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Now, Microsoft has been spending money to open-source books for a while; they funded a lot of the Internet Archive's book-scanning program. This is the first I've heard of Gates doing it. I wonder if he really will?

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> I wonder if he really will?

Really will what?

"Bill Gates recently bought the rights to a series of lectures by legendary Caltech physicist Richard Feynman."

Do you mean spend money to open source books?

So far it has only been shown that he spent the money. Personally, there is not a doubt on my mind that he will open source the books and I really don't understand why kragen doubt's it, but logically, he is right that Gates might still decide not to 'open source' (a strange term for books?) them.

What if they will only be available under DRM/proprietary format?

Philosophically he doesn't seem to be down with the free-culture ideals. So it wouldn't surprise me if he made them "available" to the public — but only, say, that segment of the public that was running Windows 7, with technical and contractual prohibitions on copying or excerpting.

From what I understand of Mr Gates, when it comes to his business he's as mean a motherfucker as you can get in a room with.

When it comes to everything else, he's a decent fellow.

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