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Beginnings Of The Free Software Debate In 1975
Private Essayist writes: "This article in the NY Times (free reg., etc.) tells about an ongoing mystery over who stole a copy of Altair Basic written by Bill Gates in 1975. More important, however, the article shows the beginnings of the debate over the concept of whether or not software should be free. The Homebrew Computer Club members interviewed in this article talk about the debate they had over this issue way back then. It's interesting to read."
Buy a copy of the new edition of "Fire In The Valley" by Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine, which reprints the letter from Bill to the Homebrewers, and is also one hell of a book (even if it does make the occasional mistake). Along with "Hackers", it's required reading for Personal Computer History 101.
I use Macs for work, Linux for education, and Windows for cardplaying.
Don't even most Open Source people agree that taking physical media (CD's, Floppys, CD-ROMs, books, cars, and yes punch tapes) is stealing?
Where exactly does the line get crossed? Someone saw what they wanted and took it. That's just stealing.
Trolls throughout history:
Jonathan Swift
password: cypherpunks
I think the NYTimes has made "cypherpunks" permanently unavailable, the jerks.
I adblock all animated gifs.
Blessed be the prime numbered slashdotters
By William Henry Gates III
February 3, 1976
An Open Letter to Hobbyists
To me, the most critical thing in the hobby market right now is the lack of good software courses, books and software itself. Without good software and an owner who understands programming, a hobby computer is wasted. Will quality software be written for the hobby market?
Almost a year ago, Paul Allen and myself, expecting the hobby market to expand, hired Monte Davidoff and developed Altair BASIC. Though the initial work took only two months, the three of us have spent most of the last year documenting, improving and adding features to BASIC. Now we have 4K, 8K, EXTENDED, ROM and DISK BASIC. The value of the computer time we have used exceeds $40,000.
The feedback we have gotten from the hundreds of people who say they are using BASIC has all been positive. Two surprising things are apparent, however, 1) Most of these "users" never bought BASIC (less than 10% of all Altair owners have bought BASIC), and 2) The amount of royalties we have received from sales to hobbyists makes the time spent on Altair BASIC worth less than $2 an hour.
Why is this? As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, most of you steal your software. Hardware must be paid for, but software is something to share. Who cares if the people who worked on it get paid?
Is this fair? One thing you don't do by stealing software is get back at MITS for some problem you may have had. MITS doesn't make money selling software. The royalty paid to us, the manual, the tape and the overhead make it a break-even operation. One thing you do do is prevent good software from being written. Who can afford to do professional work for nothing? What hobbyist can put 3-man years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free? The fact is, no one besides us has invested a lot of money in hobby software. We have written 6800 BASIC, and are writing 8080 APL and 6800 APL, but there is very little incentive to make this software available to hobbyists. Most directly, the thing you do is theft.
What about the guys who re-sell Altair BASIC, aren't they making money on hobby software? Yes, but those who have been reported to us may lose in the end. They are the ones who give hobbyists a bad name, and should be kicked out of any club meeting they show up at.
I would appreciate letters from any one who wants to pay up, or has a suggestion or comment. Just write to me at 1180 Alvarado SE, #114, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87108. Nothing would please me more than being able to hire ten programmers and deluge the hobby market with good software. Bill Gates General Partner, Micro-Soft
Right, I bet a whole bunch of everyday people (what is this, a toyota commercial?) had Altairs.
Now that's more like it.
Now, before this gets dismissed as mere flamebait, or a troll, let me explain to you why it is neither. The article lauds Microsoft, yes takes the wimpy way out when it talks about "Mr. Sokol" by using the phrase "in his view." Microsoft is hardly responsible for putting power in the hands of the people, as it were.
If you do want to take a look at what companies DID put power in the hands of the people, the first company to look at (IMO) is Lotus corp. The spreadsheet is the piece of software that made Personal Computers worthwhile. Never mind that at the time, both computers and spreadsheets were so new that you (you being used here to describe an average human) had to take a class to use either one - And there were no classes. Lotus made it easy enough for mere humans to grasp. I used to have an IBM PC-1 with Lotus 1-2-3 V1 on it myself, but admittedly I got mine way behind the curve.
Another fine piece of software was Print Shop. I can't even remember who wrote that sucker. Print Shop let you do some pretty snazzy stuff (for the time) in a minimum of time on absolutely antique hardware - Like the Apple ][. It's been followed in modern times by programs like Pagemaker and Quark Xpress. But word, by contrast, didn't even allow you any real freedom of text positioning until very recently. Why should it? It's a word processor - A glorified typewriter.
Mind you, the earliest word processor I can remember of any practical note which could be used without learning a whole new language (Sorry, TeX) was Wordstar. That was some pretty slick software, even back on my Kaypro 4 luggable. I managed to turn in quite a few papers for school on one of those things. And the first one I can remember that did graphics in some reasonable fashion was WordPerfect, which was the de facto standard for god knows how long.
Microsoft's only deserved accolade is that they make things prettier. They can't take credit for windowing systems, the web, or anything else we take for granted these days. They weren't the first to do SMP on intel, they didn't have the first of just about anything. They aren't even the Japan of computing, because they don't actually refine anything. They're more like China (With all due apologies to the great nation of China, which has in fact made some innovations) in that they make cheap knockoffs.
Such is the legacy of Microsoft, and a long and, well, I guess you could say "glorious" reign it will continue to be. When you're number one by such a large margin, it takes some truly boneheaded manouvers to slip down even to number two, let alone last place.
And speaking of which, let's talk about Windows 2000...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
AN OPEN LETTER TO HOBBYISTS
By William Henry Gates III
February 3, 1976
An Open Letter to Hobbyists
To me, the most critical thing in the hobby market right now is the lack of good software courses, books and software itself. Without good software and an owner who understands programming, a hobby computer is wasted. Will quality software be written for the hobby market?
Almost a year ago, Paul Allen and myself, expecting the hobby market to expand, hired Monte Davidoff and developed Altair BASIC. Though the initial work took only two months, the three of us have spent most of the last year documenting, improving and adding features to BASIC. Now we have 4K, 8K, EXTENDED, ROM and DISK BASIC. The value of the computer time we have used exceeds $40,000.
The feedback we have gotten from the hundreds of people who say they are using BASIC has all been positive. Two surprising things are apparent, however, 1) Most of these "users" never bought BASIC (less than 10% of all Altair owners have bought BASIC), and 2) The amount of royalties we have received from sales to hobbyists makes the time spent on Altair BASIC worth less than $2 an hour.
Why is this? As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, most of you steal your software. Hardware must be paid for, but software is something to share. Who cares if the people who worked on it get paid?
Is this fair? One thing you don't do by stealing software is get back at MITS for some problem you may have had. MITS doesn't make money selling software. The royalty paid to us, the manual, the tape and the overhead make it a break-even operation. One thing you do do is prevent good software from being written. Who can afford to do professional work for nothing? What hobbyist can put 3-man years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free? The fact is, no one besides us has invested a lot of money in hobby software. We have written 6800 BASIC, and are writing 8080 APL and 6800 APL, but there is very little incentive to make this software available to hobbyists. Most directly, the thing you do is theft.
What about the guys who re-sell Altair BASIC, aren't they making money on hobby software? Yes, but those who have been reported to us may lose in the end. They are the ones who give hobbyists a bad name, and should be kicked out of any club meeting they show up at.
I would appreciate letters from any one who wants to pay up, or has a suggestion or comment. Just write to me at 1180 Alvarado SE, #114, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87108. Nothing would please me more than being able to hire ten programmers and deluge the hobby market with good software.
Bill Gates
General Partner, Micro-Soft
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
The author asked a very important question, is "liberating" software that someone else wrote stealing. What's the difference between taking a cabinet a carpenter slaved over for weeks and code a programmer slaved over. Carpenters sometimes give their creations away, but no one requiers them to, in most countries that is. This is one of the few pieces of software Mr. Bill actually wrote, and look what happens to it, someone ran off with it. Remember, Mr. Bill wasn't rich back then. That was money he needed to pay off all his speeding tickets.
He did the same with DOS. That started out as QDOS, an unauthorised hack of CP/M.
Bill's a hypocrite, if you ask me.
Brøderbund.
It was such a huge part of their revenue back then that they used to have three major headings on their balance sheet: Applications, Games, and Print Shop.
Then Carmen San Diego came along...
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
1) An installed base of users around the world with a lifetime of experience in computing.
2) An affordable way (the net) to connect all these users, to allow them to cut down on the complexity of comunication. (Remember, people still "mailed tapes" to move programs around).
3) An evil empire to rebel against (micros~1), thus making all the time hacking worth it in the end (that's just my own little take on it).
Open source software is a viable development model because these 3 thing are in place to empower the people involved. If you were to sit someone down in 1975 and explain to them that you want to be able to "tap the resources of the best and brightest from around the world to contribute code to a common Operating system that will be free for them, and anyone else, to use", they'de think you were nuts.
Bottom line is, BillG had a free ride for a long time because these basic tools for sharing information fast and affordably simply weren't there.
Here is the privacy-enhanced version of the article (remember to turn off cookies and use a proxy server!).
Every time you see a "www.nytimes.com" URL, just replace "www" with "partners".
--
I noticed
--
I noticed
It's getting about time to leave everywhere
I was 12 years old. I had just been introduced to computers. The first language I had been taught was BASIC at the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley, CA. Eventually a microcomputer store opened in my home town called The Byte Shop, where I started annoying the sales people by fiddling with their SOL-20s and Apples, writing little ditties in BASIC. I got to know BASIC real well. I got to know several dialects of BASIC, and could intelligently discuss the relative merits of each.
With all that hands-on experience, I can say without fear of contradiction: Microsoft BASIC was one of the worst BASIC interpreters available. The only one I can think of off-hand that was even worse was Northstar BASIC.
I settled in to a happy relationship with a variant called Extended Cassette BASIC, published by Processor Technology for the SOL-20. This BASIC (back in 1978, mind), had:
Microsoft, in typical form, took another ten years to get as far, and consumed ten times as much memory doing it.
I really should drag out my old SOL-20 and do some side-by-side comparisons of Microsoft's old stuff.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
The debate was not whether software should be free (gratis or otherwise), but whether people have the right to violate the copyright of another, in this case, billy's interpreter. If one receives holy heck for calling such an action "piracy", then let's keep our standards equal and not equate the free software to warez. The only reason copyright protects the GPL is because it also protects Billy Boy. Selective applications of law and/or morality is the antithesis of freedom...
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
AtariBASIC was bad, as was Northstar BASIC you mention, actually I want to call it Zbasic which might be what the .COM file was called on my floppy.
f
I was most familiar with MS-BASIC version 5.21 which came bundled with my father's Morrow MD-2 back in 1982. Similar versions also shipped with the Osborne and Kaypro as I recall.
Now if you are thinking of Microsoft BASIC as being similar to that which shipped with the Apple as Applesoft, or the one in the Commodore PET, I can understand your comments.
I have never seen a SOL-20, or this extended cassette BASIC, but you are in luck... The manual is online:
http://www.thebattles.net/sol20/extcassbasic.pd
Looking it over it really seems to be very close to the Microsoft BASIC I remember. String and file handling isn't as advanced as I recall, but the ability to work with matrices is rather nice.
I don't see exactly what you mean by multi-line user-defined functions, all that is implemented was GOSUB which was available in MS-BASIC 5.21.
Certainly impressive for 1977, but I think I'd be hard pressed to backup the statement that it took 10 years for Microsoft to get that far, and ten times as much memory doing it.
MS-BASIC 5.21 ran on a machine with 64K of RAM. 57K was available after loading CP/M 2.2, and one had about 35K after loading up MS-BASIC, 39K free if you didn't load the Random access file support.
But by 1982 floppy drives were common place, which allowed for techniques such as random access files, so it's understandable it used a few more K.
I think you are thinking of QuickBASIC as being 10 years later and 10 times the memory. But there were many generations of MS-BASIC between 1977 and QuickBASIC.
Without good software and an owner who understands programming, a hobby computer is wasted.
Corollary: until Windows is past history, a lot of hobby computers are being wasted.
Will quality software be written for the hobby market?
It certainly has been, but not by Micro-Soft! (-:
The value of the computer time we have used exceeds $40,000.
And all that time was paid for?
Though the initial work took only two months, the three of us have spent most of the last year documenting, improving and adding features to BASIC.
This statement makes me curous, Bill. If it only took you two months to write the entire BASIC, why did it take a whole year to tinker with it? Can I ask you a question and get an honest answer? Did ``write'' here mean ``key in from a listing stolen from University rubbish bins?''
People complained that Altair BASIC was buggy. Is that because the bugs were keyed in from a discarded program listing, or because your programming skills were as good as your soldering skills?
The feedback we have gotten from the hundreds of people who say they are using BASIC has all been positive.
Nothing's changed much since. According to you, Bill, as recently as 1998 Microsoft's customer feedback was almost entirely positive. Since the whole world's wrong, and you're right, and that's the way it's always been, who am I to argue? Uh, it might helped if you upped the dosage of those pills, Bill.
As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, most of you steal your software.
And you don't? Naturally, those listings taken from the dumpsters were public domain, weren't they? I mean, the authors haven't complained yet, have they? The Spyglass issue was just a little misunderstanding? How about the drive doubler software? And, my gosh, doesn't Money resemble something Microsoft once had a look at the source code for awfully closely? Come clean, Bill, tell us the whole story!
What hobbyist can put 3-man years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free?
Linus Torvalds.
Next question? (-:
I would appreciate letters from any one who [...] has a suggestion or comment.
Ever your humble servant. (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
the article shows the beginnings of the debate over the concept of whether or not software should be free.
It goes back WAY farther than that...
The earliest piece I'm aware of is an article in Communications of the ACM by Bernie Galler. In it he complained that the price being charged for a piece of software (I think it was $75) was greater than the cost of duplicating the card deck and mailing it. He warned that this could lead to the concept of software as a product, programming as a profession, and trade secret restrictions impeeding the free flow of software technology development.
I don't recall the exact date of the article. But it was in the same issue as Djikstra's "GOTO Considered Harmful" article which was the origin of the whole "structured programming" flap, and structured programming was well developed and in vogue by the end of the 1960s.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't he just port code that was already in the Public Domain? Many people at the time saw him as the thief, for selling what they said wasn't his in the first place.
If it's in the public domain you can modify it and sell your modified version. That doesn't stop anybody from using the UNmodified version.
At the time in question, Copyright had not been extended to computer software. (That debate came much later.) Neither had patent. The only protection available was trade secret. Once the cat's out of the bag on a trade secret it's public domain, and the only person the former owner of the secret has any claim against is the guy who opened the bag.
A thing to remember: Copyright, patent, trademark, service mark, and the rest of the "Intellectual Property" pantheon (except for trade secret) are NOT codifications of a "natural" right. They are the creation of government action, pure and simple.
This is not a claim that they're WRONG, or that creators SHOULDN'T have such "rights". That's a separate issue. But at the time, they DIDN'T have them. Bill was whistling into the wind when he complained about the hobbiests (except for the one who made the first copy) "stealing" his work.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way