The problem is a lot of those "altruistic purposes" tend not to be so altruistic, when you look into why they do them. Take for example, when Google recently chose to donate a bunch of hardware to schools instead of giving their employees an annual gift.
Google gifted schools Chromebooks, which seems like an incredible act of charity. Except for the fact that you have to pay a subscription to Google to use them. Which means they really just managed to get a tax write-off while picking up more customers.
How do you ensure a company is doing something in the best interests of society or the charity or organization they are donating to, rather than in the best interests of themselves?
For an educational environment I would be hard pressed to name a more appropriate device than a chromebook. From a hardware perspective the Chromebooks are cheap, practically disposable. ChromeOS is open source, but also secure and easy to manage. And there is no subscription or license cost for the 'G Suite for Education'. Even if that were true, the schools would be under no obligation to accept the gift, so it's hard to see that this is some sort of problem with the state of the law.
Generally speaking, it's pretty difficult to tell if charities are actually being charitable, and there is no way to ensure it -- we can't mark each dollar's fall. But we do have laws that cover those sort of 'hidden catch' scenario; you can't trick people into a financial obligation. Is there some other loophole that you can identify?
ChromeOS is not open source. We need to stop spreading the misleading claims that Chrome or ChromeOS, as distributed widely is open source, because it is not. They are not particularly secure given how poorly policed the Web Store is (malware which can exfiltrate your browsing data is rampant).
And of course, as my source demonstrated, there is definitely a license cost to use Chromebooks in a managed environment, and it is not free for educators.
As the situation is _right now_, the law is probably fine, but I'd be against the parent's suggestion of allowing a loophole for them to get to repatriate cash tax-free for this sort of usage, because it's likely just going to work out in their favor, and not in ours or the public interest.
> Google gifted schools Chromebooks, which seems like an incredible act of charity. Except for the fact that you have to pay a subscription to Google to use them.
Do you happen to have a reference for this? G suite for education is free as far as I know and I wasn't able to find anything else that you might be referring to.
You can see an educational portal listing the cost of the management license at $30 here, which isn't really a complete picture, but demonstrates that we aren't talking about something they give schools for free: https://edu.google.com/products/devices/
Note that this is kinda of well-hidden, but that last link cites the "total cost of ownership" of a $149 Chromebook over three years as $588, which should give you an idea the difference between the hardware they give away, and the eventual cost of everything you need to deploy the suckers.
Schools is definitely big money for Google, it's just well-disguised as an altruistic endeavor.
> You can see an educational portal listing the cost of the management license at $30 here, which isn't really a complete picture, but demonstrates that we aren't talking about something they give schools for free
You need to show that those licenses were not included in the gift. And let's just assume that they're not that stupid.
> Note that this is kinda of well-hidden, but that last link cites the "total cost of ownership" of a $149 Chromebook over three years as $588, which should give you an idea the difference between the hardware they give away, and the eventual cost of everything you need to deploy the suckers.
For a budget windows laptop or tablet the hardware cost would be higher and the support cost unlikely to be lesser.
> Schools is definitely big money for Google
Schools are a tiny segment for Google that would not hurt them in the slightest to lose. The margins on low-end hardware are not exactly the stuff dreams are made of, and they really are making peanuts on ChromeOS. We can and should contrast this to Microsoft, who has been playing the "loss leader" pricing game in educational circles for far longer with far more success.
Also worth mentioning how iPads work in an educational setting. So many schools were so ecstatic to get iPads for students and embrace the future that they didn't stop to consider just how quickly an Apple iOS device can start to feel slow from OS updates designed for newer and more capable devices. The difference is pretty stark compared to a regularly imaged workstation which can last 5+ years.
Google doesn't need to charge to make a profit. Don't forget their primary business is advertising, so by getting more people to use their services, they gain.
Also, by extending their reach to inside the schools, they effectively set up a way to "educate" kids to use their services.
Google gifted schools Chromebooks, which seems like an incredible act of charity. Except for the fact that you have to pay a subscription to Google to use them. Which means they really just managed to get a tax write-off while picking up more customers.
How do you ensure a company is doing something in the best interests of society or the charity or organization they are donating to, rather than in the best interests of themselves?