It has been 40 years since Bill Gates wrote his open letter to the software industry complaining that computer hobbyists were stealing his BASIC program. That was so long ago that Wikipedia has a picture of the source code for “Micro-Soft” BASIC on paper tape. A lot of things have changed since then. In the 1970s when Microsoft was getting started, it was common for people to copy, swap or donate software simply because they could. Especially in the hobbyist community, people bought hardware and they got software in any way possible.
Loading ...
Bill Gates’ Open Letter
Posted by: Denis Pombriant May 10, 2016 01:35 PMIt has been 40 years since Bill Gates wrote his open letter to the software industry complaining that computer hobbyists were stealing his BASIC program. That was so long ago that Wikipedia has a picture of the source code for “Micro-Soft” BASIC on paper tape. A lot of things have changed since then. In the 1970s when Microsoft was getting started, it was common for people to copy, swap or donate software simply because they could. Especially in the hobbyist community, people bought hardware and they got software in any way possible.