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30th Anniversary of Gates' Letter to HCC

Posted by Zonk on from the perspective dept.

suso writes "30 years ago today, Bill Gates wrote the infamous Open Letter to Hobbyists about licensing of Altair BASIC to the Homebrew Computer Club. Looking back it's interesting to read this emotionally written document as it is probably Gate's first publicly written opinion about licensing software." From the letter: "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."

3 of 544 comments (clear)

  1. Just let time pass... by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 0, Redundant

    And have Microsoft realize their empire on software development is no more. Right now we have enough development tools available or in progress:
    MONO (alternative for .NET),
    Gambas (alternative for Visual Basic - linux only tho),
    KDevelop (for C++ under Linux),
    Code::Blocks (for C++ under Windows),
    wxPython, DABO (Foxpro alternative, uses wxPython)...

    Soon Bill Gates won't have to worry about people stealing his development tools... because NOBODY WILL USE THEM! X-D

  2. Still waiting for the deluge! by jimmyhat3939 · · Score: 0, Redundant

    So, hopefully sometime soon Bill will hire those 10 programmers and start deluging us with great software. We've been wating a long time.

    --
    Free Conference Call -- No Spam, High Quality
  3. Re:Your ad hominem argument... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Redundant
    Being a hypocrite does not affect the merit of his argument. Claiming it does is a kind of logical fallacy in the ad hominem class, specifically the tu quoque ("you too") ad hominem.

    For example, say I kill somebody. I later say that murder is immoral. Does that make me a hypocrite? Yes. Does my hypocrisy invalidate my claim that murder is immoral? No. Hence the fallacy.

    You can make unpleasant claims about Gates' character if you want, but in the context of this thread they'd fall into another class of logical fallacies: non sequitur, or changing the subject. We're ostensibly talking about whether Gates stole IP, his character is irrelevant. (Past guilt doesn't indicate or even suggest future guilt... but I suspect you're getting tired of me bringing up logical fallacies.)