| On first reading your comment makes a lot of sense, and is certainly logical for maximizing the common good. But unfortunately, companies simply don't work the way you are proposing. The short reason is this "good citizenship is indistinguishable from corruption. Therefore good company governance leans away from both." The somewhat longer answer is that while a "company" might have a lot of money, or might make a lot of money leveraging some common good, it is not (usually) one person's money. The bigger the company the harder it gets to actually -spend- the money. There are procurement departments, various sign-offs and so on. First and foremost it helps if there is a tangible (defendable) reason to spend the money. Yes, companies "give" money away. Usually under the guise of marketing. It's easy to donate money to the local cancer center. It's harder to explain the marketing value of supporting random open source projects. For tech companies it's -somewhat- easier, but even then it's simpler to donate time rather than money. I've said it a lot lately, but OSS development has to "commercialize" if it wants to be commercial. That means first understanding "what companies pay for" and designing products to fit that. Or target individuals with excess cash of their own that they're willing to just "pass along". |