Microsoft pioneer Weiland's estate gives $65M for gay rights, HIV/AIDS groups

[Fleshdancer]

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20080224-1120-gayrightsbequest.html

SEATTLE – The estate of Ric Weiland, a high school classmate of Microsoft Corp. founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen and one of the first five people to work at the software giant, has left $65 million to gay rights and HIV/AIDS organizations.

The bequests were announced Sunday by the Pride Foundation of Seattle, where Weiland was a board member for several years. The foundation called it the largest single bequest ever given to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender causes.

Gates and Allen hired Weiland in 1975, the year they founded Microsoft. He worked as a project leader for the Microsoft Works word processing and spreadsheet software, and was a lead programmer and developer for the company's BASIC and COBOL systems, two of the first personal computing interfaces. He left Microsoft in 1988.

[ret5hd]

1. A COBOL developer? His penance should be more than $65M.