that I would have a different moral stance than I do now. I am offended by your insinuation that I think only as benifits me. I have my moral standards on many topics and it is often an inconvenience to myself.
I have been a vegitarian for over ten years, and I do NOT force people whom I'm visiting to make allowances for this, if all that is being cooked is meat, I just don't eat. I do not beleive in premarital sex and am thus a virgin at the age of 23, and NOT for lack of oppertunity either. I have a record of considering others before myself, indeed it might be one of my biggest problems (I'm easily taken advantage of). Your insinuation that the only reason I'm pro-life is because it can't inconvenience me is wrong, offensive and frankly ridiculous. Oh, to forstall the usual argument I get next, no I was NOT brought up like this, these morals I came to on my own. I am not a member of a church that holds similar positions. I don't get my values from a party platform. (In spite of this rant I am mostly liberal.) I am strongly in favour of other forms of birth control (condoms, the pill, (even the day-after pill) spermicides, and sterilization surgeries. In spite of the strength of my convictions I am not inflexible. I support stem-cell research (come on guys, there's a difference between a few days old embryo barly beyond zygote stage and a second trimester fetus with arms, legs, and brain activity.)
I also would support a woman pope, in general, as I would a woman president, in general. (I wouldn't support C. Rice for either position, though.)
Little Brother, watching the watchers
To change the target of your criticisms for a second... did anyone notice that Bill Gates donated over twice as much to child vaccinations as the entire U.S. government did to tsunami relief?
Bill is the wealthiest man in the world. But what many people forget is that Bill comes from money, OLD MONEY. His family are the kind of people who sit on boards of directors and have dinner with US Senators kind of money. The kind who drop out of Harvard and not some state school. And they are also the kind of people who don't just phone it in to Jerry Lewis every year or give to the office United Way campaign to get that warm-and-fuzzy feeling, but who create friggin' foundations. Bill provided some serious seed money to create the foundation's endowment, which was then invested and grown and is gradually being given away to worthy causes. Its not like Bill's personal signature is at the bottom of each check the Gates Foundation hands out (at least, I wouldn't think that he is that hands on).
Yes, Microsoft is the evil empire blah blah blah ...
And the Gates Foundation does good things in the world. Only a drooling idiot would argue that providing funding to fight AIDS or vaccinate children against common (and some not so common) diseases is somehow bad. Go take your dumb ass and your tinfoil hat and crawl back inside your parent's basement. If only more of the truly wealthy people in this country felt a similar responsibility to give something back to their communities, the nation, and the world instead of just buying another Ferrari or vacation home...maybe the world would be just a slightly better place...maybe.
Obviously, the P2P community has been most generous. Who can even count the amount of free software, music, and movies that have been made available for FREE over the internet! It's simply remarkable! Hail the KaZaAs and the Gnutellas!
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
How about instead of "pledging" money -- how much of all the orgy of tsunami money pledged by magnaminious nations and wealthy individuals will actually be paid out, much less distrubuted to those in need by the greedy carrion NGOs and and charities -- we see how many kids we can actually get vaccinated, although that's hardly the most pressing need of kids without vaccines. Ignorant third world people have a kind of needle fetish, since a long time now, because injections have on occasion saved lives, so that often people want to feel a needleprick (and are often happily obliged by tourist medicos) as a symbol of good luck or even cosmopolitanism. I've heard of times when a doctor proscribes penecillan or some other ingested medicine, that the patient begs for a shot until the western relief worker gives him a saline ingection.
who taught you math???
750 000 000 (750 million) devided by 40 000 000 000 (40 billion) * 100 = 1.875%
Stop being a fucktard a get a clue!!
It's not the destination that matters, but rather the journey.
There are plenty of reasons to dislike Ayn Rand but it's valuable to understand where she's coming from because, IMHO, she's right about many things.
In this particular excerpt, she's arguing essentially, that taxing the rich to support the poor is immoral and the person who does is is scum.
One of her core tenets is that "Man--every man--is an end in himself." People who abdicate that duty or entice other to abdicate that duty are immoral. Granted, I'm just some guy whose read a couple of books, but to me that means that giving a man a fish is immoral but teaching a man to fish is moral. In one instance you are saying, "It's okay to not learn to fish, I'll do it for you." in the other, you are saying "Here, take responsibility for your own fish." In the end the man that was taught to fish is not beholden (although maybe grateful) to the teacher. The man was given a fish is beholden to the giver (if he wants another fish).
Now, think about the people who do this in the modern world. She's basically talking about politicians. These folks take money from the those that have it (and I don't mean just the rich but middle and lower classes as well) and set up social services, which although well intentioned, have the effect of making the poor dependent on the politician. Essentially the politicians, in most not all cases, just give the poor a fish.
That sucks.
So, I'm all over government-sponsored training and short term help to complete the training. I think we do far less than we should.
However, the "give a man a fish" type of help should be limited to the period of time where you're also "teaching a man to fish".
You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake -- but you could be if you got off your ass.
Ayn Rand overlooks one critical item - most wealth is derived from natural resources. These resources belong, at a fundamental level, to everyone, and are not something that can be denied in perpetuity to future generations simply by the selfish claims of ones forefathers.
Noone has an inherent exclusive right to natural resources, and these resources must return to the public over time.
This return to the public is accomplished via taxes. Taxes are a rental fee charged to those who monopolize public resources - water, land, timber, and oil.
The people who levy taxes are not thieves, they are simply returning public resources to the people.
Who gives a fuck what they want? Seriously? If they can't figure out how to survive on their own without constantly being given billions of dollars in handouts, let 'em die.
It's time people realized that each man on this planet is responsible for his own life, and it's not up to us to feed him, take care of him, and make sure he's tucked in at night. If someone wants to help people out, great, more power to em- but don't expect everyone else to do it, too.
As much as I dislike Microsoft business practices and the Windows OS, I must say that Bill Gates is one of the leading philanthropists in the world, and I admire him for that. So many of the other rich software moguls use their money to buy another yacht or personal jet, but Bill chooses to change the world for the better, in ways that really matter. When he is on his death bed looking back on his life, his humanitarian work will give him much to be proud of. --Phil Zimmermann
Bill Gates may or may not be the anti-Christ to you but lets get real he would be worth a lot more the 50 ish billion he has now if he hadn't given like 27 billion to charity in total more then a third of his wealth in total he has given to charity I strive to tithe 1/10th of my income and don't always get there (poor collage student) he has gotten over a 1/3 of his so lay off.
You mean we should donate 1.5% of our income to medical programs too?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I am too late to this discussion, nevertheless I want to make a point that explains the ambivalent feelings I have about Bill Gate's generosity.
Colombian druglords very often use their ill-gotten profits to benefit the communities where they live.
They will finance schools, public works and even the local church (I have heard priests lavishing praise on these individuals).
Bill Gates is not druglord by any means (although his company uses similar tactics to spread the use of his software) but I always find hard to accept the end justifies the means mantra.
Maybe in the case of Mr. Gates it does, but frankly I wish that the person giving this money had an ethical bussiness profile more worthy of the charity causes he is sponsoring.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
...because he probably realized that dead children don't buy software.
capitalism, full-blown capitalism
Remember that capitalism is exponential and need free territory to be conquered. Do you have an example of closed capitalism ? No, of course not, because it can't exist. Not all contries can have capitalism, or if they have, capitalism will die (which will happens soon).
Sharing the world ressource is the only way.
just remember guys a person who gives the money usually doesn't have anything else to give.
There's no need to blame the people that taught me math. I'm sure they tried their best. I assume all blame.
Note to self: When bitching about other people's math I should watch my zeros.
Clue: Received
Fucktard Status: Confirmed
Wouldn't it be more efficient to buy a few patents from these drug companies and lower the cost of the drugs? How much would that cost - anybody know?
No, Ayn Rand's view - to make a long theory short - is that forcing a man to give his fish to another is immoral.
Circumcision is child abuse.
I think you'll find that Bill's spent a good deal of energy on making sure the law ain't got nothing to do with what he does with his money or anything else. In a country where one dollar = one vote the only constraint on the rich is eachother.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
There are several points that need to be made here:
1. The money Bill Gates is giving away are ill-gotten gains derived from monopolistic practices. if we had a government with balls, they would have confiscated most of Microsoft (and Bill Gates) money. Why should he have the right to decide how to spend stolen money? Maybe society as a whole has different priorities.
2. Bill Gates recently called people who oppose his view of "intellectual property" communists! Well if it makes me a communist to believe that drugs should not be developed for corporate profit then so be it. [N.B. Please: before you start flaming me about how all "innovation" happens because of greed and how without copyright and patent monopilies life would be nasty, brutish and short, pick up a book on the history of science or the history of art or the history of music or the hostoty of philosophy or the history of any human artistic and/or intellectual endeavor].
If Bill Gates would support the restraint of insanely restrictive copyright and patent laws, we could eradicate many diseases around the world without him having to give a $750 million donation. In terms of benefit to the world, it would be far preferable if he used his money and clout to fight ridiculous IP laws, than give this money away on vaccinations. Far more lives could and would be saved. But precisely because he uses his money and clout to oppose such modifications, he is partially responsible for many people dying, and his $750 million gift cannot compensate for that.
3. The article is pure flame bait. But since it was posted as "news" it is our right and duty to respond to its huge BS factor.
I'm surprised at how many responses I've read that make the relative-value argument: "$750 million is only 1.5% of his net worth. I donate three times that much compared to my net worth of $1000, therefore Gates' donation isn't really that significant."
This notion that relative dollar amounts are somehow important is so broken, it's sad. Go back to econ class, folks. Your $45 donation doesn't make a dent; Gates has the power to target his $750 million just right. He's far more likely to hit the bull's-eye.
I would do that too if I had an army of financial advisors telling me that this neat trick is going to make him money instead of "costing". Good for the kids though. Do remember that last time BillyBob visited India he put way more money into getting Microsoft products into their education system than he donated to their aids research which is a major issue in the country. Shows you where his priorities are.... On the flip side, there is our community that makes a huge effort in creating something the entire world can benefit from. I don't think the community has anything to match dollarwise and can feel pretty good about themselves and what they have achieved. Now everybody back to work!
Ok. Let's see, he's giving 2% of his net worth to vaccinate kids, so to match that we'd need The Linux Community to donate 2% of THEIR, uh, revenues. What's $0 x 0.02?
From another angle: he's keeping only the first $40 billion of his wealth for himself. So to match this, we'll need each member of the linux community to likewise keep only $40 billion per person, and then selflessly donate the rest. I know that only $40B per person can be a bitter pill to swallow, but when people like Bill lead the way then it's time to show that we really believe in the ideals we talk about. If you personally feel that you need more than forty thousand mansions, then we in the linux community do not want you here.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Ok if I could mod you, I would give you Karma because that one made me laugh! ;-)
It's not the destination that matters, but rather the journey.
I was nearly killed by a routine MMR vaccination, and I know others who have been damaged. Later, the thimerosol gave me ADD and mild autism.
See here if you're a UK resident who's been injured by vaccines
In British Columbia, parents of autistic children have launched a lawsuit against healthcare authorities for endangering and permanently damaging children. Vaccination causes autism, ADD, and other mental disorders.
See here for interesting info if you're a vaccine victim from Canada
Personally, I'd like to maim the moron who decided that mercury derivatives make great additions to the crap they shoot into kids nowadays.
Info here
Interesting Viera Scheibner's research here
help for Isle of Man vaccine victims here
You probably have friends who have been damaged by vaccines. Think about it.
In conclusion, Bill Gates is still evil. Even Dr. Gardner agrees; ou have all been warned. Thank you.
It works like this - you invest securities into charity. Charity pays you back an annuity, and the remnant goes for the charity cause (all used to be legal - probably some variation is still legal). Now you accelarate this annuity and get back up to 95% of you contribution in two years. So you just got 95% of you securities instead of 85% after Bush's capital gains tax.
I have heard this strategy was designed personally for Gates, and widely copied, until it was shut down byt IRS. I bet they came up with some variation.
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
All the terrorist still say that Americans are still a bunch of self centered money grubbing capitalists that need to die. Maybe next time they will fly a plane into Microsoft headquarters because Bill didn't donate money to there latest problem.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for the are subtle and quick to anger.
Her philosophy bothers me because it assigns a moral responsibility to people not to aid those whose situation is unfortunate due to their own actions (i.e. there is no mercy), but it does not assign a moral responsibility to people whose situations are comfortable, even if not due to their own actions, to help anyone at all, even if those in need cannot help themselves. In short, it's okay to be selfish if you're rich, but it's not okay to be merciful to people who are suffering due to laziness or bad choices.
She effectively says that greed is okay, grace is nice but you'll suffer for it, and mercy is bad. That may help us advance in some areas, but it certainly doesn't promote the kind of qualities that I value in humanity.
If that last paragraph doesn't make sense, then to clarify what I mean by grace and mercy: grace is giving someone something to benefit them, that they don't necessarily deserve; mercy is not giving punishment to someone who does deserve it. There's a significant difference. I understand discouraging mercy. I don't agree with it, but I understand it. What worries me more is that Rand's philosophy it allows, but does not encourage grace. Grace (IMO) is beneficial to humanity, but it costs the giver economically, and so it seems that without encouragement, it would be bred out of humanity eventually.
(and therefore probably Gates too) regularly give money to charity for the tax benefits. Its a net win for them otherwise they wouldn't do it.
I'd be more impressed if he actually did something solid towards the environment, like promoting hydrogen vehicles, or saving the rainforest, than just helping to grow more people which make the problem worse.
Gates donation certainly *is* a good thing. The money given for schools to "buy" Windows machines is far more self-interested. But vaccines are unambiguously good.
Yeah, all of Gates' money is ill-gotten; but given that context, giving it to vaccines for poor people is a lot better than just buying another zillion dollar house.
The percentage *is* certainly less than *I* give, however. My total assets are... well, the US$165k house that I now own outright (I paid a lot less than that for it, but I have reason to think it could sell for around that). I guess you could throw in my car, which might be worth $6k used. Really reaching, a few old computers and other items might be worth a few thousand more.
So 1.5% is around $2.5k. I gave $3k to Doctors without Borders in 2004 (another $500 to EFF; and maybe $750 in-kind to the local survival center--homeless support and the like).
I suspect that few thousand affects my standard of living more than the $750M does Gates'. But then, the people who benefit from my few thousand have so much less than I do--even with some medicines I bought--that it's pettty to make the former comparison. I'm comfortable enough.
Buy Text Processing in Python
Let me preface this by saying that I'm an avid Linux user. I have three observations. 1) MS software, in general, really blows. 2) This software has been forced upon us mainly by means of anti-competitive motions by Microsoft, including the filching of other people's IP, which is rather interesting in the face of recent remarks made by Gates himself on the subject, regardless of the fact that he no longer really holds the reigns of the company itself. 3) The Gates Foundation has and continues to do some wonderful things worldwide. I feel that Gates probably has a Machiavellian outlook, which I do not personally espouse. Now, the way I see it, #3 does not excuse #'s 1 or 2, and neither do #'s 1 or 2 ameliorate #3. It can be said simply that while Bill Gates' practices in the corporate realm in the guise of Microsoft have been immoral and borderline abhorrent to American Capitalism, his Foundation, on the other hand, has done Wonderful Things. The world is not black-and-white, on the contrary, just about everything falls in between.
" Children to get jabs against drug addiction
Ministers consider vaccination scheme. Heroin, cocaine and nicotine targeted
A radical scheme to vaccinate children against future drug addiction is being considered by ministers, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.
Under the plans, doctors would immunise children at risk of becoming smokers or drug users with an injection. The scheme could operate in a similar way to the current nationwide measles, mumps and rubella vaccination programme.
Childhood immunisation would provide adults with protection from the euphoria that is experienced by users, making drugs such as heroin and cocaine pointless to take. Such vaccinations are being developed by pharmaceutical companies and are due to hit the market within two years.
The Department of Trade and Industry has set up a special project to investigate ways of using new scientific breakthroughs to combat drug and nicotine addiction.
A national anti-drug immunisation scheme is one of the proposals being put forward by the Brain Science, Addiction and Drugs project, an expert committee of scientists appointed by the Government earlier this year.
Professor David Nutt, a leading government drugs adviser who sits on the committee, told the IoS that anti-drug vaccines for children are likely to be among the panel's recommendations when it reports next March.
Professor Nutt, head of psychopharmacology at the University of Bristol and a senior member of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, said: "People could be vaccinated against drugs at birth as you are against measles. You could say cocaine is more dangerous than measles, for example. It is important that there is a debate on this issue. This is a huge topic - addiction and smoking are major causes of premature death."
According to the Government's own figures, the cost of drug addiction - through related crime and health problems - to the economy is £12bn a year. There is a strong incentive for the Government to find new ways to halt spiralling addiction. Last week, the IoS revealed that cocaine use had trebled in Britain with increasing numbers of users switching to highly addictive crack cocaine.
Scientists are already conducting trials for drugs that can be used by doctors to vaccinate against cocaine, heroin and nicotine addiction.
Xenova, the British biotechnology firm, has carried out trials on an anti-cocaine vaccine which showed that 58 per cent of patients remained cocaine-free after three months.
Meanwhile, experts at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, California, have developed a super-virus, harmless to humans, which produces proteins that can block or reduce the effects of cocaine.
The team at Scripps tested the virus on rats by injecting it into their noses twice a day for three days.
On the fourth day, the rats were given a shot of cocaine. The researchers found that cocaine had more effect on the rats not injected with the virus than those that were. Scientists hope that the virus will help stop the cravings experienced by cocaine users for the drug by blocking the pleasure they normally associate with cocaine. This anti-drug medication is expected to be available to users within the next two years in the form of a nasal spray.
Proposals to introduce a national anti-drug vaccination programme have been given a cautious welcome by MPs and experts.
Ian Gibson, head of the Commons Science and Technology Committee, said the Government would have to carry out public consultation. "There is no reason to think this would not be a starter or beneficial," said Dr Gibson, Labour MP for Norwich North. "But ... proper consultation with the public needs to happen well in advance."
David Hinchliffe, chairman of the Commons Health Committee a
Shouldn't he be trying to vaccinate Windows first?
The day Microsoft creates a product that doesn't suck, it will be known as the Microsoft Vaccuum Cleaner!
You're not taking context into consideration. If Bill gave 98.5% of his total assets, he'd still be rich than most people could dream of. On the contrary, someone making 50k annually and has a family of 2 kids and his wife, 1.5% ($750) annually amounts to his kid's education fund or anything else his family needs.
If a drug dealer gave 1.5% of his total assets to charity, would you think he's generous?
Everyone keeps arguing that $750 million for Ol' Bill is equivalent to, say, $90 for someone who makes $50k. That's true, but there are two things that everyone seems to be ignoring... First of all, while $90 for said person is the equivalent in terms of ratios and kindheartedness, $90 is not $750 million! I could buy 512 MB of quality RAM for $90, whereas I could buy an entire company (including the RAM division) for less than $750 million, or 375,000 powerful notebook computers. $90 would buy one person about twenty McDonald's meals, whereas $750 million would buy one million people about 150 McDonald's meals! Regardless of Bill's net worth, or his intentions, $750 million is a shitload of money, and it will accomplish a hell of a lot more than $90 ever could. Second, rich people usually like to horde money. Someone who makes 8 figures might only use up 6 figures, but that doesn't mean that they'll give the rest to charity. That's rarely the case. Ratios simply don't tell the whole story: $750 million might be nothing compared to his net worth, but it's still a lot of money, and there's no way that he views it like it's $90: He must be aware of the extra purchasing power he would have with it, regardless of whether or not he would employ that purchasing power. Wealth is usually about hording, and rich people love to feel like they have tons of money that they can spend, even though the chances of them actually spending it are slim to none. He could easily have horded such a huge sum of money, but instead, he gave it away, among many other donations. It may benefit him for tax reasons, but regardless, the fact that he's not hording it says a lot about him. He's no angel, but he's obviously not the devil, either. Anyway, I have one final point. Never criticize donations, regardless of what you might think of a person or his/her intentions, as you never want to take away a person's motivation for donating. Donating money is inherently good, regardless of whether or not the person benefits in the long run. Would you rather millions of children get vaccinated, and Bill benefit in the realm of taxes, or would you want to ignore the children so that Bill could suffer with his taxes? Think about it...
"Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world." -Archimedes
Rational dislike becomes irrational hatred when you refuse to acknowledge anything good coming from your competition.
Some of you crap on Gates' donation - calling it a PR stunt or what have you... Listen, Microsoft will sell products whether Gates donates or not. What I find incomprehensible is that you elevate your blind hatred of Microsoft/Gates above the lives of millions of children dying from preventable illnesses. Isn't humanity and life more important?
So let's say he does shit and gives nothing away, now THAT would make the /. crown go wild with happiness and the attacks can really begin.
/. no matter what he does.
Gates is in a lose lose situation in
To claim credit for a donation made by an individual because you chose to buy that individual's company's product is.... interesting logic.
a world in progress...
Bitching about what Microsoft does with their money is invalid as long as Microsoft earned it all fair and square.
What's that, you say? Monopoly? Abuse of power? Violation of the Sherman Act? Conviction in federal court? So they didn't earn it all fair and square?
Then let the bitching commence. I for one am simultaneously glad that such international charity efforts will be happening, and yet sad that Microsoft had to extort all that money in the first place. What if they had instead played fair to begin with, and left consumers (not to mention all the companies they crushed) with the choice about how to spend their own money? (No, Microsoft never held a gun to anyone's head and said "Buy Windows," but eliminating virtually all the competition is de facto the same.)
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Why don't we all try to donate 1.5% of our assets instead of whining about the poster's flamebait.
The utility of money is not linear. He has more money then he can spend in a lifetime. He has to do something with that money. Many foundations are formed because the rich would rather control how there money is spent than give it to the government in estate tax (There's Bush screwing us again.) I on the other hand have to worry about retirement...
Chris Mesterharm
i applaud his effort. he is very generous. no, i will not use his PC software products. my choice. damn, his choice to donate all that effin money seems to make my choice to appear puny. oh well. but then not paying for my OS and various and sundry software lets me bail out my kids more often from their occasional financial woes and still have a bleeding edge desktop on less than current hardware.
Serenity now, insanity later.
The open source community could develop vacines far better than what Bill's donation will do.
Of course no one will ever know if they have exactly the right version for them, and by the time they figure out how to use the proprietory syringe the disease will have killed them.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
Compare the Walton family (collectively worth more than Bill) and you'll find some real tight-fisted bastards
Collectively they have a lot more fists than Bill though.
My other first post is car post.
Read here. Or to put it another way... my goodness, you really looked hard, didn't you?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Brasil was all fired up to send mucho generic AIDS vaccine to Africa, and one of Bill's pharma companies sued in international courts to stop them, and won. How's that for a punch in the throat?
And guess how Bill's spending the 750M? I don't think very much of it will be on actual African or Asian medical staff to do the distribution and injecting, I think the majority of it will go to one of Bill's pharma companies to manufacture the stuff, so the countries and aid organisations involved still have to foot the bill for distributing and applying the stuff. Bill gets a tax-writeoff and another profit and leverages other people's charity efforts. But that could just be the cynic (and historian) in me.
And... don't get me started on vaccines as a magic bullet.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
- Give $750M to your own vaccine company
- UK Gummint gives another $750M to your vaccine company
- Mark up products by 300% on the way out the door, keep $1250M
- Have someone else pay for distribution and application
- Profit (by $500M or 66%)
Nice quick turnaround, too.Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I'd actually only include the illicit copies. And that's incidentally always been my problem with the "But Linux is free (as in beer) which helps the poorer nations". Guess what, so is every other major software, as they simply don't pay for it. A copied version of Windows costs just as much as downloaded version of Linux, so no change there. Which is incidentally why I'm against copyright infringement. If only Bill would actually start to enforce the Windows copy right world wide. Alas he's much to clever to do that. Welcome to an economy with almost zero margin cost.
I'm not sure that's much of a factor in the situation we're discussing here, i.e. the rural (subsistance farming) areas where lack of vaccination is a problem. These people typically have very spotty electricity, if at all, so competing with anyone on anything remotely 'industrial' is in general not on. Having Word or not is not the problem.
No, my argument is basically the broken window fallacy. The money you paid for software (some of which now pays for vaccinations) could have been paying for vaccinations directly and if you used Linux you'd still have the software as well, so arguably, more money could have paid for vaccinations. If the people actually in need of the vaccinations copies windows or Linux doesn't really factor much into it, as they don't have the money to pay for vaccinations in the first place. (Especially if they had to pay for Windows).
It should of course be noted that this doesn't have anything to do with the generosity of Bill Gates or not. This is solely an argument as to whether the Free source movement actually contributes anything to the economy. So far we're clearly ahead.
Stefan Axelsson
I don't know what country you are talking about (in the story they are talking about a lot of countries)
but in my country it's not so. Many poor people don't get a complete education, because they need to go to work first.
In many places in south America there are children who didn't have the chance to learn how to read.
I am getting a degree on IT, but I know that there are lots of people in my country who don't have access to educations, and after that they dn't get any jobs. It's very little what they are doing to stay poor, the problem is that they don't have opportunity.
In the US, while the situation is milder, the same thing happens. The rich get the best education, and the best jobs, just by being rich.
You could get a nice education or a nice job, being middle class.
If you are poor, you could get there, but it's a huge difference in opportunity.
...make paper expenses which as well as the obvious and prima function of effectively defrauding their own staff drags money out of areas which would open it up for candidacy as a dividend.
IOW, regardless of any putative dividend law, the fraud has made their dividends artificially late.
Thinking about it, dividends are a fairly esoteric concept anyway (although not as bad as futures and options), so maybe that's appropriate in its own odd way.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
My comment was made with regards to this statement:
Bill Gates is worth so much because he defrauded his stockholders in not paying proper returns on investment early on.
Reading is fundamental. Try it sometime. The dividends are not artificially late. They were never promised. The early investors got proper returns on their investment via the 600 fold gain in the stock's price which was even more amplified by their pre-IPO strike price. Dividends payments were never registered with the SEC, so why would the investors expect that? I doubt that they are crying themselves to sleep in their golden sheets at night.
This has never before been achieved in human history and this is what Bill Gates via Micrsoft wants to destroy. And why do they want to destroy this unique in human history effort, for his own self graftication and a seemingly insatiable greed. People (micrsoft marketers) will say that Bill Gates is only one member of a board that runs Microsoft and that it is the corporations actions not his own. But there is never a escape from the fact that a corporations actions and behaviour reflect the physcology of it's board members running it (personally I believe that Bill Gates et. al. have a lot to be ashamed of and to make up for).
If Bill Gates want's to be truly generous he just simply needs to cease attempting to destroy a golbal community effort and withdraw from the operating system market.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Really? So if ethylmercury is so safe then why did the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) release a jointed statement concerning questions over the safety of it in children?l /thimerosal-AAP&PHS.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/nip/vacsafe/concerns/thimerosa
Here are some interesting tidbits:
* Vaccines are injected straight into the bloodstream, bypassing much of the body's natural defenses in the digestive, respiratory and skin systems.
* Polio is cited as an example of the success of vaccines, yet.. "In June of 1959...all non-paralytic cases of poliomyelitis were to be henceforth recorded as 'meningitis, viral or aseptic,' a disease which itself only became reportable in 1952 (Canada)." - Catherine Diodati MA (Immunization History, Ethics, Law and Health p116)
* Beddow Bayly, author of the book "The Case Against Vaccination" said: "After vaccination was introduced, cases of aseptic meningitis were more often reported as a separate disease from polio, but such cases were counted as polio before the vaccine was introduced. The Ministry of Health admitted that the vaccine status of the individual is a guiding factor in diagnosis. If a person who is vaccinated contracts the disease, the disease is simply recorded under a different name."
* Formaldehyde is classified as a carcenogen by the FDA (http://cis.nci.nih.gov/fact/3_8.htm) so why do you want to inject it straight into my baby's bloodstream?
* My baby's doctor once told us that one injection gave about the same amount of mercury as you would have eating fish once per week for a year. Lets do the math. My baby is about 1/8th my weight, so the dose-per-weight increases eight-fold, and is supposed to receive a large number of thesebefore he's two years old. Then there's also the fact that again it goes straight into the bloodstream rather than the digestive system, therefore it would have a stronger effect on my baby's body.
* Economics... if vaccines were so good for us, then why aren't they free for everyone? Why are these pharmacutical companies making fortunes selling them? How many schools do you that are making money hand-over-fist, yet those are also for the public good?
* The disease life cycle is changing. Before vaccines you got certain diseases as a child (when your body was able for them) and built up life-long resistances to them; this resistance was then passed on to children via the mother's milk for the first few years until the child's own body was able to fight disease sufficiently, and onwards, continuing the cycle. Compare that today when children are given vaccinations against normal childhood diseases, the vaccine wears off by the time they reach adulthood, they come in contact with the disease (often from someone who was just given the vaccine) and contract it, developing more serious symptoms than if it had been contracted as a child. As a result of this many "booster" vaccines are promoted to help you through adulthood. I think breastmilk is a better way to go with it, actually.
* The whole US medical establishment blows off the side effects of vaccines. My niece developed what the CDC labelled as serious side effects from one vaccine - labored breathing, diziness, etc, etc. When the parents brought this to the attention of their doctor it was blown off saying "ah sure she's fine now" and "well that kind of thing can happen". I'm sorry, if you develop what the CDC says are "serious side effects" then there's something wrong. Another niece developed seisures twice, both within a few days of receiving vaccinations, but again this was blamed on something else, in this case an ear infection (?!?).
Damien
Thanks for pointing this out. If not even Americans will read this, what hope has the rest of the world to know Trey's background?
Of course, if the robber barons were more than a little embarrassed at their history, they'd see to it that the next generation never even got to see it. And just how many modern schoolchildren know that Paine's book even exists?
Look into the origin and purpose of schools as we know them, and viola, the reason becomes obvious.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Not to mention he can save 750 Million in taxes.
nT