“Remember the Boston Tea Party? If my high school history
teacher is to be believed, the colonists’ complaint was about
taxation without representation…”
“From a certain perspective, then, some part of the price of
Windows amounts to a tax on personal computers — a regressive one,
since a struggling inner-city high school student pays the same as
a multimedia tycoon. Mr. Gates has aggregated some of the proceeds
from these and millions of other computer users to create what is
now, at $17 billion, the largest philanthropic foundation in
America…”
“Fortunately, there is a compromise that could satisfy the Gates
family’s charitable urges while doing more for society than any of
the foundation’s current initiatives. It would work like this:
Mr. Gates, give away that software. Set Windows free. It would
be the simplest way to use the wealth of Microsoft for the public
good.“
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