>>>1. Pcs for Kids broke Australian Copyright Law
>>No doubt about that...
>>
>>>2. The founder is now a fugative
>>Also true. Why is another matter... not everything is as it appears on the surface.
>
>If not this then what? Why do you take this "not everying is as it appears" approach here?

After 15 years experience with homicide and similar investigations I've found that what is obvious isn't alway true, especially if some no-nothing reporter with an ego and a hairdo get involved. I my experiences with the media I have NEVER been quoted correctly. I was ususally cherry-picked an a way that supported the reporters bias/agenda. I got to the point that I always replied 'no comment'. In this case, he is being charged with stealing a car that is leased to the charity he is president of, and one of his staff signed the charge. That smells on the face of it. Some money is at work there.


>
>>>3. Companies are donating old computers with the OS installed without transfering the license.
>>You mean they transfered the license to the new owner, otherwise the OS illegal. But, if that's true then why is cleaning them up and reinstalling the same OS back onto the same PC a license violation?
>
>No thats not what I said. I said, "Companies are donating old computers with the OS installed without transfering the license." See number four.
>
>>>4. No media is supplied. If you clean the drive don't you need media to reinstall?
>>They were reinstalling the OS that was donated along with the PC. What's the easiest way to clean a former owner's personal files, viri, bad sectors, etc... off the drive? What would you do, clean it one file at a time? No, you'd reformat the HD and reinstall the OS that was on it. That's what they were doing.
>
>They don't have the license or media. Companies purchase site licenses. You can't just give away a site license. Read the articles. Every one of them says the same thing. I think you know this.

Your scenerio isn't matching the situation. Individuals are contributing old 486 PCs to a charity, which is refurbishing them and giving them to other charaties. They have the 'media' (Floppies and/or CD that OS is on). The OS that is on each PC is the one that was with the PC when the Chariety received it, and is the one that is put back on the PC after they reformat it. We not talking 'companies' and site licenses. We are not talking about profit here. We are talking about Charities -- people and organizations that do things for others without taking compensation. Further, they are using 'media' that is discontinued and no longer suppported by Microsoft. Microsoft is trying to extract revenue from them by forcing them to license the newer OS, but the newer OS doesn't fit on or work well with a 486.


>
>Your answer to number one contradicts your answers to three and four. If they had the media and transferred the license then they would not be in violation of copyright law, right?

Not hardly. See above.

>
><snip>
>
>>>I beleive MS to be charitable.
>>Operating on Faith, eh? ;>)
>>Gates generates a lot of PR over his miserly charitable contributions, but his contributions, compared to his income, is like a man making $100,000/year giving $2.45 to charity.
>
>So. How much would he have to give for you to call him "charitable" by your standards?

Actually, when you check his foundation site, and his Q10s, you'll see that even his charity is tax deductible, and since he pays little corporate tax, that mean that you (if you are an American) and I pay Bill's 'charity'.
(PS-I'm against corporate income taxes. They are nothing but a hidden tax on people's personal income. Corps never really pay taxes anyway, since they pass the cost of all taxes to the consumer by virtue of a more expensive product... but this is another rant :-)



>
>>
>>>It might be that MS doesn't want to be assist this charity because of the unlawful practices.
>>
>>Or, more likely, since Gates has turned down other donations in favor of his only slightly less greedy 'charity price points' program, he wanted to make an example of PCs for Kids.
>
>What is the "Charity price points" program?

It's Bill's way of extracting as much cash from a charitable org as he can, without seeming to be too much of a scrouge... but it's not working. His PR firms can't over come the bad press that accrues when charities publish their books and a chunk of cash is shown as going to the world's richest man so that the charity can help the world's poorest people in the PC age.


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><snip>
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>>>I'm thinking about it. Have an old P60. Might turn it into a firewall or a browser for the kitchen to find recipies, etc. Mount a flat panel under a cabinet. Now that would be cool. Just need to find the time to mess with it.
>>
>>It would make a great firewall, and if it has 64MB of RAM it would make a great little Desktop with KDE 1.1, but it would be too weak for KDE 2.x. Or, it would make a nice file & print server, if its HD is big enough, for a home network, using SAMBA to connect to your WinXX clients.
>>JLK
>
>I'm going to shoot for the "browser" in the kitchen idea. Need to figure out my taxes and stuff first.

Got to see if you have any money left over after the tax man is through with you eh? Me too.
JLK