Open letter to hobbyists

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Contents

People

Dennis Báthory-Kitsz

Publications

"One of the principal targets of the letter was the Homebrew Computer Club and a copy would be sent to the club. The letter would also appear in Computer Notes. To ensure the letter would be noticed, Dave Bunnell sent the letter via special delivery mail to every major computer publication in the country." From wikipedia with a citation to: (Manes, 91)

Comments leading up to the letter

Known publications

  • Gates, Bill (March 11, 1976). "An Open Letter to Hobbyists". Minicomputer News (Boston MA: Benwill Publishing).
  • Gates, Bill (March-April 1976). "An Open Letter To Hobbyists". People's Computer Company (Menlo Park, CA: People's Computer Company) 4 (5).

Targeted but didn't publish?

Unverified

  • BYTE
  • Popular Electronics

Did Dr. Dobbs exist yet?

Responses

  • Hayes, Mike (February 1976). "Regarding Your Letter of February 3". Homebrew Computer Club Newsletter (Mountain View, CA: Homebrew Computer Club) 2 (2): p. 2. Retrieved November 25, 2007. Retrieved from: http://www.digibarn.com/collections/newsletters/homebrew/V2_02/index.html
  • Warren, Jim C. (July 1976). "Correspondence". SIGPLAN Notices (ACM) 11 (7): p. 1. Jim Warren, the editor of Dr. Dobbs Journal, describes how the Tiny BASIC project is an alternative to hobbyist "ripping off" software.
  • Singer, Harold L. (March 28, 1976). "An Open Letter to Ed Roberts". Micro-8 Computer User Group Newsletter (Lompoc, CA: Cabrillo Computer Center) 2 (4): p. 1.
  • Gates, Bill (April 1976). "A Second and Final Letter". Computer Notes (Albuquerque, NM: MITS) 1 (11): p. 5. Retrieved from: http://www.startupgallery.org/gallery/notesViewer.php?ii=76_4&p=5
  • Wada, Robert (July 1976). "An Opinion on Software Marketing". BYTE (Peterborough, NH: BYTE Publications) 1 (11): pp. 90,91.

References to the letter

Hacker culture

  • Connecting "secrecy" to "commodification"
"Allen and Gates treated the BASIC interpreter as a secret that could be purchased. Most other hackers didn't see it that way." (Thomas, 38-39)
"[The limitations of the Altair] meant that PCs were limited to computer hobbyists, and most of those hobbyists belonged to the first generation of old-school hackers." (Thomas, 19)
  • What does it mean that they were "old-school hackers"?
  • Gates attended Harvard but Roberts was trained in the military
"Bricolage, or tinkering, was also constitutive of a certain element of computer culture that relies on invention and innovation, two ideals that were lost in the transformation to a publicly marketable style." (Thomas, 146)

Dual licensing

Back in 1976, Bill Gates wrote an open letter to hobbyists. He asked, "Who can afford to do professional work for nothing? What hobbyist can put three years into programming, finding all the bugs, documenting his product, and distribute it for free?" Today, Gates has to eat those words because the open-source movement has proven that it is possible to give something away for free and still make money off of it. The trick is to give it away to those who are not going to pay for it and charge those who are willing to pay for it. Oh yeah -- and you have to have something that separates the two, otherwise everyone will get it for free.

BBS Days

"Bill Gates, who once called Event Horizons BBS founder and CEO Jim Maxey, "A true entrepreneur", wasn't really into the BBS community as an online operator, but his presence was certainly felt by everyone who was there in those early years. This is why we decided to include Bill Gates here."

Seattle times

"Dennis Báthory-Kitsz, a composer, author and technologist, followed the intellectual-property debate raging in computer clubs and courtrooms that would set the rules of the software game. In a 1980 interview, Gates told Báthory-Kitsz: "There's nobody getting rich writing software that I know of." "He didn't mean they weren't getting back their investment, but rather they were not making a lot of money," Báthory-Kitsz said. "[Gates], as a prime example of the capitalist notion, felt that high investment of time, energy and imagination deserved a multiple return rather than equal return.""

Conspiracy theories in American history

Knight, P. (2003). Conspiracy theories in American history: An encyclopedia, Volume 1. ABC-CLIO.

"hackers eventually exited the hallowed halls of MIT and took to the streets to form computer-based clubs that fostered the hacker ethic" (294)

Window to wall street

This seems to be copypasta but I'm not sure the sauce

"While Hobbyists around the USA were trying to figure out how to piece together systems from parts found in electronics shops, MITS (Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems) of Albuquerque, New Mexico, announced the MITS Altair 8800 on the cover of the 1st January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics."
""If you are STILL using Altair BASIC 1.1, you have a copy that was stolen in March 1975!"

Films

Revolution OS

Cover of the DVD depicts no smoking sign with windows crossed out.

"Think of Stallman as the great philosopher and think of me as the engineer" -- Linus Torvalds

Stallman: working at the AI lab in the 1970s

  • Reflecting on the Incompatible Timesharing System (ITS) OS at MIT
  • "We loved it"
  • "Playful cleverness" of hackers
  • "Outside world starting pressuring us to have passwords"
    • "Passwords were a way for administrators to control users"
  • "Whoever is sitting at the computer should be able to do whatever he wants"

Perens:

  • "At the start of computers ... software was just passed around between people"
  • The fall: "at the end of the 1970s"
    • "You can blame some of that on Microsoft"
    • "Pioneers of

Discussion of letter

  • "In the mid 1970s, a group of hackers and computer hobbyists in Silicon Valley formed the Homebrew Computer Club"
  • January 31, 1976 newsletter - Volume Number 2, Issue 1
  • Title reads "A letter from MITS"
    • But narrator says, "Bill Gates, of the recently formed Microsoft, wrote an open letter to the community"
    • "Up to that point, the practice of computer users had been to freely pass around software with not much thought given to its ownership"
    • --- but as we learn in BBS documentary, passing around software was really hard for micros
  • Narrator reads the letter with an increasingly hysterical tone

Next scene: ESR talking about RMS working at MIT AI Lab

  • "Negative experiences soured him on proprietary software"

RMS:

  • "To get a modern computer of the day, you needed a proprietary operating system"
  • January 1984, resigned from MIT to start the GNU operating system

Stanford, Berkeley, MIT

Linus using SunOS at U of Helsinki, Finland

  • 1991-1993
  • Taking the monolithic Minix style
  • As opposed to the GNU Hurd style, RMS: "very hard to debug"
  • Is it worth referring to Linus' initial announcement to comp.os.minix?

Linus + Larry Augustin

  • "Want a unix workstation at home"
  • LA: 7000$ for Sun SPARCstation in the lab
  • "Gee if I could work at home..."

Pirates of Silicon Valley

Bill + Paul at Harvard, reading Pop Elec

  • Gates depicted as a poker player
  • Ballmer: "Wasting your entire Harvard reading week"
  • Gates + Allen shown working on a Pdp8 with ribbons of punched tape
  • Roberts at MITS
  • Woz + Jobs shown blue boxing, phone phreak stuff

Homebrew Computer Club, 1976

  • "Bunch of guys spent all their spare time trying to get access to the computers at the local corporations"
  • Did they really sell 50 Apples at a HCC meeting?

Microsoft in Albequerque, 1977

  • HQ in a motel

Computer Faire, SF, 1977

  • Apple depicted next to Heathkit
    • Across from MITS
  • Who else was there?

Dramatized meeting betw Microsoft and IBM, Miami, 1980

  • Allen goes to Seattle Computer Company to buy the OS



Context

  • Gates / Allen get into the business end of computing via Traf-O-Data: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traf-O-Data
    • Forced to grapple with punched tape and Intel 8008
  • MITS sells Altair BASIC cheaply in a bundle
  • The bundle includes an undesirable component
  • Some customers purchase non-bundled machine from MITS and a compatible component from a third party
  • Rather than by the unbundled (expensive) BASIC from MITS, they copy it from a friend (possibly a fellow member of a club)
    • The box of 50 tapes at the HCC may have been unusual but perhaps small copying was not?
    • What equipment was required to reproduce a copy of Altair BASIC in 1975? (Sokol allegedly had a "high speed tape machine"? See wp page)
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists#.22Thieves.22_and_.22parasites.22
  • Some hobbyists who were angry about the letter contributed to the development of Tiny BASIC (how did they contribute?)

Historicization

As regards FOSS

FSF and Microsoft

bill1.png

Is Microsoft the Great Satan?

"Halloween Documents"


Articles

  • Adams, A.A. (2010) The Open vs Closed Debate. Journal of Information and Management (日本情報経営学会誌), 30 (3). pp. 30-47. ISSN 1882-2614. http://opendepot.org/id/eprint/230
  • Casey Bisson, Chapter 3: Open Source Takes Shape, Library Technology Reports 43:3 (May/Jun 2007), http://alatechsource.metapress.com/content/u543727965315429/fulltext.html
  • Christl, Arnulf. 2008. Free Software and Open Source Business Models. OPEN SOURCE APPROACHES IN SPATIAL DATA HANDLING. Advances in Geographic Information Science, 2008, Volume 2, 21-48, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-74831-1_2
  • David, Shay. 2003. On the uncertainty principle and social constructivism: The case of free and open source software.
  • George, Andrew, Avoiding Tragedy in the Wiki-Commons (March 19, 2007). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=975096
  • Hofmokl, Justyna. 2010. The Internet commons: towards an eclectic theoretical framework. International Journal of the Commons, 4(1). Retrieved from: http://www.thecommonsjournal.org/index.php/ijc/article/viewArticle/URN:NBN:NL:UI:10-1-100210/106
  • Hwang, Kenneth. BLIZZARD VERSUS BNETD: A LOOMING ICE AGE FOR FREE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT?. See footnote 36 on pg 7-8.
  • Kelsey, S. 2007. Open Source Software and the Corporate World. In Handbook of Research on Open Source: Technological, Economic, and

Social Perspectives (St. Amant, K. & Still, B. Eds.). Information Science Reference: Hershey, New York. ISBN 978-1-59140-999-1 (hardcover), ISBN 978-1-59140-892-5 (ebook).

  • Kopczynski, M. 2006. Robin Hood versus the Bullies: Software and Piracy and Developing Countries. Rutgers Computer and Technology Law.
  • Lim, Song Jun. 2008. Analyzing the relationship dynamics between contributors and corporate influence within Free and/or Open Source communities using the Multi Faceted Trust/Distrust theory and its implications for fostering better relationship solutions. http://edissertations.nottingham.ac.uk/2377/1/08MSClixsjl4.pdf
  • Mochnacki, S. W. 2000. Computing for Amateur and Professional Astronomers. Amateur - Professional Partnerships in Astronomy, ASP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 220. Edited by John R. Percy and Joseph B. Wilson. San Francisco: Astronomical Society of the Pacific, ISBN: 1-58381-052-8, 2000., p.214. http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/2000ASPC..220..214M
  • Siegfried, R.M. What's Wrong with Napster? A Study of Student Attitudes on Downloading Music and Pirating Software. Conference Proceedings, ISECON2001, 2001.
  • Siegfried, R. M. Student Attitudes on Software Piracy and Related Issues of Computer Ethics. ETHICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY. Volume 6, Number 4, 215-222, DOI: 10.1007/s10676-004-3391-4
  • Smajda, Jon. Open Source and the Moral Field of Computing. "Conference Proceedings of JITP 2010: The Politics of Open Source" (2010). The Politics of Open Source. Paper 1.

http://scholarworks.umass.edu/jitpc2010/1

  • Thomas, D. (2005). Hacking the body: code, performance and corporeality. New Media Society, 7(5), 647-662. doi: 10.1177/1461444805056010
  • Välimäki, Mikko. The Rise of Open Source Licensing. A Challenge to the Use of Intellectual Property in the Software Industry, http://lib.tkk.fi/Diss/2005/isbn9529187793/
  • Välimäki, M. & Oksanen, V. Free software and copyright enforcement: A tool for global copyright policy?. KNOWLEDGE, TECHNOLOGY & POLICY, 18(4), 101-112. doi:10.1007/s12130-006-1006-6
  • Vargas-Cetina, G. Very Much a Midnight Child: Software and the Translation of Times at the University. http://www.media-anthropology.net/vargas-cetina_midnight.pdf
  • Wilson, James G.S., Microsoft on Copyright: An Ethical Analysis. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=886089
  • Yang, J. & Wang, J. (2008). Review on free and open source software. Service Operations and Logistics, and Informatics, 1044 - 1049. doi:10.1109/SOLI.2008.4686552

Books

Other materials

"Clearly, this demonstrates that it is possible to build large-scale systems using open source approaches. Back in 1976, Bill Gates published his ``Open Letter to Hobbyists, claiming that if software was freely shared it would prevent the writing of good software. He asked rhetorically, ``Who can afford to do professional work for nothing? What hobbyist can put three man-years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product, and distribute it for free? He presumed these were unanswerable questions, and both he and others based an industry on this assumption [Moody 2001]. Now, however, there are thousands of developers who are writing their own excellent code, and then giving it away. Gates was fundamentally wrong: sharing source code, and allowing others to extend it, is indeed a practical approach to developing large-scale systems - and its products can be more reliable." -- http://www.dwheeler.com/sloc/redhat71-v1/redhat71sloc.html

Vintage computing blog

"And you thought digital piracy was a new problem. It’s actually as old as the PC software business itself. Some of the earliest evidence of this comes from a famous February 1976 open letter to the Homebrew Computer Club in which Bill Gates (then “General Partner” of a small company called Micro-Soft) protested the rampant “theft” of his company’s popular Altair BASIC."

From digibarn report on 30th anniv of HCC

"This was the first gathering of the "Homebrew" Computer Club (also called the Amateur Computer User's Group). Now this was no amateur group of folks but the very acorn of the great tree of the personal computing revolution to come."

http://www.digibarn.com/history/05-VCF8-HomeBrew30/index.html

Related texts

MITS publications

USENET threads

1993

Path: gmd.de!rrz.uni-koeln.de!unidui!math.fu-berlin.de!news.dfn.de!scsing.switch.ch!news.univie.ac.at!paladin.american.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!wupost!decwrl!decwrl!usenet.coe.montana.edu!netnews.nwnet.net!news.u.washington.edu!hardy.u.washington.edu!ptorre From: pto...@hardy.u.washington.edu (Phil Torre) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Bill Gates' "Open Letter" Date: 28 May 1993 21:55:29 GMT Organization: University of Washington, Seattle Lines: 5 Distribution: na Message-ID: <1u61ohINNa84@news.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: hardy.u.washington.edu Can anyone provide an ftp address or magazine back issue for the "Open Letter to Hobbyists" (or whatever it was called) by Bill Gates, protesting the piracy of his 8K Altair BASIC? Thanks...
Path: gmd.de!newsserver.jvnc.net!howland.reston.ans.net!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!sdd.hp.com!caen!batcomputer!munnari.oz.au!uniwa!DIALix!acix!johnv From: jo...@acix.DIALix.oz.au (John Verhoeven) Subject: Re: Bill Gates' "Open Letter" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers References: <1u61ohINNa84@news.u.washington.edu> <930607.232201.6h2.rusnews.w164w@alpha3.ersys.edmonton.ab.ca> X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL0] Message-ID: <johnv.05l0@acix.DIALix.oz.au> Date: 9 Jun 93 18:08:31 WST Organization: ACix - Private UUCP Node, Cloverdale, Western Australia. Lines: 19 Russell Schulz (russ...@alpha3.ersys.edmonton.ab.ca) wrote: > pto...@hardy.u.washington.edu (Phil Torre) writes: > > Can anyone provide an ftp address or magazine back issue for the > > "Open Letter to Hobbyists" (or whatever it was called) by Bill Gates, > the only place I remember seeing one was "Fire in the Valley" - second > author is Swaine (from ddj) > -- > Russell Schulz russ...@alpha3.ersys.edmonton.ab.ca ersys!rschulz Shad 86c See 'Fire in the Valley', page 169, top right hand side corner. -- John Verhoeven (jo...@acix.DIALix.oz.au or jo...@DIALix.oz.au) _--_|\ Treasurer, Amiga Developers Ass. of Western Australia (ADAWA) / \ For more info on ADAWA mail adawa_i...@dragons.DIALix.oz.au *_.--._/

alt.fan.bill-gates, 1996

From: Mendel Cooper <thegren...@theriver.com> Subject: Unfit for Team Gates? Date: 1996/08/09 Message-ID: <4ufo5r$h57@news.theriver.com> X-Deja-AN: 173181602 content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii organization: The River mime-version: 1.0 newsgroups: alt.fan.bill-gates,comp.os.linux.advocacy,alt.wired,alt.folklore.computers,comp.os.mswindows,comp.os.mswindows.misc x-mailer: Mozilla 1.1N (Windows; I; 16bit) Reply to me rejecting my application for membership in 'Team Gates': >Sorry no can do, you have to be a real "fan" > >Jacob Munk-Stander - President of Team Gates, ClubIE Team 10 member > >Team Gates : http://www.teamgates.com >Jacobs home page : http://www.teamgates.com/jacobms/ > >---------- >> From: M. Leo Cooper <thegren...@theriver.com> >> To: mem...@teamgates.com >> Subject: Apply For Membership Of Team Gates >> Date: 7. august 1996 16:49 >> >> Below is the result of the form. It was submitted by M. Leo Cooper >(thegren...@theriver.com) on Wednesday, August 7, 1996 at 10:49:39 >> >--------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >> Country: USA >> >> Comments: http://personal.riverusers.com/~thegrendel/ >> >> I am not a "fan" of Bill in the conventional sense. I think >> he has contributed to the world, namely much (unintentional) >> humor. I wonder how much code he personally has written in >> the last few years. >> >> My OS of choice is, of course, Linux. >> >> >--------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Amplifying on my previous reply, Jake... Of course, I'm heartbroken that I do not meet the high standards of Team Gates, but I'm not contemplating going out and cutting my throat just yet. I guess you turned me down for membership because I refused to promise to defend Bill from flames in newsgroups, because I view his "contributions" to the world with a grain of salt, and because I let it slip that I use Linux. So, does that actually make me an *enemy* of Bill? I never claimed (as some people so eloquently do) that he is the Antichrist. I can't (cant is a good word) unreservedly admire Bill for some of the following reasons. He is not exactly the classic Horatio Alger rags-to-riches story because he just happened to have been born rich. The hard climb from millionnaire to billionnaire just somehow lacks drama and inspiration. He also had (has?) the disconcerting tendency to "borrow" from other people without giving credit. The "pioneering" MS BASIC for early micros just happened to incorporate the DEC SOS editor, for example, not to mention that the MS Windows "look" was a direct ripoff from Apple and Xerox PARC. Yet, Bill is not at all shy about protecting his rights to make money (I guess he desperately needed it), witness his "open letter to hobbyists" back almost 20 years ago, when a few early computer hobbyists were passing copies of Altair BASIC among themselves. To give Bill his due, he is a genius at marketeering (in the tradition of P.T. Barnum, Ivar Kreuger, et al.). I just kinda wondered when he had time to write a few lines of code, or if his priorities had changed over the years. Again, giving Bill his due, he is in fact a larger-than-life figure, one of the "movers and shakers" in the software biz, even if no longer an innovator. Hey, I believe in looking at my fellow humans as they are, warts and all, and do not consider any contemporary living human as deserving *worship* (with the possible exception of Linus Torvalds, of course). Now, on the topic of Microsoft as an entity, well, I think Tracy Kidder, in his book THE SOUL OF A NEW MACHINE, gives a clue. He quotes the opinion of computer people that a company's structure is characterized by the product it produces. If so, judging by Windows, then MS is slow, bloated, flaky, unstable, and more flash than substance. (BTW, that's why I use Linux.) But, maybe I was misinformed. Is Team Gates just a fan club, in the mold of the Marilyn Monroe fan clubs of my misspent youth, where you write adoring (sweat-stained) letters to the object of your desires, and dream of ...? On that score, I *definitely* am unfit to be a member. Thank you for straightening me out. --
========================================

Any sufficiently advanced Magic is indistinguishable from... technology.


We aim to do to literature what Freud did to sex, utterly ruin it. 

            ---Edward Preston

++ http://personal.riverusers.com/~thegrendel/ ++

1996

From: ma...@graphsoft.com (Matt Horowitz) Subject: Wanted: Gates' "Open Letter to Hobbyists" Date: 1996/06/19 Message-ID: <4q9rr7$l8o@sis2.softaid.net>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 161089627 content-type: Text/Plain; charset=US-ASCII organization: Graphsoft, Inc. mime-version: 1.0 newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,soc.history.science,alt.destroy.microsoft I would like to find the complete text to Bill Gates' 1976 diatribe against software piracy, titled "An Open Letter to Hobbyists". Please e-mail me if you have a copy or know where one is located on-line. Thanks! --Matt ma...@graphsoft.com
From: Bill Pridgen <prid...@texas.net> Subject: Re: Wanted: Gates' "Open Letter to Hobbyists" Date: 1996/06/23 Message-ID: <31CD5687.723F@texas.net>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 161694219 references: <4q9rr7$l8o@sis2.softaid.net> content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii organization: Texas Networking, Inc. mime-version: 1.0 newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,soc.history.science,alt.destroy.microsoft x-mailer: Mozilla 2.0 (Win16; I) Would someone please explain to me what the problem is with this letter? Gates was trying to create a software business (or should I say, THE software business?). You can't have a business if you sell "public goods," that is, goods whose ownership cannot be restricted. Gates was trying to make people aware of that. If computer hobbyists wanted software, they would have to make it worthwhile for someone to create it. I gather that, at the time, most software was provided by hardware companies to their customers with their computers. It wasn't something you could buy separately. (It wasn't exactly given away then either, was it?) Would we be better off if all software were Freeware written by hobbyists in their spare time? Perhaps we would, but I doubt it. Wouldn't that make us rather dependent on the whims of people who might suddenly decide they had other things to do? Although I think Gates's letter was rather poorly written, and did not make his point as clearly as it could have, I do agree with what he was trying to say. -- Bill Pridgen San Antonio prid...@texas.net
  • crossposted to: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy, soc.history.science, alt.destroy.microsoft

comp.os.linux.advocacy, 1998

From: lsn...@mira.knirsch.de (Liang-Shing Ng) Subject: Conspirary Theory II: Transmeta, Super NT, Linux Date: 1998/07/06 Message-ID: <6nqn05$41h@mira.knirsch.de>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 368907864 Organization: I need to put my ORGANIZATION here. Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy No body really knows what Linus Torvalds is doing in Transmeta, it seems. All discussion about Transmeta have to be done under Non Disclosure Agreement, "according to an article somewhere on web" (was it Slash-dot? Could anyone give more related articles?) My conspirary theory is that Billy the Gates is not dumb. If he were, he wouldn't have been the richest man in the world. He might well have spotted the potential of Linux and smell the disaster of NT long ago before the rest of the world discovered Linux. Hence, with the help of a Microsoft co-founder, they hired Linus in this little firm called Transmeta, together with several other top talents to come up with THE NEXT THING. Call it Super NT, Linux II or whatever. Bill Gates might already have held the key to the future. And we all Linux Advocates here are still shouting how lousy NT is. I do not mean to down grade any credit of Linus Torvalds himself. It might be that Bill and Linus both see a third way where Microsoft and Free Software could co-exist, some thing like the guys in Netscape and Apache have already realised. As long as we have Free Software and Linus contribute to it, I don't care. Replace the bloody NT with Super NT/Linux II or whatever, I don't care. It is still a good thing AFAIK that some bloody bloated code get replaced by a better thing. Where will the Penguin go today? LSN Southampton
From: Kirk Rafferty <kirk@_rafferty.org> Subject: Re: Edison, Gates, and PR flacks, Re: Conspirary Theory II: Transmeta , Super NT, Linux Date: 1998/07/07 Message-ID: <Fbro1.767$Zy5.14423967@wormhole.dimensional.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 369248960 Sender: Kirk Rafferty <raffe...@flatland.dimensional.com> References: <6nqn05$41h@mira.knirsch.de> <35A0FAB2.9F9FED67@infinet.com> <6nrivu$48h@mira.knirsch.de> <6nrrur$ej5$1@samba.rahul.net> Organization: http://www.rafferty.org/yum (B0t Bait) User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-980618 (UNIX) (SunOS/4.1.4 (sun4m)) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 07 Jul 1998 09:31:49 MDT Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy Cameron Spitzer <oli...@writeme.com> wrote: > Do *YOU* believe William Gates wrote a BASIC interpreter? That would > have been utterly out of character. Gates is a finance and marketing guy, > not a programmer. It would be consistent with everything else he's ever > done to buy it and take credit for writing it. It's a matter of history that Bill Gates, along with Paul Allen, wrote BASIC for the Altair. Bill may be evil, but let's not forget he was one of the original "hackers." Their distribution of BASIC (didn't they go by Micro Soft in those days?) on paper tape was not free, but was nevertheless copied and distributed illegaly by the hacker community, causing Bill to write his whiny diatribe "An Open Letter to Hobbyists" in the journal "Computer Notes," a popular rag at the time, decrying the illegal distribution of the tape. Ironically, one of the things he said in the letter was to the effect of "I need you to pay me if you expect me to hire thousands of programmers to flood the Altair with software." (anyone have a copy of this letter?) Don't underestimate Gates. Yes, he's evil(tm), whiny, unethical, a monopolist, and out to control the industry. (And those are his
  • good* points :-) But in 1976, porting BASIC to the Altair was a
major innovation. Probably the last time Gates ever "innovated" anything. Gates was a hacker before he was ever a "finance and marketing guy." Not defending Gates or MS by any stretch. Just throwing out a little "know thy enemy" info. --
O=--

Kirk Rafferty | [GNU Linux]...Live Free or Die /(o)\ kirk*rafferty.org | Support Free Software http://www.gnu.org -^- http://www.rafferty.org| Registered Linux User 73344 http://counter.li.org


comp.os.linux.advocacy, 1998

From: b...@bilver.magicnet.netREMOVETHIS (Bill Vermillion) Subject: Re: GPL BSD Date: 1998/07/30 Message-ID: <EwxMCy.M7B@bilver.magicnet.netREMOVETHIS>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 376519462 References: <6nuj23$3a2$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <35cd6f7a.22539639@news.serv.net> <slrn6ro6ce.1uc.josh@vortex.nyu.edu> <6pqbvp$etl$1@inconnu.isu.edu> Organization: W.J.Vermillion - Orlando / Winter Park Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,comp.os.linux.advocacy In article <6pqbvp$et...@inconnu.isu.edu>, Craig Kelley <...@inconnu.isu.edu> wrote: > Found this gem today (http://www.forbes.com/forbes/98/0810/6209094a.htm): > "Someone snared a copy of Gates' program, made copies and > gave it to fellow hobbyists, who made and handed out their > own copies. In the prevailing atmosphere this wasn't thought > of as stealing-but Gates saw it differently and said so in > 'An Open Letter to Hobbyists,' which ran in several of the > computer hobby journals of the day. 'Most of you steal your > software,' Gates wrote. 'One thing you do is prevent good > software from being written. Who can afford to do > professional work for nothing?'" But I remeber back when he said it the first time. The mags of the day, Dr.Dobbs, Interface Age, and their readers, didn't take kindly to this. The fact that Gates was charging $150 a copy for BASIC - while the other BASIC's of that time were mostly under $50 - or free - did not help Micro Soft's image in the land of the S-100 systems, Sols, Vector Graphics, Godbout, IMSAI, etc.,etc., etcetera.
From: jorgen.gr...@NOHAM.opensoftware.se (Jorgen Grahn) Subject: Re: History of anti-MS sentiment? [ was Re: John Doe and Linux ] Date: 1998/08/02 Message-ID: <slrn6s9khr.2qg.jorgen.grahn@islaya.opensoftware.se>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 377290359 X-NNTP-Posting-Host: t7o7p50.telia.com References: <35b06538.2480310@news.serv.net> <EwBBLv.Lvz@bilver.magicnet.netREMOVETHIS> <35b84eb9.5506974@news.serv.net> <35B16A40.66FB9A73@mail.utexas.edu> <900824816.849114@thrush.omix.com> <4Xfs1.772$AI4.3425121@ptah.visi.com> <35bf35b7.0@news.rowan.edu> <35C498BB.6798@enternet.com.au> Followup-To: comp.unix.advocacy X-Complaints-To: abuse@internet.telia.com Organization: Telia Internet Services Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,comp.os.linux.advocacy On Mon, 03 Aug 1998 02:50:03 +1000, Frank Ernens <d...@send.me.more.ads.for.hair.restorer> wrote: ... >I claim that no reliable OS will ever be written in C, C++, Java or any >other language which lacks nested procedures and modules. And I date the >fragility of OSs from the spread of Un*x, which made it acceptable to die >with errors like "panic: inode snafu". It lowered expectations. I disagree. I think fragility came from the home computer scene of the late 1970s, when everything seemed to start from scratch. There were two "scenes"; the big computers (IBM, Digital etc) and there were the Apples, PC and other now dead brands. Only the latter counted in what became today's computer industry, and little of the old knowledge and good practice seeped down into the new computer culture. (This is not from memory; I wasn't there.) Then there was Microsoft, and to them reboots and crashes were natural. They came from a crash-tolerant culture. I think C is an OK language for systems programming, but I suspect that C++ is a big problem; if not everyone on the team knows exactly what she's doing, you can do a lot of damage with C++. I am biased, of course. For some reason the Amiga OS was an exception; it was a hobbyist OS, written in C (and BCPL), and still remarkably bugfree. A rogue program usually took down the whole OS of course, but those program were very rare, at least on my machine... >As for training, I have noticed a tendency for CS-only graduates to go for >trial-and-error solutions if they think they'll be quicker. Someone with a >maths background is more likely to think the problem through and produce a >solution correct under every circumstance of timing etc. > If that is true, it's sad. At least over here, and a few years back, you couldn't study CS without a major dose of maths first. I agree that that tends to make you think before you code. /Jorgen [follow-ups to comp.unix.advocacy] -- /// - Jorgen Grahn -------------------------------------- \\\/// jorgen.grahn@ / i went out in a real s.t.a.r.c.a.r. \/// opensoftware.se / full of lights & traveling far...
From: Frank Ernens <d...@send.me.more.ads.for.hair.restorer> Subject: Re: History of anti-MS sentiment? [ was Re: John Doe and Linux ] Date: 1998/08/03 Message-ID: <35C498BB.6798@enternet.com.au>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 377261458 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <35b06538.2480310@news.serv.net> <EwBBLv.Lvz@bilver.magicnet.netREMOVETHIS> <35b84eb9.5506974@news.serv.net> <35B16A40.66FB9A73@mail.utexas.edu> <900824816.849114@thrush.omix.com> <4Xfs1.772$AI4.3425121@ptah.visi.com> <35bf35b7.0@news.rowan.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Organization: Customer of Connect.com.au P/L, Melbourne, Australia Mime-Version: 1.0 Reply-To: d...@send.me.more.ads.for.hair.restorer Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,comp.os.linux.advocacy Dr Nancy's Sweetie wrote: > The entire time I was in college, for the hundreds (or maybe thousands) of > hours I spent working on IBM mainframes, never once did I have to deal with > an OS crash. And I never knew anybody who said "Hey, the computer just > stopped working for no reason." These machines sometimes had 200 people > logged on at once, doing work a lot more complex than compiling a mere > 20-line program. Me too. I used Burroughs big iron, early DEC VAXen, and Honeywell GCOS. They sometimes slowed under load, but never crashed. I spent four years in the early 1980s as a systems programmer at a large university. My duties included fielding all system and compiler bug reports for VAXes; my users included 2000 academic staff, a large urban hospital, the university's data processing and library developers, and about 20,000 students. In all that time, we found one bug, in Pascal... I triggered it myself writing a kernel-mode system program. DEC supplied us with bug fixes, but they were all in the class of "who'd ever write code like that anyway". And no-one did. The VAXes themselves never crashed because of software. Ever... > My complaints about Microsoft stem primarily from their inability to make > an operating system up to 1970s standards in 1998. ... Then we got some U*ix boxes. They were high-tech and low serial number, and they fell over constantly. We sucked half of BSD down the net and this fixed some of the security holes but the kernel still had memory leaks and crashes. We took to rebooting the machines every morning. I haven't noticed ANY modern operating system being as reliable as those from the good ol' days. I can think of three differences: i. the OS's were written in Algol (Burroughs), Bliss/assembler (VMS), or other languages not derived from C. ii. they were written by people primarily trained as mathematicians and scientists, rather than as computer scientists. iii. many were leased, which meant the manufacturer would bear downtime costs. I claim that no reliable OS will ever be written in C, C++, Java or any other language which lacks nested procedures and modules. And I date the fragility of OSs from the spread of Un*x, which made it acceptable to die with errors like "panic: inode snafu". It lowered expectations. As for training, I have noticed a tendency for CS-only graduates to go for trial-and-error solutions if they think they'll be quicker. Someone with a maths background is more likely to think the problem through and produce a solution correct under every circumstance of timing etc. A price signal for downtime and bugs would be nice, and would require some form of third-party auditing. NONE of these factors has anything to do with Microsoft. > We use Visual Basic... Oh dear. > But it can't be counted on; I had a student get the legendary Blue Screen > Of Death during a midterm this year. He'd saved his work pretty recently, > but it still cost him the time needed to reboot the machine and get going > again. I don't think you should tolerate this. A student friend of mine was reduced to hysterics because of bugs in VC++ 1.0. The thing to do is phone up MS and demand a discount. Educational institutions are in a much stronger position than other customers, and the bastards are quite open about not fixing bugs because it's more profitable to ship "features". An "operating system" that allows an errant program to crash it doesn't really merit the name. *** My email address is snenregfXtenretneXmocXua replacing X's by the obvious delimiters and reversing each component (the last is "au"). Death to spammers.
From: dav...@crl.com Subject: Re: History of anti-MS sentiment? [ was Re: John Doe and Linux ] Date: 1998/08/05 Message-ID: <6qagvt$anr$1@nnrp1.crl.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 378297492 References: <35b06538.2480310@news.serv.net> <EwBBLv.Lvz@bilver.magicnet.netREMOVETHIS> <35b84eb9.5506974@news.serv.net> <35B16A40.66FB9A73@mail.utexas.edu> <900824816.849114@thrush.omix.com> <4Xfs1.772$AI4.3425121@ptah.visi.com> <35bf35b7.0@news.rowan.edu> <35c49b35.28121276@nntp.gulf.net> Organization: CRL Dialup Internet Access (415) 705-6060 [Login: guest] Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,comp.os.linux.advocacy You didn't hang around the right places if you say "No one hated the mainframes". In the crew I hung out with the mainframes got regular lambasting and roasting. The mainframe model is nothing but a high speed card punch after all. In the 80's when I was in college helping run a Unix shop on campus, it seemed ludicrous to be using that model of computing. I just did say it anywhere near that nice at the time. David In comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Timothy Kelley <tkel...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
On 29 Jul 98 14:46:15 GMT, kil...@elvis.rowan.edu (Dr Nancy's Sweetie)
wrote:
>The entire time I was in college, for the hundreds (or maybe thousands) of
>hours I spent working on IBM mainframes, never once did I have to deal with
>an OS crash. And I never knew anybody who said "Hey, the computer just
>stopped working for no reason." These machines sometimes had 200 people
>logged on at once, doing work a lot more complex than compiling a mere
>20-line program.
No one hated the mainframes, it was IBM's PC's that sucked so bad.
The PC-AT and clones won the market over several other machines which
were much better (Mac, Amiga, etc.) and we are still stuck with them
today.
--
Tim Kelley
tkel...@ix.netcom.com
tpkel...@winkinc.com
-- Web site creation and hosting assistance available for spiritual healers and teachers. See http://7gen.com for more info



comp.os.os2.misc, 1998

From: etpe...@ibm.net (Ernest Pellegrino II) Subject: Microsoft looks stupid... Date: 1998/09/21 Message-ID: <vZndGltVdL7x-pn2-drkSdpHFEdbp@localhost>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 393321832 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: 21 Sep 1998 16:05:34 GMT, 166.72.227.251 Organization: IBM.NET X-Notice: should be reported to postmas...@ibm.net Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.misc X-Complaints-To: postmaster@ibm.net I recieved this as email, it's pretty funny if you have used unix or a variation of unix...
Fowarded message-------------------

>>I've been attending the USENIX NT and LISA NT (Large Installation >>Systems Administration for NT) conference in downtown Seattle this >>week. One of those magical Microsoft moments(tm) happened yesterday and >>I thought that I'd share. Non-geeks may not find this funny at all,

>>but those in geekdom (particularly UNIX geekdom) will appreciate it... >>Greg Sullivan, a Microsoft product manager (henceforth referred to as >>"MPM"), was holding forth on a forthcoming product that will provide

>>Unix-style scripting and shell services on NT for compatibility and to >>leverage UNIX expertise that moves to the NT platform. The product >>suite includes the MKS (Mortise Kern Systems) windowing Korn shell, a >>windowing PERL, and lots of goodies like awk, sed and grep. It >>actually fills a nice niche for which other products (like the MKS >>suite) have either been too highly priced or not well enough >>integrated.

>>An older man, probably mid-50s, stands up in the back of the room and >>asserts that Microsoft could have done better with their choice of Korn >>shell. He asks if they had considered others that are more >>compatible with existing UNIX versions of KSH. The MPM said that the >>MKS shell was pretty compatible and should be able to run all UNIX >>scripts. The questioner again asserted that the MKS shell was not very >>compatible and didn't do a lot of things right that are defined in >>the KSH language spec. The MPM asserted again that the shell was pretty >>compatible and should work quite well. This assertion and >>counter-assertion went back and forth for a bit, when another fellow

>>member of the audience announced to the MPM that the questioner was, in >>fact, David Korn of AT&T (now Lucent) Bell Labs.

>>Of course, David Korn is the author of the Korn shell. Uproarious >>laughter burst forth from the audience, and it was one of the only >>times that I have seen a (by then pink-cheeked) MPM lost for words >>or momentarily lacking the usual unflappable confidence. So, what's >>a body to do when Microsoft reality collides with everyone else's?

End of Fowarded Message-------------------------

Chip Pellegrino

From: MPvDdB (MP van Dobben de Bruijn) Subject: Re: Microsoft looks stupid... Date: 1998/09/27 Message-ID: <BGtODEdD7Dku-pn2-zHEkpcr7okSy@localhost>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 395291218 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-NNTP-Posting-Host: pc4u.demon.nl:195.173.237.140 References: <vZndGltVdL7x-pn2-drkSdpHFEdbp@localhost> <HIrC2odSRQrJ089yn@ibm.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Trace: news.demon.nl 906896101 rover:19689 NO-IDENT pc4u.demon.nl:195.173.237.140 Organization: PC4U / the-Net-4U MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.misc >>> Ernest Pellegrino II wrote: >>> >>> Of course, David Korn is the author of the Korn shell. Uproarious >>> laughter burst forth from the audience, and it was one of the only >>> times that I have seen a (by then pink-cheeked) MPM lost for words >>> or momentarily lacking the usual unflappable confidence. So, what's >>> a body to do when Microsoft reality collides with everyone else's? > James Knott offered: > > FWIW, I have a copy of an IBM video of an OS/2 v2.1 & NT shootout in > Houston a few years ago. When OS/2 ran circles around NT, the MS rep > didn't have much to say. Later versions of the tape had the NT parts > removed. It's amazing how many people seem to think Windows is so > great, when it's so obviously inferior to just about everything else!!! From this weeks Dutch magazine for the computer professionals a story on Linux reveals some details about BG at the start of his career. Which makes one wonder how on earth someone can intellectually and emotionally parse that and the foundation of simple robbery of intellectual property (CP/M and Stack come to mind and stories about developers pressed to give in to the Gorilla as well as the recent Newsweek quote of one of his sub-ordiantes) his imperium is build on, and live on happily and emotionally sane. It is as follows on the difference between Linux and Microsoft they tell about Bill Gates and Paul Allen working in the Harvard Computer Lab in 1975 on an OS for the Altair 8800. Another student discovers their work, copies it and sends it out to friends. This is not unusual in the university environment of Harvard, but Gates is furious. He writes "An open letter to hobbyists" to be published in that times various computer-magazines. He explains that copying and spreading other mans software is pure theft. The adagium is "thou shall"st not use other mans software!". The arguments: it will prevent writing of good software, as nobody can afford to produce professional <sic> work for nothing. Ah well, at least he did not try to state that if huge amounts are paid for it it is professional. Regards from Leeuwarden Peter van Dobben de Bruijn --- usethenet.at.the-net-4u.com (at becomes @)



alt.fan.bill-gates, 1998

This thread turns into people griping that they cannot purchase an un-bundled PC without Microsoft

From: sho...@alph02.triumf.ca (Tim Shoppa) Subject: Bill Gates' bitter financial suffering Date: 1998/05/17 Message-ID: <6jmoti$si3$1@nntp.ucs.ubc.ca>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 354030397 Organization: TRIUMF, Canada's National Meson Facility Newsgroups: alt.fan.bill-gates,alt.folklore.computers Bill Gates, in his "Open Letter to Hobbyists" mentioned earlier, tells of his sad experience. According to Bill, he and two associates produced the Altair BASIC, investing three man years and burning up $40,000 in computer time. It was to be sold on commision through MITS for use with Altair computers. Gates now finds that many of the "users" he talks to praise his BASIC very highly, but few of them can admit they bought the copy they use. He is bitter, and says that the return for his group was less than $2 an hour for the great amount of time they put into the programming, debugging, and documentation required to make a first class package. -- Calvin N. Moores, BYTE 1976:13 p.22.
From: jmfba...@ma.ultranet.com Subject: Re: Bill Gates' bitter financial suffering Date: 1998/05/20 Message-ID: <6jug7u$ki7$1@strato.ultra.net>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 354928499 References: <6jmoti$si3$1@nntp.ucs.ubc.ca> <6jq741$rvc$1@cronkite.cc.uga.edu> <3560DF2D.CFD@NO-SPAM.sgi.net> <35615218.8407739@stoneweb.com> X-Ultra-Time: 20 May 1998 11:53:34 GMT X-Complaints-To: abuse@ultra.net Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers [snip one newsgroup] In article <35615218.8407...@stoneweb.com>, "Carl R. Friend" <carl.fri...@stoneweb.com> wrote: >Adam Stoufferin article nr. <3560DF2D....@NO-SPAM.sgi.net>, wrote: >> >> I don't think I ever paid for a microsoft product in my life > > Have you bought a packaged Intel computer in the past 10 years? >If so, you've paid for lots of Microsoft product. They come >"bundled" with all the PCs anybody is likely to find (without >looking hard). In fact, most large suppliers won't even ship a >PC without some sort of Microsoft product installed. > > Try this: Call up a distributor, tell them you want to buy an >Intel <whatever>. So far, so good. Now tell them that you _don't_ >want any software on it - _and_ you want a discount as you won't be >buying the software with the box as you plan to install your own. >I'll wager that they either will (1)give you a blank look and say, >"We can't do that." (2)ship the box devoid of MS stuff but charge >the same amount of money, in which case you've purchased the >software anyway. We tried this about seven years ago....Call up a distributor, order an Intel-based computer, and ask for some flavor of Unix. We were told that having a non-Microsoft OS would delay shipment by 3-6 months. When I commented that that was ridiculous, the reply was that there was only one person assigned to do such special installations and that he was "backlogged". Yup. We bought the bridge :-(. > > By the way - it's not piracy to use something you've already >bought. > > >Offtopic: Definition of "product" seen in the Boston Globe a while >back - crewman on cruise vessel describing the effluent of a broken >septic system on his vessel as "product". I think that fits here. >[insert grin as appropriate] >  :-)))) /BAH


alt.folklore.computers, 1998

Great thread for discussion of various flavors of BASIC for different micros

" From: Jim Stewart <jstew...@jkmicro.com> Subject: "Since all of you steal your software..." Date: 1998/12/21 Message-ID: <367F1C8E.5300C48C@jkmicro.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 424385687 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: news15.ispnews.com 914213459 168.150.253.139 (Sun, 20 Dec 1998 23:10:59 EDT) Organization: http://www.jkmicro.com MIME-Version: 1.0 NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 20 Dec 1998 23:10:59 EDT Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers A letter from Bill Gates was published in the old SCCS magazine, probably in the late 70's. As I recall, he accused computer hobbyists of stealing his Basic interpreter and he threatened to stop writing software for personal computer market. Does anyone have the full text of the letter?


From: william.hamb...@nashville.com (William Hamblen) Subject: Re: "Since all of you steal your software..." Date: 1998/12/22 Message-ID: <ud4o57.ut2.ln@localhost.localdomain>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 425133069 References: <367F1C8E.5300C48C@jkmicro.com> <F4BsCG.F7L@midway.uchicago.edu> <367f64af.974341@news.demon.co.uk> X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@remarQ.com X-Trace: 914407322 4TJCV727N8BA9CF41C usenet57.supernews.com Organization: Posted via RemarQ, http://www.remarQ.com - Discussions start here! Reply-To: william.hamb...@nashville.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers John Birch (jo...@invision.co.uk) wrote:
<The visionary didnt predict the free software movement then!>
The free software movement already existed at the time. Software flowed across the ARPANET. User groups like DECUS flourished and where imitated by hobbyists. Dr Dobbs Journal of Computer Calisthenics and Orthodontia (Running Light Without Over Byte) started as a way to distribute free Tiny BASIC. Hobbyist magazines were full of type-in-yourself listings.
From: william.hamb...@nashville.com (William Hamblen) Subject: Re: "Since all of you steal your software..." Date: 1998/12/23 Message-ID: <lu9s57.871.ln@localhost.localdomain>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 425466794 References: <367F1C8E.5300C48C@jkmicro.com> <F4BsCG.F7L@midway.uchicago.edu> <jahfund2fv.fsf@gatsby.u-net.com> X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@remarQ.com X-Trace: 914493729 4TJCV727NB480CF41C usenet80.supernews.com Organization: Posted via RemarQ, http://www.remarQ.com - Discussions start here! Reply-To: william.hamb...@nashville.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers David Wragg (d...@doc.ic.ac.uk) wrote:
I have never heard of an MS APL. Did they ever get around to releasing
it, or was it just hyperbole on Bill's part?
I don't remember ever seeing it myself. How much APL can you shoehorn into (at most) 64K?
From: jsav...@tenMAPSONeerf.edmonton.ab.ca (John Savard) Subject: Re: "Since all of you steal your software..." Date: 1998/12/24 Message-ID: <3682a70c.14600217@news.prosurfr.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 425588572 References: <367F1C8E.5300C48C@jkmicro.com> <F4BsCG.F7L@midway.uchicago.edu> <jahfund2fv.fsf@gatsby.u-net.com> Organization: Videotron Communications Ltd. Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers David Wragg <d...@doc.ic.ac.uk> wrote, in part: >I have never heard of an MS APL. Did they ever get around to releasing >it, or was it just hyperbole on Bill's part? No, they never did. There are other APL products for the IBM PC, although I don't know offhand if there ever was an 8080 APL. There might well have been one of a sort that ran under CP/M. John Savard http://www.freenet.edmonton.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html



comp.os.linux.advocacy, 1999

From: qwe...@rigel.island.nl (Rob S. Wolfram) Subject: Re: Linux FUD, sad but true. Date: 1999/04/25 Message-ID: <slrn7i6qkl.ekc.qwerty@rigel.island.nl>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 470770534 Cache-Post-Path: nol!unkn...@rac-ict-robw.amc.uva.nl References: <371cd40d.3685920@news.supernews.com> <slrn7hr1db.jj.davecook@sputnik.escnd1.sdca.home.com> <371fd5ac.4129925@news.supernews.com> <slrn7hv7l3.f0.davecook@sputnik.escnd1.sdca.home.com> <372adead.32752251@news.supernews.com> X-Server-Date: 25 Apr 1999 19:18:45 GMT X-Complaints-To: usenet@news.surfnet.nl X-Trace: news.surfnet.nl 925068479 25917 145.117.32.201 (25 Apr 1999 19:27:59 GMT) Organization: Academic Medical Center, The Netherlands X-Cache: nntpcache 2.3.2.1 (see http://www.nntpcache.org/) User-Agent: slrn/0.9.5.3 (UNIX) Reply-To: qwe...@hamal.xs4all.nl NNTP-Posting-Date: 25 Apr 1999 19:27:59 GMT Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy Jeff Szarka <Trade...@concentric.net> wrote: >"Microshaft" and so on comments? It's quite immature, OS choice is >not a religion. If I choose to use Nt then I shouldn't have linux >users instantly making comments about how I must love "M$" software. >And how I must love pretty little interfaces more then a real OS. As >you can guess, this gets annoying VERY quickly. And *you* were talking religion? >Most (if not all) linux groups have Ms conspiracy theory's. I hardly >count this group since it's purpose is to talk about linux as compared >to other operating systems. I don't have a MS conspiracy theory. I have a MS conspiracy fact, for which there exist something called "the 1995 consent decree". >I don't identify with MS. I use their software. I just think it's >immature for people to act like MS is the cause of all evil in the >world. If people made fun of Linus like that I would feel the same IMHO they are the cause of most evil in the software world. Who do you think signed the infamous "Open Letter to Hobbyists" from February 3th 1976 where Hobbyists were accused of stealing software? Cheers, Rob -- Rob S. Wolfram <qwe...@hamal.xs4all.nl> PGP 0x07606049 GPG 0xD61A655D A bore is someone who persists in holding his own views after we have enlightened him with ours.

alt.society.liberalism, 1999

From: petr...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) Subject: Re: Gore Supports The Working Man Date: 1999/11/03 Message-ID: <7vohgi$me8$1@nntp6.atl.mindspring.net>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 543826451 References: <38185922.5520759@news.spiritone.com> <381ef27e$0$29626@news.voyager.net> <381f3755.14264542@news.earthlink.net> <381F549A.3F5C4C73@DanSources.com> Organization: NETCOM / MindSpring Enterprises, Inc. Newsgroups: alt.society.liberalism,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.usa.republican In article <381F549A.3F5C4...@DanSources.com>, Dan Fahey <DanFa...@DanSources.com> wrote: >I can site many instances why, when and where each of the stated compaies went >wrong in thier marketing. >Such Ouickies: >IBM killed OS2, Borland sold off Wordperfect/QuattroPro, Banyan stopped with >customer service, Novell did not develop new products, HP went back to office >equipment, Sun bought Solaris. All the Unix Companies DISSed each other >during the OpenSystems Conference, all except Bill. ["everybody does it" excuse-making deleted] Rather simplistic -- OS/2 is still there, even if not well supported; Sun is alive and well in its favorite market niches; etc. And "everybody does it" is a confession that Chairman Bill is a crook. But to paraphrase Karl Marx, there is a specter haunting the world of software -- the specter of Open Source. Nearly 25 years ago, Chairman Bill had berated some computer hobbyists for copying his BASIC interpreter, in a whiny "Open Letter to Hobbyists". However, their successors are starting to have their revenge with Linux. They are more careful about terms of use now, and some of them fiercely argue about the finer points of open-source licensing. According to the sort of simplistic pro-capitalist economic ideology so common here, Linux could *never* happen. But it has. And Chairman Bill and his minions are quaking in their boots about it. -- Loren Petrich Happiness is a fast Macintosh petr...@netcom.com And a fast train My home page: http://www.petrich.com/home.html

alt.folklore.computers, 1999-1999

Jacoby, David. (1999). "Open Letter to Hobbyists". alt.folklore.computers. http://groups.google.com/group/alt.folklore.computers/browse_thread/thread/8d6e6fb43c9da308/

From: jac...@pier.ecn.purdue.edu (David Jacoby) Subject: "Open Letter to Hobbyists" Date: 1999/02/21 Message-ID: <7apk0t$6ml$1@mozo.cc.purdue.edu>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 446781780 X-Complaints-To: usenet@mozo.cc.purdue.edu X-Trace: mozo.cc.purdue.edu 919622493 6869 128.46.154.98 (21 Feb 1999 18:41:33 GMT) Organization: Purdue University, W. Lafayette, IN NNTP-Posting-Date: 21 Feb 1999 18:41:33 GMT Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Years ago, before it was big, Bill Gates wrote an open letter to computer hobbyists, in part asking "How do you expect people to write commercial-quality programs without pay?" Since Linux and FSF have answered that question, I've been looking for this document online. But I can't find it. Any pointers? -- David Jacoby mailto:jac...@ecn.purdue.edu Lead Web Technician, ECE http://pier.ecn.purdue.edu/~jacoby/ CS Major Hacking's just another word for nothing left to kludge
From: f...@engin.umich.edu (Sergej Roytman) Subject: Re: "Open Letter to Hobbyists" Date: 1999/02/22 Message-ID: <IU5A2.348$iO5.21963@srvr1.engin.umich.edu> X-Deja-AN: 446959252 References: <7apk0t$6ml$1@mozo.cc.purdue.edu> <36D014C6.13E456C@trailing-edge.com> X-Trace: srvr1.engin.umich.edu 919661224 141.212.106.44 (Mon, 22 Feb 1999 00:27:04 EDT) Organization: University of Michigan, College of Engineering NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 00:27:04 EDT Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers In article <36D014C6.13E4...@trailing-edge.com>, Tim Shoppa <sho...@trailing-edge.com> wrote: >David Jacoby wrote: >> Years ago, before it was big, Bill Gates wrote an open letter to >> computer hobbyists, in part asking "How do you expect people to >> write commercial-quality programs without pay?" Since Linux and >> FSF have answered that question, I've been looking for this document >> online. But I can't find it. Any pointers? > >From my usenet archives (note that it was "Micro-Soft", not >"Microsoft", at the time): > >AN OPEN LETTER TO HOBBYISTS > > February 3, 1976 > > By William Henry Gates III King of Newbies, Protector of Cruft, Lord High Muckymuck of the Golden Lawsuit, Knight of Ni!, General All-Around Protection Fault, Quasher of Things Quashable, Supporter of Athletics... > 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. You said it! >Without good software and an owner who understands programming, a >hobby computer is wasted. Any examples come to mind... ? > Will quality software be written for the >hobby market? Not by your lot, obviously. > 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. And we want it back, dammit! > 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 thank 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 $2 an hour. About what your current offerings are worth, methinks. > Why is this? Because we think you're a twit. > As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, >most of you steal your software. How refreshing! And now you pre-steal our software for us! Now _that's_ convenience. Sure thing. Worth each and every blue-screen, you bet! > Hardware must be paid for, but >software is something to share. Who cares if the people who worked on >it get paid? > > Is this fair? One thing you don't do by stealing software is >get back at MITS for some problem you may have had. MITS doesn't make >money selling software. The royalty paid to us, the manual, the tape >and the overhead make it a break-even operation. One thing you do do >is prevent good software from being written. Who can afford to do >professional work for nothing? What hobbyist can put 3-man years into >programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute >for free? The fact is, no one besides us has invested a lot of money >in hobby software. We have written 6800 BASIC, and are writing 8080 >APL and 6800 APL, Haha! 8080 BASIC! 6800 BASIC! APL! It's mine! Mine! ALL MINE!!! > but there is very little incentive to make this >software available to hobbyists. Most directly, the thing you do is >theft. And I'll get you for this! All of you! And your little dogs, too! > What about the guys who re-sell Altair BASIC, aren't they >making money on hobby software? Yes, but those who have been reported >to us may lose in the end. They are the ones who give hobbyists a bad >name, and should be kicked out of any club meeting they show up at. When I grow up I'll have a herd of lawyers to deal with these miscreants. And dungeons and torture machines to put them in. And the big guys who used to beat me up in elementary school and take my lunch money, I'll track them down too and make them write long documents on 386s running M$-Nerd, with 14-in. monitors that flicker, and that someone has put big, greasy fingerprints on. You just see! > I would appreciate letters from any one who wants to pay up, Before I _make_ you pay up! Mwahahahaha! >or has a suggestion or comment. Just write to me at 1180 Alvarado SE, >#114, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87108. Unmarked packages from small cabins in Montana excluded. > Nothing would please me more >than being able to hire ten programmers and deluge the hobby market >with good software. ...except hiring about a million code-monkeys to deluge it with tons upon tons of utter drek, that is. > Bill Gates > > General Partner, Micro-Soft ...Upholder of the Rules of Snot-Wrestling, Keeper of the Seal of Simon the Fender-Polisher, Wearer of Pocket Protectors and Thick Glasses, etc., etc. etc. Scary, no? -- Sergej Roytman, All-Around Geek and Linux User
From: alex*@*rockvax.rockefeller.edu (Alexandre Pechtchanski) Subject: Re: "Open Letter to Hobbyists" Date: 1999/02/22 Message-ID: <36d4a9de.359018320@Rockyd>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 447176265 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <7apk0t$6ml$1@mozo.cc.purdue.edu> <36D014C6.13E456C@trailing-edge.com> <IU5A2.348$iO5.21963@srvr1.engin.umich.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: rockyd.rockefeller.edu 919710383 129.85.24.56 (Mon, 22 Feb 1999 14:06:23 EDT) Organization: Rockefeller University Hospital (GCRC), New York MIME-Version: 1.0 NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 14:06:23 EDT Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers On Mon, 22 Feb 1999 05:27:04 GMT, f...@engin.umich.edu (Sergej Roytman) wrote: >In article <36D014C6.13E4...@trailing-edge.com>, >Tim Shoppa <sho...@trailing-edge.com> wrote: [ snip ] >>AN OPEN LETTER TO HOBBYISTS >> >> February 3, 1976 >> >> By William Henry Gates III [ snip ] >> 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. > >And we want it back, dammit! Didn't he use the time on Harvard's PDP-10 from his student account, which conditions specifically forbid commercial use, and never paid for it? Wasn't it why he was kicked out of Harvard? [ When replying, remove *'s from address ] Alexandre Pechtchanski, Systems Manager, RUH, NY
From: b...@bilver.magicnet.netREMOVETHIS (Bill Vermillion) Subject: Re: "Open Letter to Hobbyists" Date: 1999/02/23 Message-ID: <F7L3v5.4n2@bilver.magicnet.netREMOVETHIS>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 447322751 References: <7apk0t$6ml$1@mozo.cc.purdue.edu> <36D014C6.13E456C@trailing-edge.com> Organization: W.J.Vermillion - Orlando / Winter Park Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers In article <36D014C6.13E4...@trailing-edge.com>, Tim Shoppa <sho...@trailing-edge.com> wrote: >David Jacoby wrote: >> >> Years ago, before it was big, Bill Gates wrote an open letter to >> computer hobbyists, in part asking "How do you expect people to >> write commercial-quality programs without pay?" Since Linux and >> FSF have answered that question, I've been looking for this document >> online. But I can't find it. Any pointers? > >From my usenet archives (note that it was "Micro-Soft", not >"Microsoft", at the time): > >AN OPEN LETTER TO HOBBYISTS > > February 3, 1976 > > By William Henry Gates III > > > An Open Letter to Hobbyists > ... > 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 thank 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? I remember those days - coming in just a year later. The computer industry wasn't too fond of Gates, after he basically accused all hobbyists of being thieve. As I recall his software was $150 - while many other BASIC's were $50 to $75, and some less. Tiny BASIC in Vol II of Drs.Dobbs was there for the keing in of code at about the same time. A great many people then considered Gates as being someone who was trying to rip them off. He was really po'ed about the copy fest the computer clubs would have to bootleg his software, but I sometimes wonder if he'd priced that in $50 range how many would have become legitimate users. $150 in 1976 was a substantial sum. Or did I remember that figure incorrectly. I remember buying 16K of dynamic RAM for only $300
-(
-- Bill Vermillion bv @ wjv.com



From: ge...@shuswap.net (Gene Wirchenko) Subject: Re: "Open Letter to Hobbyists" Date: 1999/02/23 Message-ID: <36d24350.44841627@news.shuswap.net>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 447398874 References: <7apk0t$6ml$1@mozo.cc.purdue.edu> <36D014C6.13E456C@trailing-edge.com> <F7L3v5.4n2@bilver.magicnet.netREMOVETHIS> Organization: Okanagan Internet Junction Reply-To: ge...@shuswap.net Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers b...@bilver.magicnet.netREMOVETHIS (Bill Vermillion) wrote: [snip] >> 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? > >I remember those days - coming in just a year later. The computer >industry wasn't too fond of Gates, after he basically accused all >hobbyists of being thieve. Yes, but he was pretty much correct. During the TRS-80 / Apple II days, I remember the copy fests that went on for software that sold for $20 Can. and less. Speaking with one retailer, he made the comment that his software sales dropped severely after user groups got going. I don't wonder why. One user group said that they were going to give away copies of a text processing program. They apparently meant one that was PD, but used the name "Electric Pencil" in describing it. EP was a commercial program and the software company apparently got word of it. The user group had to retract their statement and state that they weren't referring to illegal copying. I remember the president of the group repeatedly stating their no illegal copying policy in a wink-wink-nudge-nudge tone. He apparently resented having to state that the club didn't tolerate stealing. >As I recall his software was $150 - while many other BASIC's were >$50 to $75, and some less. Tiny BASIC in Vol II of Drs.Dobbs was >there for the keing in of code at about the same time. A great >many people then considered Gates as being someone who was trying >to rip them off. > >He was really po'ed about the copy fest the computer clubs would >have to bootleg his software, but I sometimes wonder if he'd priced >that in $50 range how many would have become legitimate users. I saw many people justify their stealing of *$20* programs. No wonder they were irritated. How would you like it if you were correctly described as being a petty thief? >$150 in 1976 was a substantial sum. Or did I remember that figure >incorrectly. I remember buying 16K of dynamic RAM for only $300 >:-( Sincerely, Gene Wirchenko Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation: I have preferences. You have biases. He/She has prejudices.
From: bill_h <bil...@sunsouthwest.com> Subject: Re: "Open Letter to Hobbyists" Date: 1999/02/23 Message-ID: <36D30012.5423@sunsouthwest.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 447573158 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <7apk0t$6ml$1@mozo.cc.purdue.edu> <36D014C6.13E456C@trailing-edge.com> <IU5A2.348$iO5.21963@srvr1.engin.umich.edu> <36d4a9de.359018320@Rockyd> <7at587$6bd$1@eve.enteract.com> <7atcd7$7b7$1@news.seed.net.tw> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@remarQ.com X-Trace: 919794349 W4NEQTDLS271FA9C5C usenet57.supernews.com Organization: Posted via RemarQ, http://www.remarQ.com - Discussions start here! Mime-Version: 1.0 Reply-To: bil...@sunsouthwest.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Dan Strychalski wrote: > > David Scheidt <dsche...@enteract.com> posted -- > > > Alexandre Pechtchanski <alex*@*rockvax.rockefeller.edu> wrote: > >: Didn't he use the time on Harvard's PDP-10 from his student account, which > >: conditions specifically forbid commercial use, and never paid for it? > >: Wasn't it why he was kicked out of Harvard? > > > > This is one of the rumors. I don't think you will get harvard to talk about > > why he left, though. And Bill himself would deny being a thief or a liar. > > The following was my introduction to this matter: > > http://www.boston.com/globe/metro/packages/harvard/partone.htm Well....... This Boston Globe article says Gates HIMSELF put the code he was working on "for a New Mexico company" in the public domain IN ORDER TO AVOID EXPULSION. It appears he was being accused not only of mis-using Harvard equipment, but also Federal funding for it. UNDER OATH ("Affidavit of William Gates.....Comes now William Gates, having been first duly sworn upon his oath, and for his affidavit states:") it appears he told a somewhat different story: "35. Paragraph 6 of the License agreement requires MITS to secure secrecy agreements from all third parties to whom it sells the Basic Program. H. Edward Roberts, President of MITS, unilaterally discontinued using secrecy agreements some time during October or November of 1975 without prior consent from Paul Allen or me. "36. I personally asked Mr. Roberts to continue to use the secrecy agreements but he continued to refuse to employ them. "37. After the secrecy agreements were stopped, I received reports of large scale program swapping of the Basic Program among computer club members, thus diminishing the value of the Basic Program." So, according to this affidavit, signed 9th May 1977, it doesn't appear Basic was "in the public domain", Harvard agreement or no Harvard agreement. But Gates' attorney went a step further. MITS sued over the claims by Gates and Allen upon which they sent (dated 30 April 1977) Notice of Intent to Terminate their licensing agreement. In the "Answer and Counterclaim Answer" dated 16th June 1977, Attorney Mines stated: "Third Defense "Plaintiff MITS by its own actions has publicly disclosed the computer program defined in the license agreement .... and by such action has put such program in the public domain. Plaintiffs are therefore barred, estopped or have waived any right to institue these proceedings". Maybe somebody oughta ring up ol' Ed Roberts and see if HE knew Basic had been placed in the public domain..... BY GATES..... to AVOID EXPULSION!!!!!


From: dpesc...@u.washington.edu (Derek Peschel) Subject: Re: "Open Letter to Hobbyists" Date: 1999/02/23 Message-ID: <7av7r9$if4$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 447647993 References: <7apk0t$6ml$1@mozo.cc.purdue.edu> <7at587$6bd$1@eve.enteract.com> <7atcd7$7b7$1@news.seed.net.tw> <36D30012.5423@sunsouthwest.com> X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp1.u.washington.edu 919806633 18916 (None) 140.142.17.38 Organization: University of Washington, Seattle Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers NNTP-Posting-User: dpeschel In article <36D30012.5...@sunsouthwest.com>, bill_h <bil...@sunsouthwest.com> wrote: >Dan Strychalski wrote: >> The following was my introduction to this matter: >> >> http://www.boston.com/globe/metro/packages/harvard/partone.htm >Well....... > >This Boston Globe article says Gates HIMSELF put the code he was >working on "for a New Mexico company" in the public domain IN ORDER >TO AVOID EXPULSION. It appears he was being accused not only of >mis-using Harvard equipment, but also Federal funding for it. > >UNDER OATH ("Affidavit of William Gates.....Comes now William Gates, >having been first duly sworn upon his oath, and for his affidavit >states:") it appears he told a somewhat different story: I'm confused. I skimmed the Globe article about Harvard. I don't recall it actually identifying the code which was put into the public domain. Perhaps it was Gates' 8080 simulator which got him in trouble at Harvard, and not BASIC itself? In that case, therre's no contradiction with the affidavit. Where did you get the affidavit? Did I miss something in the Globe article? -- Derek
From: b...@bilver.magicnet.netREMOVETHIS (Bill Vermillion) Subject: Re: "Open Letter to Hobbyists" Date: 1999/02/24 Message-ID: <F7My2u.Fx5@bilver.magicnet.netREMOVETHIS>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 447721358 References: <7apk0t$6ml$1@mozo.cc.purdue.edu> <36D014C6.13E456C@trailing-edge.com> <F7L3v5.4n2@bilver.magicnet.netREMOVETHIS> <36D304CE.4AC9@compuserve.com> Organization: W.J.Vermillion - Orlando / Winter Park Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers In article <36D304CE.4...@compuserve.com>, Sam Yorko <JOATnospam...@compuserve.com> wrote: >Bill Vermillion wrote: >> As I recall his software was $150 - while many other BASIC's were >> $50 to $75, and some less. Tiny BASIC in Vol II of Drs.Dobbs was >> there for the keing in of code at about the same time. A great >> many people then considered Gates as being someone who was trying >> to rip them off. >Wasn't the first issue of Dr Dobbs a one-off that was nothing but a Tiny >Basic source, and then it continued on from there on a regular basis? It was a compliation of much of the stuff from PCC (I may have a copy or two of that burried deep somewhere). Issue 1, vol 1 is 19 pages long - I just counted. (reprint in the published volume 1). The one that made it understanable for me, becuase of the extended comments was Palo Alto Tiny Basic by Li-Chien Wang. I just noticed something intersting. He predated Stallman as the code has this notice at the top. 10 June, 1976 @copyleft All wrongs reserved. I never noticed that before. -- Bill Vermillion bv @ wjv.com
From: jsav...@ecn.ab.ca () Subject: Re: "Open Letter to Hobbyists" Date: 1999/02/24 Message-ID: <36d378ed.0@ecn.ab.ca>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 447754391 References: <7apk0t$6ml$1@mozo.cc.purdue.edu> <36D014C6.13E456C@trailing-edge.com> <IU5A2.348$iO5.21963@srvr1.engin.umich.edu> <36d4a9de.359018320@Rockyd> <7at587$6bd$1@eve.enteract.com> X-Complaints-To: news@sas.ab.ca X-Trace: news.sas.ab.ca 919829309 25972 198.161.206.2 (24 Feb 1999 04:08:29 GMT) Organization: Edmonton Community Network NNTP-Posting-Date: 24 Feb 1999 04:08:29 GMT Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers David Scheidt (dsche...@enteract.com) wrote:
Alexandre Pechtchanski <alex*@*rockvax.rockefeller.edu> wrote:
 : Didn't he use the time on Harvard's PDP-10 from his student account, which
 : conditions specifically forbid commercial use, and never paid for it? Wasn't it
 : why he was kicked out of Harvard?
This is one of the rumors. I don't think you will get harvard to talk about
why he left, though. And Bill himself would deny being a thief or a liar.
I've wondered about that...but if it had any substance, why wouldn't Harvard be interested in suing for, say, a 30% interest in Microsoft? Actually, though, although Mr. Gates may have had some opportunities not everyone had, I'd be more inclined to call this showing initiative than theft. But then, while I think that it *is* wrong to take advantage of people who produce creative works under the encouragement our copyright laws provide, I don't think the term "theft" is precisely appropriate for that either. John Savard
From: Ed Thelen <ethe...@home.com> Subject: Re: "Open Letter to Hobbyists" Date: 1999/02/24 Message-ID: <36D3805D.E37A44F6@home.com> X-Deja-AN: 447759575 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <7apk0t$6ml$1@mozo.cc.purdue.edu> <36D014C6.13E456C@trailing-edge.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Complaints-To: abuse@home.net X-Trace: news.rdc1.sfba.home.com 919830641 24.1.72.212 (Tue, 23 Feb 1999 20:30:41 PDT) Organization: @Home Network MIME-Version: 1.0 Reply-To: ethe...@home.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 23 Feb 1999 20:30:41 PDT Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Thanks for the view of "the letter" (below) I notice a lot of animosity in many follow-up posts Here is (a little of) my experience - I was a regular at the Home Brew Club near Palo Alto, CA in the '70s - about the time "the letter" came out, it was regarded as a public service to copy software and give the copies to other people - someone had (8?) paper tape copies of BASIC (for Hp2100 or MITS or ???) and said he would give a copy to anyone who would make more copies and bring them to the next meeting - in the spirit of public service, I promised, and got a copy. The paper tape was a spool about 5" in diameter. Went to my employer's computer and used "his" tape and made 5 copies. - took the 5 copies back to the next meeting and made the same announcement - however, I was shocked by the people that rushed over, mobbed me, and even stole my "original". I felt violated - raped - and made a fool of - no one else had brought any tapes. - the public service fad seemed to have died in a burst of red eyed lust and give-me-a-free-tape feeding frenzy. I never provided free copies to strangers again. - I now try to reward those who spend their time doing shareware - and even commercial ware. I feel guilty that I have never contributed to those kind people that did gnu projects. Been there, done that Ed Thelen P.S. I wish Linux well. My son helped port it over to the PowerPC. However, somebody eventually has to pay for the pizza, beer, and electricity (maybe even the phone, car, server and apartment). If nobody gets paid for software, most people I know will go on welfare or beg or pick grapes, or ...) The server for gnu.org is "Connection refused" right now as I write. :-( Tim Shoppa wrote: > > David Jacoby wrote: > > > > Years ago, before it was big, Bill Gates wrote an open letter to > > computer hobbyists, in part asking "How do you expect people to > > write commercial-quality programs without pay?" Since Linux and > > FSF have answered that question, I've been looking for this document > > online. But I can't find it. Any pointers? > > From my usenet archives (note that it was "Micro-Soft", not > "Microsoft", at the time): > > AN OPEN LETTER TO HOBBYISTS > > February 3, 1976 > > By William Henry Gates III > > 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 thank 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 $2 an hour. > > Why is this? As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, > most of you steal your software. Hardware must be paid for, but > software is something to share. Who cares if the people who worked on > it get paid? > > Is this fair? One thing you don't do by stealing software is > get back at MITS for some problem you may have had. MITS doesn't make > money selling software. The royalty paid to us, the manual, the tape > and the overhead make it a break-even operation. One thing you do do > is prevent good software from being written. Who can afford to do > professional work for nothing? What hobbyist can put 3-man years into > programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute > for free? The fact is, no one besides us has invested a lot of money > in hobby software. We have written 6800 BASIC, and are writing 8080 > APL and 6800 APL, but there is very little incentive to make this > software available to hobbyists. Most directly, the thing you do is > theft. > > What about the guys who re-sell Altair BASIC, aren't they > making money on hobby software? Yes, but those who have been reported > to us may lose in the end. They are the ones who give hobbyists a bad > name, and should be kicked out of any club meeting they show up at. > > I would appreciate letters from any one who wants to pay up, > or has a suggestion or comment. Just write to me at 1180 Alvarado SE, > #114, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87108. Nothing would please me more > than being able to hire ten programmers and deluge the hobby market > with good software. > > Bill Gates > > General Partner, Micro-Soft
From: korp...@islay.ssl.berkeley.edu (Eric J. Korpela) Subject: Re: "Open Letter to Hobbyists" Date: 1999/02/24 Message-ID: <7b1fos$cgb$1@agate.berkeley.edu>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 447976604 References: <7apk0t$6ml$1@mozo.cc.purdue.edu> <36d4a9de.359018320@Rockyd> <7at587$6bd$1@eve.enteract.com> <36d378ed.0@ecn.ab.ca> Organization: Cal Berkeley-- Space Sciences Lab Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers In article <36d378e...@ecn.ab.ca>, <jsav...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote: >Actually, though, although Mr. Gates may have had some opportunities not >everyone had, I'd be more inclined to call this showing initiative than >theft. Basically, if a computer owned by the government or the university is used to develop software, that software belongs to the university or the government. Every bit of code I write on the machines at work gets a "Copyright 1999, UC Regents" put on it (should they desire the protection). Things that I write at home are mine. If I showed Mr. Gates' type of initiative, there would be big trouble. > But then, while I think that it *is* wrong to take advantage of >people who produce creative works under the encouragement our copyright >laws provide, I don't think the term "theft" is precisely appropriate for >that either. Apparently, in the view of Mr. Gate, it's not theft when he steals, only when others do so. It surely shows how the "entreprenuer" got its name. Eric -- Eric Korpela | An object at rest can never be korp...@ssl.berkeley.edu | stopped. <a href="http://sag-www.ssl.berkeley.edu/~korpela">Click for home page.</a>
From: bill_h <bil...@sunsouthwest.com> Subject: Re: "Open Letter to Hobbyists" Date: 1999/02/24 Message-ID: <36D41569.307F@sunsouthwest.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 447906077 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <7apk0t$6ml$1@mozo.cc.purdue.edu> <7at587$6bd$1@eve.enteract.com> <7atcd7$7b7$1@news.seed.net.tw> <36D30012.5423@sunsouthwest.com> <7av7r9$if4$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@remarQ.com X-Trace: 919866105 W4NEQTDLS2162A9C5C usenet54.supernews.com Organization: Posted via RemarQ, http://www.remarQ.com - Discussions start here! Mime-Version: 1.0 Reply-To: bil...@sunsouthwest.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Derek Peschel wrote: > > In article <36D30012.5...@sunsouthwest.com>, > bill_h <bil...@sunsouthwest.com> wrote: > >Dan Strychalski wrote: > > >> The following was my introduction to this matter: > >> > >> http://www.boston.com/globe/metro/packages/harvard/partone.htm > > >Well....... > > > >This Boston Globe article says Gates HIMSELF put the code he was > >working on "for a New Mexico company" in the public domain IN ORDER > >TO AVOID EXPULSION. It appears he was being accused not only of > >mis-using Harvard equipment, but also Federal funding for it. > > > >UNDER OATH ("Affidavit of William Gates.....Comes now William Gates, > >having been first duly sworn upon his oath, and for his affidavit > >states:") it appears he told a somewhat different story: > > I'm confused. I skimmed the Globe article about Harvard. I don't recall it > actually identifying the code which was put into the public domain. Perhaps > it was Gates' 8080 simulator which got him in trouble at Harvard, and not > BASIC itself? In that case, therre's no contradiction with the affidavit. I guess you have to rely on the many accounts of what happened - the tape loader may have been written on the way to MITS, but the actual Basic code was done at Harvard. Also, I think I read Paul Allen did the 8080 emulation. I have a large collection of every book I can find about the evolution of the personal computer (I'm still looking for Forrest Mim's book - "Siliconnections" - if anybody has one....). It helps to put various "versions" side by side. Not necessarily that somebody isn't telling the truth, but it helps to illuminate the frequently totally differing points of view. > Where did you get the affidavit? Did I miss something in the Globe article? I spent about three hours in the basement of the Bernalillo County Courthouse fighting with a recalcitrant microfilm machine, at 40 cents a page, making a copy of everything MITSian...... Can you believe they THREW AWAY the papers, including a number of now famous signatures? What a loss of artifacts! Bill Tucson
From: Ed Thelen <ethe...@home.com> Subject: Re: "Open Letter to Hobbyists" Date: 1999/02/24 Message-ID: <36D3805D.E37A44F6@home.com> X-Deja-AN: 447759575 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <7apk0t$6ml$1@mozo.cc.purdue.edu> <36D014C6.13E456C@trailing-edge.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Complaints-To: abuse@home.net X-Trace: news.rdc1.sfba.home.com 919830641 24.1.72.212 (Tue, 23 Feb 1999 20:30:41 PDT) Organization: @Home Network MIME-Version: 1.0 Reply-To: ethe...@home.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 23 Feb 1999 20:30:41 PDT Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Thanks for the view of "the letter" (below) I notice a lot of animosity in many follow-up posts Here is (a little of) my experience - I was a regular at the Home Brew Club near Palo Alto, CA in the '70s - about the time "the letter" came out, it was regarded as a public service to copy software and give the copies to other people - someone had (8?) paper tape copies of BASIC (for Hp2100 or MITS or ???) and said he would give a copy to anyone who would make more copies and bring them to the next meeting - in the spirit of public service, I promised, and got a copy. The paper tape was a spool about 5" in diameter. Went to my employer's computer and used "his" tape and made 5 copies. - took the 5 copies back to the next meeting and made the same announcement - however, I was shocked by the people that rushed over, mobbed me, and even stole my "original". I felt violated - raped - and made a fool of - no one else had brought any tapes. - the public service fad seemed to have died in a burst of red eyed lust and give-me-a-free-tape feeding frenzy. I never provided free copies to strangers again. - I now try to reward those who spend their time doing shareware - and even commercial ware. I feel guilty that I have never contributed to those kind people that did gnu projects. Been there, done that Ed Thelen P.S. I wish Linux well. My son helped port it over to the PowerPC. However, somebody eventually has to pay for the pizza, beer, and electricity (maybe even the phone, car, server and apartment). If nobody gets paid for software, most people I know will go on welfare or beg or pick grapes, or ...) The server for gnu.org is "Connection refused" right now as I write. :-( Tim Shoppa wrote: > > David Jacoby wrote: > > > > Years ago, before it was big, Bill Gates wrote an open letter to > > computer hobbyists, in part asking "How do you expect people to > > write commercial-quality programs without pay?" Since Linux and > > FSF have answered that question, I've been looking for this document > > online. But I can't find it. Any pointers? > > From my usenet archives (note that it was "Micro-Soft", not > "Microsoft", at the time): > > AN OPEN LETTER TO HOBBYISTS > > February 3, 1976 > > By William Henry Gates III > > 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 thank 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

1999

From: a...@cs.net Subject: Re: Gates' Open Letter (1976) Date: 1999/02/25 Message-ID: <ah-2502992358120001@ppp28.ccms.net>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 448609121 References: <Pine.GSO.3.95qL.990221135415.9564A-100000@aloha.cc.columbia.edu> X-Trace: news15.ispnews.com 920008773 204.181.93.38 (Fri, 26 Feb 1999 00:59:33 EST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1999 00:59:33 EST Newsgroups: alt.microsoft.sucks Kewl! I've been looking also for this epic letter... it marks exactly where MS started stealing from the public domain... I agree everyone should get paid for their work... but Software is just like Music... bands have to play for years to achieve any status, then only make a "little" money, not BILLIONS! MS Office goes for $449, brand new... that is completely absurd! It completely proves they are a dishonest monopoly... Maybe its worth $15.98, exactly like a Popular Music title.. but for the public to continue to "pay into" the concept that software is more complex or harder to build than great music is misguided. Let's help spread the word that the public continues to be diserved by Bill and Crew... and this following letter is the root of the issue... G e n n i c a ge...@ccms.net > I'd been looking for this for a while, and i finally found a copy. For others > who want to read it, and to help myself find it again on Deja News if i > lose it, i'm posting it here. > > > AN OPEN LETTER TO HOBBYISTS > > February 3, 1976 > > By William Henry Gates III > > 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
From: Mike Schiraldi <mg...@columbia.edu> Subject: Re: Gates' Open Letter (1976) Date: 1999/02/26 Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.3.95qL.990226010752.1957B-100000@sawasdee.cc.columbia.edu>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 448615319 References: <199902260612.AAA28374@cc1.ccms.net> To: a...@cs.net Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Complaints-To: postmaster@columbia.edu X-Trace: newsmaster.cc.columbia.edu 920010489 10622 128.59.35.136 (26 Feb 1999 06:28:09 GMT) Organization: Columbia University Mime-Version: 1.0 NNTP-Posting-Date: 26 Feb 1999 06:28:09 GMT Newsgroups: alt.microsoft.sucks
  1. Kewl! I've been looking also for this epic letter... it marks exactly
  2. where MS started stealing from the public domain... I agree everyone
Personally, i think that's an exagerration. It wasn't stealing, but it was greedy. In this day and age it seems like a perfectly valid business, but back then things were totally different. Sure, if your company had a complex database or application custom-written, it was the norm to pay - since your company was pretty much the only entity that had a need for it. But anything that could be useful to lots of people was shared. The general argument, so i hear (i wasn't born yet), was: Bill, in letter: I spent a lot of time writing this application, and i deserve some money for it. John Q. Hacker: I find it insulting that you think your application is any better than my application, which took me a lot of time to write as well. I shared my application to save others the trouble of writing it, and in return the community shared their applications with me. Tell me, who wrote the software you used to write BASIC? And did you learn to program without looking at other people's code?
  1. MS Office goes for $449, brand new... that is completely absurd! It
  2. completely proves they are a dishonest monopoly...
Again, that's quite a jump. I agree Microsoft has a monopoly, but the proof is a lot more complex and qualitative than that. For the complete proof, read the daily reports from the antitrust trial.
  1. Maybe its worth $15.98, exactly like a Popular Music title.. but for the
  2. public to continue to "pay into" the concept that software is more complex
  3. or harder to build than great music is misguided.
It's worth what people will pay for it. That's the economic definition of worth. But i agree that people are willing to pay a lot more for it than they would if there was real competition. Here's how i see it: Microsoft strikes it rich with the offer to provide an OS for IBM computers. Down the road, Microsoft Windows has to battle IBM's OS/2. Microsoft has contracts to provide DOS to PC makers and offers discounts on the DOS/Windows combo. That way, they become the standard GUI that comes with a new computer. Most people are likely to use whatever OS comes with the computer than attempt to install some other one. In other words, Microsoft leverages its DOS monopoly to gain a monopoly on the GUI. Once Windows is a standard, Microsoft can squish DOS' competitors by making Windows incompatible with their DOSes. So Microsoft also uses its Windows monopoly to maintain its DOS one. Then it takes on the office suite market. Obviously graphical applications are the way of the future, and when a new version of Windows comes out, Microsoft already has a new version of Office - while Lotus and friends have to figure out the OS and play catch up. So Microsoft uses its Windows monopoly to take over the office suite market. It's trivial to get everyone to switch to Win95 for the same reason. Now it enters the server world. Hmm.. Microsoft's server OS works better with Microsoft Office, the office suite everyone uses, and with all the other apps written to be compatible with the dominant Microsoft system. Then they come out with a browser, and include it with every copy of their OS and office suite... Etc. You can take it from here.

comp.os.linux.advocacy

From: qwe...@rigel.island.nl (Rob S. Wolfram) Subject: Re: If open-source software is so much cooler, why isn't Transmeta getting it? Date: 2000/02/15 Message-ID: <slrn8ajgi2.f91.qwerty@rigel.island.nl>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 586329287 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit References: <saeqt33sivs33@news.supernews.com> <88bcha$lj6$1@yama.mcc.ac.uk> <saj2allg2pd132@corp.supernews.com> X-Server-Date: 15 Feb 2000 21:16:50 GMT Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 X-Complaints-To: abuse@xs4all.nl X-Trace: news1.xs4all.nl 950657753 13652 194.109.57.18 (15 Feb 2000 23:35:53 GMT) Organization: Earth User-Agent: slrn/0.9.5.3 (UNIX) Mime-Version: 1.0 Reply-To: qwe...@hamal.xs4all.nl NNTP-Posting-Date: 15 Feb 2000 23:35:53 GMT Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy Drestin Black <drestinbl...@home.com.nospam> wrote: >"Geoff Lane" <zzas...@twirl.mcc.ac.uk> wrote in message >news:88bcha$lj6$1@yama.mcc.ac.uk... >> Was MS ever "loved"? More tolerated. Now that it's past it's prime and >> actively attempting to stifle innovation, it's time for it to go. > >I think perhaps you weren't there back then... Were you? I wasn't but I didn't follow too much afterwards and I lurk a lot in a.f.c. I also read the 1980 interview by Báthory-Kitsz and the 1976 "Open Letter to Hobbyists". I think that Gates and Allen are mainly responsible for the proprietizing of software, contrary to the 1978 CONTU report, and he was definately not liked for that. Come to think of it, the US had the CONTU report in 1978 and the DMCA 20 years later. How much can a country slip... Cheers, Rob -- Rob S. Wolfram <qwe...@hamal.xs4all.nl> PGP 0x07606049 GPG 0xD61A655D "I imagine that playing with one's genital piercings while waiting for a client's disk to fsck or something would probably not be appropriate." -- 'Skud' in a.s.r.

2000

Path: supernews.google.com!sn-xit-02!sn-east!supernews.com!news-feed.riddles.org.uk!freenix!fr.usenet-edu.net!usenet-edu.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!portc03.blue.aol.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!firehose.mindspring.com!not-for-mail From: <m...@mindspring.com> Newsgroups: alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.linux.misc Subject: Re: End-User Alternative to Windows Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2000 16:41:03 -0700 Organization: MindSpring Enterprises Lines: 75 Message-ID: <8ph6g2$t8i$1@slb7.atl.mindspring.net> References: <OE5u5.20452$gg.5785873@typhoon.southeast.rr.com> <slrn8ribe4.f1i.ewill@lexi.athghost7038suus.net> <8pbjta$p35$2@knot.queensu.ca> <39B9611D.95AD4EEE@earthlink.net> <RJvu5.2186$fz.45438@nntp1.chello.se> <s74lrs4sjohq467db72cdfrdmq8rh5duu7@4ax.com> <968603186.1922532940@news.ntplx.net> <39BC15B6.1D27412B@attglobal.net> Reply-To: <m...@mindspring.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: c7.ae.c7.5f X-Server-Date: 10 Sep 2000 23:46:10 GMT X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2314.1300 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 Larry Ebbitt <ebb...@attglobal.net> wrote in message news:39BC15B6.1D27412B@attglobal.net... > sinister-catsup wrote: > > > Rambling aside my point is simple, there are potentially good operating system > > alternatives out there, but what got Mr Gates where he is today is not his > > technology, it was his sales force. Think about it. > > Right as rain. His sales force and his complete lack of ethics and honesty. The lack of ethics was apparent right from the beginning. According to Microsofts own website the first customer of the Bill Gates and Paul Allen partnership that grew into Microsoft was MITS. Paul Allen was also an employee of MITS as Director of Software Paul Allen was the read the time line excerpt below or read it at http://www.microsoft.com/billgates/bio/1975.htm and http://www.microsoft.com/billgates/bio/1976.htm; you will see a clear conflict of interest that established the foundation of everything that came after from that company. Bill Gates and Paul Allen License BASIC to MITS 2/1/75 Bill Gates and Paul Allen complete BASIC and license it to their first customer, MITS of Albuquerque, New Mexico, the manufacturer of the Altair 8800 personal computer. This is the first computer language program written for a personal computer. Paul Allen Joins MITS 3/1/75 Paul Allen joins MITS (Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems) as Director of Software. Altair BASIC runs 4/7/75 The MITS Altair newsletter, Computer Notes, declares, "Altair BASIC -- Up and Running." BASIC 2.0 Ships 7/1/75 Bill Gates' and Paul Allen's BASIC officially ships as version 2.0 in both 4K and 8K editions. Contract with MITS Signed 7/22/75 Paul Allen and Bill Gates sign a licensing agreement with MITS regarding the BASIC Interpreter. Microsoft is not yet an official partnership. In fact, the name has not even been chosen. Micro-soft Name Used 11/29/75 In a letter to Paul Allen, Bill Gates uses the name "Micro-soft" to refer to their Partnership. This is the earliest known written reference. An Open Letter to Hobbyists 2/3/76 Bill Gates is one of the first programmers to raise the issue of software piracy. In his "An Open Letter to Hobbyists," first published in Computer Notes, Gates accuses hobbyists of stealing software and thus preventing "...good software from being written." He prophetically concludes with the line, "...Nothing would please me more than being able to hire ten programmers and deluge the hobby market with good software." Bill Gates Keynotes WACC 3/27/76 Twenty-year old Bill Gates gives the opening address at the First Annual World Altair Computer Convention (WACC) held in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Microsoft Refines BASIC 7/1/76 Microsoft refines and enhances BASIC to sell to other customers including DTC, General Electric, NCR, and Citibank. Paul Allen Leaves MITS 11/1/76 Paul Allen resigns from MITS to join Microsoft full time.

comp.os.linux.advocacy, 2001

Path: archiver1.google.com!newsfeed.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!cyclone.bc.net!newsfeed.direct.ca!look.ca!newshub2.rdc1.sfba.home.com!news.home.com!news1.sttln1.wa.home.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3B928CF0.2CA7477E@home.com> From: GreyCloud <drhollan...@home.com> X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.77 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.4.3-12 i586) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy Subject: Re: open source is a cancer, MS says References: <3B8722BE.BAEF3BBB@caramail.com> <19Xh7.11881$x84.3248631@ruti.visi.com> <3B884796.DA13391E@mohawksoft.com> <PUZh7.11911$x84.3264555@ruti.visi.com> <Lv_h7.113717$k7.29235096@news1.rdc1.tn.home.com> <AA%h7.11925$x84.3276737@ruti.visi.com> <FcBi7.121850$k7.30969795@news1.rdc1.tn.home.com> <TIFi7.12659$x84.3564692@ruti.visi.com> <72gmm9.l31.ln@mandrake.swissonline.ch> <pca0ptc5cldvigs4042qlauglfvi52231o@4ax.com> <cehrm9.r12.ln@mandrake.swissonline.ch> <9mrr00$alb$1@bob.news.rcn.net> <ZUhk7.141128$k7.36148680@news1.rdc1.tn.home.com> <9msr0s$6ve$1@bob.news.rcn.net> <wWqk7.142229$k7.36547608@news1.rdc1.tn.home.com> <9mteh1$6fn$1@bob.news.rcn.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 52 Date: Sun, 02 Sep 2001 19:44:50 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.248.108.46 X-Complaints-To: abuse@home.net X-Trace: news1.sttln1.wa.home.com 999459890 24.248.108.46 (Sun, 02 Sep 2001 12:44:50 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 02 Sep 2001 12:44:50 PDT Organization: Excite@Home - The Leader in Broadband http://home.com/faster John Saunders wrote: > "Linonut" <ahlstr...@home.com> wrote in message > news:wWqk7.142229$k7.36547608@news1.rdc1.tn.home.com... > > After takin' a swig o' grog, John Saunders belched out this bit o' wisdom: > > > > >> A lot of people were pissed off when Bill Gates burst into the world > > >> of coders sharing their work, and he started demanding to be paid, > > >> rather than to share. Sigh. It worked. Luckily, most basic > > >> scientists still share their code. > > > > > >Uh, Bill Gates wasn't the first programmer to ask for money. Be serious > > >here. > > > > I'm merely repeating what I'd read in some book about the history > > of the internet. As I understand it, he was just about the first > > programming to rabidly insist on payment for every copy he > > produced. Not that insisting on payment was bad, but Bill > > was particularly obnoxious about it. Sigh. It worked. > > I'd love to know what book you read that in. It's seriously revisionist > history. > > In the cover picture, did Gates have horns and a tail? > -- > John Saunders > j...@ma.ultranet.com "Bill Gates was the first programmer to call attention to the piracy problem. In January 1976, he wrote an 'Open Letter to Hobbyists,' which was published, among other places, in the 'Homebrew Computer Club Newsletter,' in which he lamented the widespread larceny of paper tape copies of his BASIC and called the hobbyists thieves. 'The amount of royalties we have received from sales to hobbyists makes the time spent on Altair BASIC worth lenn than $2 an hour,' Gates wrote. '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?' Gates' diatribe had no effect whatever on the hobbyists except to anger them further at the $500 charged for his BASIC. Hobbyists could see no justification for such a price -- as much as the computer itself -- and they knew that they needed BASIC to make effective use fo their machines. From time to time software developers tried to copyproof their programs by subtle software tricks that either prevented copying a disk or booby trapped the copied program. Generally copy protection has failed for one fundamental reason -- if a copy-protected program can be written, it can also be cracked. Most companies began to view piracy as a cost of doing business." page 153 of "Fire In The Valley" by Paul Freiberger and Michael Swane.


= comp.sys.hp48, 2001

Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!btnet-peer0!btnet-peer1!btnet!newsfeeds-atl2!newsfeeds-atl1.usenetserver.com!e3500-atl2.usenetserver.com.POSTED!53ab2750!not-for-mail Sender: Wayne Brown <fwbr...@beowulf.altec.com> From: Wayne Brown <fwbr...@bellsouth.net> Subject: Re: Congratulations Mrs Fiorina Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp48 References: <BOnGav008+Os@opalo.etsiig.uniovi.es> <9msu1u44m34sh4ohchgdmao65qjcvtonhl@4ax.com> <9vo435$ukv$05$1@news.t-online.com> <3C1FC922.DFA936D5@home.com> <3C2016DA.92367DF1@wildopensource.com> <PwYT7.11654$zB6.14691@newsfeeds.bigpond.com> <aD1U7.283463$ez.39340609@news1.rdc1.nj.home.com> <pve12u82otd1o31viq1b17nl0a9e006t0m@4ax.com> User-Agent: tin/1.4.3-20000502 ("Marian") (UNIX) (Linux/2.4.17-rc2 (i686)) Lines: 20 Message-ID: <EK4U7.209794$er5.2070713@e3500-atl2.usenetserver.com> X-Complaints-To: abuse@usenetserver.com X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly. NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2001 13:10:44 EST Organization: Bellsouth.Net Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2001 18:10:44 GMT Acme Optics <acmeopt...@earthlink.net> wrote: > Put your money where your mouthes are. Either switch to a Mac or > switch to LINUX. This message was composed and sent with tin running under Linux -- no M$ garbage involved at all. As for Gates: I've considered him despicable for many years, ever since he wrote his infamous "Open letter to Hobbyists," before most people had even heard of Microsoft. Until Gates offers a public retraction and apology for *that*, it doesn't matter if Microsoft finances a cure for cancer and gives it away free -- I'll *still* have no respect for Gates or his company. -- Wayne Brown | "When your tail's in a crack, you improvise fwbr...@bellsouth.net | if you're good enough. Otherwise you give | your pelt to the trapper." "e^(i*pi) = -1" -- Euler | -- John Myers Myers, "Silverlock"


comp.internet.net-happenings, 2002

Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!sn-xit-02!sn-post-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail From: net-happenings moderator <gsackm...@classroom.com> Newsgroups: comp.internet.net-happenings Subject: BOOK> Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade Approved: ralphie Date: Fri, 08 Mar 2002 14:03:03 -0000 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Message-ID: <u8hh4n8nqc6j21@corp.supernews.com> X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com Lines: 154 From: net-happenings moderator <gsackm...@classroom.com> Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2002 08:03:07 -0600 To: comp.internet.net-happenings Subject: BOOK> Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade From: "Lisa Mann"
  • Sent: Thu, 7 Mar 2002 12:52:40 -0800 (PST) For Immediate Release For more information, an interview with the author, a review copy, or images, contact: Lisa Mann (707) 827-7096 or li...@oreilly.com "FREE AS IN FREEDOM: RICHARD STALLMAN'S CRUSADE FOR FREE SOFTWARE" Sebastopol, CA--Why would Microsoft executives lie awake at night worrying about the antics of a long-haired, renegade hacker named Richard Stallman? Why do some of the smartest programmers on the planet revere this man as "St. Ignucius"? And how did a stubborn, precocious boy obsessed with creating the perfect model rocket grow up to play David to the software industry's Goliath? A new book, "Free as in Freedom," (Sam Williams, O'Reilly, US $22.95) traces Stallman's evolution from gifted, solitary child to teen outcast to revered and reviled crusader. As the leader of the free software movement, Stallman is one of the most influential and controversial personalities in hacker culture today. Through extensive interviews with Stallman, his family, and fellow hackers, author Sam Williams has created an intimate portrait of this freedom fighter. No one is apathetic about Stallman, the controversial founder of the Free Software Foundation (FSF). A brilliant coder, MacArthur "genius grant" recipient, and self-described borderline autistic, he single-handedly launched the movement that threatens to beat Microsoft by radically changing the rules of the software game. To Stallman, free software--"free as in speech, not beer"--is a moral imperative. From the moment he encountered "unfree" printer software in 1980, he has dedicated his life to ridding the world of proprietary code. Equipped with a messianic zeal, world-class programming chops, and a fair measure of geek charisma, he set out to enlist every last programmer in his crusade for freedom. "Nobody but Richard could have had the patience, and the stubbornness, and the will to build something this big," says Williams. "There are other people writing free software, but he's the one that made it an issue. He's the one that provided the initial gravitation that everybody else could gather around." This provocative chronicle offers fans and foes alike perspective on this inscrutable high-tech Robin Hood--as well as new understanding of the issues that promise to shape the future of the software industry. "Richard has developed a coherent philosophy that has forced all of us to reexamine our ideas of how software is produced, of what intellectual property means, and what the software community actually represents."--Ed Schonberg, Professor, NYU Computer Science Department "Stallman's ideals will define our future--if we are lucky." --Lawrence Lessig, Stanford Law School and author of "Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace" "I think if you want to understand Richard Stallman the human being, you really need to see all of the parts as a consistent whole. All those personal eccentricities that people see as obstacles to getting to know Stallman, really are Stallman: Richard's strong sense of personal frustration, his enormous sense of principles, his ethical commitment, his inability to compromise, especially on issues he considers fundamental. These are all the very reasons Richard did what he did when he did." --Eben Moglen, Professor of Law, Columbia University Law School and legal counsel to The FSF "He was special. A clear thinker and a clear designer." --Gerald Sussman, MIT faculty member and former A.I. Lab researcher "We were all geeks and nerds, but he was unusually poorly adjusted. He was also smart as sh*t. I've known a lot of smart people, but I think he was the smartest person I've ever known." --Dan Chess, Mathematics Professor, Hunter College, and fellow math prodigy "Who can afford to do professional work for nothing? What hobbyist can put three man-years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product, and distributing it for free?" --Bill Gates in his "Open Letter to Hobbyists" "I saw in Richard the stereotypical hacker type. We don't have much of them in Helsinki." --Linus Torvalds, seeing Richard for the first time in 1990 "Richard was the first to take up what is now a very important battle...He was an early, lone voice warning of how the concept of software intellectual property could undermine, rather than support, the programmer." --Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the World Wide Web and Director of the World Wide Web Consortium "Unquestionably one of the great seminal figures of hacker culture." --Eric Raymond, author of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" "A long overdue book on a fascinating person who, by sheer force of character, has changed how the world looks at technology." --Bob Young, Co-Founder, Red Hat, Inc. "Happy hacking, folks."--Richard M. Stallman Additional Resources: An interview with the author can be found online at: http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2002/02/28/williams.html Richard Stallman's personal web site: http://www.stallman.org/ Chapter 3, "A Portrait of the Hacker as a Young Man" is available free online at: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/freedom/chapter/ch03.html For more information about the book, including Table of Contents, index, author bio, and samples, see: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/freedom/ For a cover graphic in jpeg format, go to: ftp://ftp.ora.com/pub/graphics/book_covers/hi-res/0596002874.jpg Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software By Sam Williams March 2002 0-596-00287-4, Order Number: 2874 240 pages, $22.95 US $34.95 CA or...@oreilly.com (800) 998-9938 (707) 827-7000 http://www.oreilly.com/ About O'Reilly O'Reilly & Associates is the premier information source for leading-edge computer technologies. We communicate the knowledge of experts through our books, conferences, and web sites. Our books, known for their animals on the covers, occupy a treasured place on the shelves of the developers building the next generation of software. Our conferences and summits bring innovators together to shape the revolutionary ideas that spark new industries. From the Internet to the Web, Linux, open source, and now peer-to-peer networking, we put technologies on the map. For more information: http://www.oreilly.com
    1. # #
    O'Reilly is a registered trademark of O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

    • 2003

    Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!headwall.stanford.edu!newshub.sdsu.edu!elnk-nf2-pas!elnk-pas-nf1!newsfeed.earthlink.net!cyclone.socal.rr.com!news-west.rr.com!news.rr.com!cyclone.austin.rr.com!twister.austin.rr.com.POSTED!53ab2750!not-for-mail From: "Dana Raymond" <draym...@austin.rr.com> Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design References: <21ede509.0308251127.55bf9641@posting.google.com> <e715b5cc.0308252126.7db93914@posting.google.com> <21ede509.0308260721.7e5bb589@posting.google.com> <bigbn0$7o6$1@freenet9.carleton.ca> <biggta0udv@drn.newsguy.com> <d031eff0.0308281551.6e83aba@posting.google.com> <bimc6o$lud$1@freenet9.carleton.ca> <hkuvkvkj91m4kl3ugi0rp8c88k6nbvv80g@4ax.com> <3f50a56c$0$49104$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl> <bire75023f5@drn.newsguy.com> Subject: Re: chips over 30 years old still in heavy use Lines: 35 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2720.3000 X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2727.1300 Message-ID: <dPe4b.18412$Pn6.12753@twister.austin.rr.com> Date: Sun, 31 Aug 2003 04:27:53 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.153.192.139 X-Complaints-To: abuse@rr.com X-Trace: twister.austin.rr.com 1062304073 24.153.192.139 (Sat, 30 Aug 2003 23:27:53 CDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 30 Aug 2003 23:27:53 CDT Organization: Road Runner - Texas To semi-quote Monty Python... 256 bytes of RAM - LUXURY! Ever hear the story of when the AMSAI and/or ALTAIR were shown at some trade show years ago. In those days hardward was thought of as something one paid for, but software was considered 'ideas' and therefore should be free. Bill Gates was selling his very first BASIC interpreter on paper tape at that show. Someone bought it and within a day or so it was copied everywhere. It is reported that HE was not amused!  ;-) I've always thought this episode could shed some light on Bill's monopolostic ways. Dana Frank Raymond "Winfield Hill" <wh...@picovolt.com> wrote in message news:bire75023f5@drn.newsguy.com... > Arie de Muynck wrote... > > > > I really got a bargain price of $250,- for my first chip, including > > an ASR33 teletype on loan from Motorola Netherlands. With a roll of > > papertape - the native assembler. It could easily run in the 4 kB > > of RAM I had. > > > > Those days... > > Hey you were fortunate, many of us only had 256 bytes of ram. > That was the case for my 8080, and they had to be loaded with > banks of toggle switches from by-hand-assembled opcodes. Yet > I wrote several useful programs within those constraints. > > Thanks, > - Win >
    Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!ucberkeley!cyclone-sf.pbi.net!129.250.175.17!pln-w!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!drn From: Winfield Hill <wh...@picovolt.com> Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design Subject: Re: chips over 30 years old still in heavy use Date: 31 Aug 2003 03:47:28 -0700 Organization: Rowland Institute Lines: 46 Message-ID: <bisjo002fio@drn.newsguy.com> References: <21ede509.0308251127.55bf9641@posting.google.com> <e715b5cc.0308252126.7db93914@posting.google.com> <21ede509.0308260721.7e5bb589@posting.google.com> <bigbn0$7o6$1@freenet9.carleton.ca> <biggta0udv@drn.newsguy.com> <d031eff0.0308281551.6e83aba@posting.google.com> <bimc6o$lud$1@freenet9.carleton.ca> <hkuvkvkj91m4kl3ugi0rp8c88k6nbvv80g@4ax.com> <3f50a56c$0$49104$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl> <bire75023f5@drn.newsguy.com> <dPe4b.18412$Pn6.12753@twister.austin.rr.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-705.newsdawg.com X-Newsreader: Direct Read News 4.20 Dana Raymond wrote... > > To semi-quote Monty Python... 256 bytes of RAM - LUXURY! > > Ever hear the story of when the AMSAI and/or ALTAIR were > shown at some trade show years ago. In those days hardward > was thought of as something one paid for, but software was > considered 'ideas' and therefore should be free. Bill Gates > was selling his very first BASIC interpreter on paper tape > at that show. Someone bought it and within a day or so it > was copied everywhere. It is reported that HE was not amused! >  ;-) It was an Altair 8080 that only came with 256 bytes of ram. So I paid the big bucks and upgraded it to a full 1024 bytes, which filled the memory card. After what seemed years Altair offered 4k dynamic memory cards, which worked erratically. The IMSAI was later, and more advanced. It came with 4k, IIRC, and had a Z80 processor. By that time I'd upgraded my Altair to a 3rd-party Z80 processor board, not to mention a bigger power transformer and a new backplane. I was an early customer for Bill Gates and Paul Allen's paper-tape BASIC. It was a fine program and had many buyers, but he groused anyway and mailed us all letters of complaint (wish I'd saved that). Hey, I never improperly used my copy! I don't remember how much ram the original BASIC program took, but it may have been under 1k. Soon we were all using Tarbell cassette tape interfaces and Microsoft had a steady stream of new BASIC versions which sold well, so he was complaining all the way to the bank. Later I agonized over getting a Processor Technology 64k ram card, which went for an jawdropping $1k, IIRC. I spent big bucks in that territory to get an IMSAI dual 8" floppy drive, which came in a rack-mount case. My whole computer then went into a 19" relay rack, 4MHz Z80 CPU, 16k ram and all. Power. But sorry, noting the thread title, this all happened less than 30 years ago, mostly with chips less than 30 years old. Thanks, - Win
    Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newshub.sdsu.edu!cyclone.bc.net!torn!cunews!freenet-news!FreeNet.Carleton.CA!et472 From: et...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Michael Black) Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design Subject: Re: chips over 30 years old still in heavy use Date: 31 Aug 2003 13:48:44 GMT Organization: The National Capital FreeNet Lines: 19 Message-ID: <bisubs$d99$1@freenet9.carleton.ca> References: <e715b5cc.0308252126.7db93914@posting.google.com> <21ede509.0308260721.7e5bb589@posting.google.com> <bigbn0$7o6$1@freenet9.carleton.ca> <biggta0udv@drn.newsguy.com> <d031eff0.0308281551.6e83aba@posting.google.com> <bimc6o$lud$1@freenet9.carleton.ca> <hkuvkvkj91m4kl3ugi0rp8c88k6nbvv80g@4ax.com> <3f50a56c$0$49104$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl> <bire75023f5@drn.newsguy.com> <dPe4b.18412$Pn6.12753@twister.austin.rr.com> <bisjo002fio@drn.newsguy.com> Reply-To: et...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Michael Black) NNTP-Posting-Host: freenet10 X-Trace: freenet9.carleton.ca 1062337724 13609 134.117.136.30 (31 Aug 2003 13:48:44 GMT) X-Complaints-To: complaints@ncf.ca NNTP-Posting-Date: 31 Aug 2003 13:48:44 GMT X-Given-Sender: et...@freenet10.carleton.ca (Michael Black) Winfield Hill (wh...@picovolt.com) writes: >[stuff deleted] > I was an early customer for Bill Gates and Paul Allen's > paper-tape BASIC. It was a fine program and had many buyers, > but he groused anyway and mailed us all letters of complaint > (wish I'd saved that). Hey, I never improperly used my copy! > I don't remember how much ram the original BASIC program took, > but it may have been under 1k. > I thought the letter had been printed in Byte, but a few years back when I looked for it, I couldn't find it. I thought I had seen it in a magazine. Maybe it was in one of the more obscure magazines, one I didn't keep. It is, however, reprinted in "Fire in the Valley" by Freiberger and Swaine, in the photo section. The letter is titled "An Open Letter to Hobbyists", and is dated Feb. 3, 1976. Michael
    Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.algonet.se!algonet!oden.abc.se!bskb From: b...@m.a.c.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Bjarne_B=E4ckstr=F6m?=) Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design Subject: Re: AN OPEN LETTER TO HOBBYISTS Date: Mon, 1 Sep 2003 19:16:09 +0200 Organization: Design & Programming, Industrial Automation Lines: 34 Message-ID: <1g0mfmb.127rs6p3mopoqN%bskb@m.a.c.com> References: <21ede509.0308251127.55bf9641@posting.google.com> <e715b5cc.0308252126.7db93914@posting.google.com> <21ede509.0308260721.7e5bb589@posting.google.com> <bigbn0$7o6$1@freenet9.carleton.ca> <biggta0udv@drn.newsguy.com> <d031eff0.0308281551.6e83aba@posting.google.com> <bimc6o$lud$1@freenet9.carleton.ca> <hkuvkvkj91m4kl3ugi0rp8c88k6nbvv80g@4ax.com> <3f50a56c$0$49104$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl> <bire75023f5@drn.newsguy.com> <dPe4b.18412$Pn6.12753@twister.austin.rr.com> <bisjo002fio@drn.newsguy.com> <bisubs$d99$1@freenet9.carleton.ca> <bivrut01974@drn.newsguy.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: dialup-8.abc.se X-Trace: oden.abc.se 1062436568 19906 195.17.73.8 (1 Sep 2003 17:16:08 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@abc.se NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 1 Sep 2003 17:16:08 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: MacSOUP/2.5 (Mac OS 9.2.2) Winfield Hill <wh...@picovolt.com> wrote: [...] > Thankfully that's one letter that's widely available on the web. > Here's a copy, where Bill complains of only earning $2 per hour. > I think we can all agree that he solved that problem. Bigtime! Yeah, but he forgot about this (that was posted in another group (or possibly a mailing list) a couple of years ago.) : "[...] a thread was started about Bill Gates' famous "open letter" calling all hobbyists "thieves" because we were all stealing "his" software. This led into a discussion of why Mr. Gates was "asked to resign" from Harvard. Someone pointed out the whole story was located on the "Boston Globe's" website. [ To those outside of the U.S., the Globe is to Boston what the Times is to London...not prone to hyperbole. ] So I checked out the website & found that Mr Gates & Mr. Allen had used Mr. Gates' account on Harvard's DEC-10 to write M.I.T.S. 8080 & 6800 BASICs [Microsoft's _only_ software products at that time.][Bill Gates & Paul Allen were Microsoft's only employees at the time also.] The "powers that be" at Harvard learned of this & were ready to expell Mr. Gates because "all students at Harvard sign a form making all software developed on the University's computers public domain." In order to keep from being expelled from Harvard and to be allowed to resign, Mr. Gates signed over all rights to Microsoft's products to the public domain. After leaving Harvard, Mr. Gates seemed to forget this & continued to market both the 6800 & 8080 BASICs. Unfortunately [for him] it is all a matter of public record.[...]"
    Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.icl.net!newsfeed.fjserv.net!skynet.be!skynet.be!newsgate.cistron.nl!news.cambrium.nl!news.cambrium.nl!news.cambrium.nl!news2.euro.net!cleanfeed.casema.net!newsfeed.wxs.nl!textnews.wxs.nl!not-for-mail From: n...@puntnl.niks (Nico Coesel) Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design Subject: Re: AN OPEN LETTER TO HOBBYISTS Date: Mon, 01 Sep 2003 22:11:03 GMT Organization: NCT Lines: 51 Message-ID: <3f53c3bf.54237299@news.planet.nl> References: <e715b5cc.0308252126.7db93914@posting.google.com> <21ede509.0308260721.7e5bb589@posting.google.com> <bigbn0$7o6$1@freenet9.carleton.ca> <biggta0udv@drn.newsguy.com> <d031eff0.0308281551.6e83aba@posting.google.com> <bimc6o$lud$1@freenet9.carleton.ca> <hkuvkvkj91m4kl3ugi0rp8c88k6nbvv80g@4ax.com> <3f50a56c$0$49104$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl> <bire75023f5@drn.newsguy.com> <dPe4b.18412$Pn6.12753@twister.austin.rr.com> <bisjo002fio@drn.newsguy.com> <bisubs$d99$1@freenet9.carleton.ca> <bivrut01974@drn.newsguy.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: ipd50a9318.speed.planet.nl X-Trace: reader10.wxs.nl 1062454392 28275 213.10.147.24 (1 Sep 2003 22:13:12 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@planet.nl NNTP-Posting-Date: 1 Sep 2003 22:13:12 GMT X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.21/32.243 Winfield Hill <wh...@picovolt.com> wrote: >Michael Black wrote... >> >>Winfield Hill writes: >>> [stuff deleted] >>> I was an early customer for Bill Gates and Paul Allen's >>> paper-tape BASIC. It was a fine program and had many buyers, >>> but he groused anyway and mailed us all letters of complaint >>> (wish I'd saved mine). Hey, I never improperly used my copy! >>> I don't remember how much ram the original BASIC program took, >>> but it may have been under 1k. >> >> I thought the letter had been printed in Byte, but a few years back >> when I looked for it, I couldn't find it. I thought I had seen it >> in a magazine. >> >> It is, however, reprinted in "Fire in the Valley" by Freiberger and >> Swaine, in the photo section. The letter is titled "An Open Letter >> to Hobbyists", and is dated Feb. 3, 1976. > > Thankfully that's one letter that's widely available on the web. > Here's a copy, where Bill complains of only earning $2 per hour. > I think we can all agree that he solved that problem. Bigtime! > >================================================================= > >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? > >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 One word comes to my mind: Linux... -- Reply to nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.) Bedrijven en winkels vindt U op www.adresboekje.nl

    comp.os.linux.advocacy, 2007

    Path: g2news2.google.com!news1.google.com!news.germany.com!aioe.org!not-for-mail From: Robert Parsonage <r...@gmail.com> Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy Subject: Re: Billg and SteveB go Dumpster diving .. Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2007 03:47:24 +0100 Organization: Aioe.org NNTP Server Lines: 72 Message-ID: <pan.2007.02.10.02.47.24.230301@gmail.com> References: <wkr5120j5eop$.o27domh8oabv.dlg@40tude.net> <5450369.BSLrZ3gEZ1@schestowitz.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: o+YD+8Kk7gCiiOPgh6OvKg.user.aioe.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Complaints-To: abuse@aioe.org User-Agent: Pan/0.14.2.91 (As She Crawled Across the Table (Debian GNU/Linux)) On Fri, 09 Feb 2007 19:50:22 +0000, Roy Schestowitz wrote: > Didn't Bill take pride in the fact that he collected other people's > code from the garbage at the back of some universities or > businesses? On another occasion (captured on video that I watched > recently), Bill Gates said that the Apple Mac was the best > computer. It's well known that Gates worked with a Mac in the room > as he copied it (Linus and Sun manuals is another story). He's a fucking hypocrite. Happy to steal someone else's IP and then whine when people steal 'his': http://www.blinkenlights.com/classiccmp/gateswhine.html | 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

    2008

    Where is the Altair BASIC source code?


    News coverage

    "Harvard's 12 schools - arts and sciences, medicine, law, etc. - compete fiercely for donors such as dropout-turned-tycoon Bill Gates, who left Harvard under pressure in 1975 but gave it $15 million two years ago." "His troubles began when a lab administrator discovered that Gates was using the Aiken computer to write computer code for a New Mexico company. Because the federal government was funding the computer time, the administrator felt that Gates was misusing not just a Harvard facility but also public funds. Moreover, Gates was sharing his computer access with a high school friend: Paul Allen, the future cofounder of Microsoft." "According to sources and a 1993 unauthorized biography by Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews, Gates avoided expulsion by agreeing to put the code in the public domain." "Gates's parents were devastated. His mother was very, very apprehensive about his future, says his father."
    • N: Daniel Golden and John Yemma, "Harvard amasses a $13b endowment," Boston Globe (Boston, MA), May 31, 1998.
    • B: Golden, Daniel and John Yemma. "Harvard amasses a $13b endowment." Boston Globe (Boston, MA), May 31, 1998.




    WANT TO DO MORE USENET????

    This was where I left off...


    Source criticism

    Computer Notes, Volume 1, Issue 9, Febuary 1976, pp. 2-3.

    TODO introduction

    Computer Notes was published semi-monthly from 1975 to 1978 by MITS, an electronics company based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. MITS (less commonly referred to as Micro Instrumentation & Telemetry Systems, Inc.) is best known for producing the Altair 8800 microcomputer. Available pre-assembled as a do-it-yourself kit, the Altair was the first general-purpose home computing platform to achieve widespread adoption in the U.S. MITS began publishing Computer Notes in January 1975, shortly after the Altair was featured on the cover of Popular Electronics magazine. They were selling a considerable number of Altair kits and hoped that the newsletter might galvanize their new customers into an active user community.[1]

    The pages reproduced here are from the archives of the Start Up Gallery, a permanent exhibition at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science in Albuquerque, NM. They originally appeared opposite one another in the ninth issue of Computer Notes published in February of 1976. The columns are typewritten and sit slightly askew suggesting that the pages were pasted up by hand. Forty years later, it's difficult to know how a contemporary reader would interpret these aesthetic qualities. Were they the warning signs of an amateur outfit to whom you wouldn't want to send your money or did they seem like markers of familiarity as they might have among sci-fi fanzine aficionados? Or perhaps in the decade before widespread desktop publishing, these idiosyncracies were simply non-notable?

    The homemade feeling of the layout is matched by the friendly tone of David Bunnell's column on page two. In his opening paragraphs, Bunnell describes the painful process of moving the MITS operation to new, larger facilities. This anecdote serves dual purposes: first, as a vehicle for lightly bragging about MITS' recent growth and, second, as a plausible explanation for their failure to promptly respond to customer orders. For a corporate publication, Computer Notes is surprisingly transparent, if not apologetic, about the challenges that accompany unanticipated success.

    Despite its friendly tone, there is a certain defensiveness felt across these pages. "We get a lot of criticism for the things we haven't shipped," writes Bunnell, "but you never hear about the things we have shipped." Barbara Sims encourages readers to be careful when ordering product upgrades because "customers have been accidentally overcharged." And on the facing page, a "satisfied owner of an Altair", M. Douglas Callihan, was inspired to write after seeing "quite a bit of criticism" in other publications.

    But MITS was not merely struggling to fill incoming orders at the time this issue was published. They were also proposing a fundamental shift in microcomputer economics. W. T. Shaw puts this change plainly in his letter to the editor,

    "Many people think that computer companies give software away in inducements to sell their hardware. This was true in the '60's when IBM sold systems for millions. But now that hardware is "cheap", most computer companies realize that software is the major cost in selling systems."

    Shaw's letter, no doubt strategically selected for publication, gives context to the defensiveness found elsewhere. If MITS employees understand themselves as pioneers of a new industry, then their task is not to respond to customer complaints but to evangelize this new business model.

    MITS did not produce software in-house for its Altair computer. They solicited useful applications from customers by nurturing relationships with user groups and hosting software competitions through Computer Notes. In her Users Group News column, Sims' provides updates on MITS' growing "software library" and elsewhere in the issue readers find articles accompanied by long columns of source code. Programs like "Slot Machine Game" and "Real Time Clock" could be keyed into an Altair by hand and run at home.

    But MITS' business innovation is found in their second software source, an exclusive licensing agreement with Micro-Soft (now Microsoft). The programs produced by Micro-Soft tended to be considerably longer and more complex than the games found in Computer Notes. They were primarily development tools like Altair BASIC that helped Altair owners write more software. In fact, the availability of Altair BASIC may have been the key feature differentiating it from other comparable home computer kits.

    From the pages reproduced here, one gets the sense that Altair BASIC is a locus of tension for MITS and its customers. Sims' column indicates that there is some confusion about the various available versions while Bunnell provides an update about yet another version being written by "Bill and his crew". He writes that the software is "phenomenal" and wonders whether or not they will be able to continue production if people continue to "steal" it.

    Bill Gates takes up the topic of unauthorized software duplication in his "Open Letter to Hobbyists" on page three.


    Close reading of open letter

    • who is the intended audience?
    • what are the stakes?
    • what is gates argument?
    • who are the bad guys?
    • who is NOT the intended audience?


    Unauthorized duplication of Micro-Soft Altair BASIC appears to have been an on-going topic of debate in the microcomputing community. In his letter to the editor, Shaw writes "I approve and agree with your statement about your right to place, what I consider a minimal charge, on ALTAIR BASIC." Gates seems to have recently taken controversy beyond Computer Notes as Bunnell remarks, "By now you may have seen Bill Gate's[sic] 'Open Letter to Hobbyists' in one of the several hobby publications where it has appeared."

    Turn to Bunnell's notes preceding the open letter

    • What else do we know about the open letter

    why reprintred here? to what other pubs was it sent?


    Open question

    Random other finds

    Tim Pozar remembers PCC

    Timeline

    Opening paragraphs

    At the center of this project is "An Open Letter to Hobbyists" composed by Bill Gates near the end of 1975. MITS, a computer hardware company who contracted Gates to write software, reproduced the letter and mailed it to an unknown number of hobbyist publications (including both commercial magazines and regional club newsletters). I do not know the complete list of publications targeted by MITS but have been able to locate a small number that did publish the letter.

    Notably, Popular Electronics, one of the widest-read hobbyist magazines, did not publish the letter though it had previously published articles and letters by MITS employees. Later in 1976, PE printed a response to Gates, a decision that seems to indicate that the conversation around the Open Letter was vibrant enough to warrant acknowledgement.

    The Open Letter is worth scholarly attention because of its later role in the history of computing preferred by many vocal advocates of free and open source software. In the chronology below, I pay special attention to the development of an English-language Wikipedia article about the Letter. Some of the shortest-lived contributions reveal areas of tension in the contemporary discourse. For example, the very first version of the page strikes an editorial tone that is repeated in various forms for the next five years until Michael Holley, an amateur computer historian, begins to closely monitor the page and contribute information grounded in artifacts from his own collection. To locate similar discursive examples from the 1990s, I need to perform a similar archaeology of USENET newsgroups dedicated to microcomputing, free software, Microsoft, and the history of personal computing.

    Chronology

    January, 1975

    June, 1975

    September 1975

    1975?

    • "An Open Letter to Hobbyists" penned and sent out by Gates

    January, 1976

    February, 1976

    March, 1976

    • Gates, Bill (March 11, 1976). "An Open Letter to Hobbyists". Minicomputer News (Boston MA: Benwill Publishing).
    • Gates, Bill (March-April 1976). "An Open Letter To Hobbyists". People's Computer Company (Menlo Park, CA: People's Computer Company) 4 (5).
    • Singer, Harold L. (March 28, 1976). "An Open Letter to Ed Roberts". Micro-8 Computer User Group Newsletter (Lompoc, CA: Cabrillo Computer Center) 2 (4): p. 1.
    "Hal Singer of the Micro-8 Newsletter published an open letter to Ed Roberts of MITS. Hal pointed out that MITS promised a computer for $395 but the price for a working system was $1000. He suggested a class action law suit or a Federal Trade Commission investigation into false advertising was in order. Hal also noted that rumors were circulating that Bill Gates developed BASIC on a Harvard University computer that was funded by the US government. Why should customers pay for software already paid for by the taxpayer?" (quoted from wikipedia ... haven't seen actual article)

    April, 1976

    May, 1976

    • Gates, Bill (May 1976). "Computer Hobbyists". Radio-Electronics (New York NY: Gernsback Publications) 47 (5): pp. 14,16. Retrieved from: http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/RadioElectronics/May1976/RE_May1976.htm
      • Also in this issue, "the computer hobbyist needs a better machine. So we've introduced the "dyna micro." It's an 8080 architecture on a single circuit board. We'll be presenting complete plans and construction information starting on page 33 in this issue."
      • Recurring column called "Komputer Korner" and advertisements for both Altair and competitor Imsai 8080 (among ads for radio + hi-fi components)

    June, 1976

    July, 1976

    • Wada, Robert (July 1976). "An Opinion on Software Marketing". BYTE (Peterborough, NH: BYTE Publications) 1 (11): pp. 90,91.
    • Warren, Jim C. (July 1976). "Correspondence". SIGPLAN Notices (ACM) 11 (7): p. 1. Jim Warren, the editor of Dr. Dobbs Journal, describes how the Tiny BASIC project is an alternative to hobbyist "ripping off" software.


    1984

    • Hackers, Levy

    March 1985

    2001

    • Revolution OS, DVD

    29 June 2003 - Present

    April, 2010

    Wikipedia chronology

    29 June 2003, 19:00 UTC

    5 July 2003, 18:00 UTC

    • MartinHarper removed the above paragraph and replaced it with the following: "Some advocates of free software consider that the open source movement, with quality products such as Linux, has completely invalidated this argument."

    5 July 2003, 18:06 UTC

    • Viajero changed "invalidated" to "disproved"

    2 January 2004, 02:13-02:14 UTC

    • An Anonymous editor (66.235.14.113) contributed the follow addition to this paragraph: "Others, including Gates, continue to suggest that paid software products tend to be more thoroughly vetted, better documented, more standardized and feature-rich, and less confusing to operate. Whichever side one takes, it is clear that the argument described in Gates's letter is ongoing."

    29 October 2004, 03:59 UTC

    • http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists&oldid=7700273
    • An Anonymous editor (67.39.5.9) replaced several paragraphs with the following: "In the letter, Gates expresses frustration over the fact that most computer hobbyists who were currently using his company's Altair BASIC software had not paid for it. Gates asserts that such behavior is tantamount to theft, and in effect discourages the incentive for developers to continue creating quality software. The core of Gate's argument hinges on the lack of fairness involved in gaining the benefits of software authors' time, effort, and capital, but then depriving them of the royalties that they are legally enititled to receive. "Who can afford to do professional work for nothing?", he asks."

    21 November 2004, 00:15 UTC

    3 August 2005, 20:04 UTC

    18 February 2006, 18:25 UTC

    20 May 2006, 06:10 UTC

    30 May 2006, 16.26 UTC

    19 September 2006, 19:00 UTC

    5 October 2006, 13:12 UTC

    13 November 2006, UTC 05:22

    23 June 2007, 19:35 UTC

    19 September 2007, 06:47 UTC

    • http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists&oldid=173832039
    • Swtpc6800 Added a list of magazine who published the letter
      • Updated on 1 January 2008, 22:28 UTC
      • Updated on 5 January 2008, 16:02 UTC
      • Updated on 7 January 2008, 05:41 UTC
      • Updated on 14 January 2008, 06:20 UTC
      • Updated on 14 February 2008, 01:29 UTC
      • Updated on 6 November 2008, 03:11 UTC
      • Updated on 13 December 2008, 04:14 UTC
    • 29 June 2009, 05:33 UTC
      • Added information about Altair BASIC
      • http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists&oldid=299255797
      • At 15:26 UTC, corrected some dates elsewhere
      • Updated on 30 June 2009, 05:06 UTC
      • Updated on 1 July 2009, 04:57 UTC
      • Updated on 4 July 2009, 17:49 UTC
      • Updated on 11 July 2009, 01:46 UTC
      • Updated on 12 July 2009, 02:32 UTC, 02:36 UTC
      • Updated on 1 August 2009, 14:11 UTC
      • Updated on 3 August 2009, 15:28 UTC

    16 September 2009, 18:00 UTC

    • Anonymous editor (67.79.111.254) vandalized the page with, "el mentado Bill Gates es un rata porque se robo mitad de los inventos que los demas creavan, i pues de ahi el pudo acompletar los de el, por eso digo yo que es un rata"
    • Updated at 18:04 to capitalize "El"
    • Next, they added it to every subsection on the page.
    • Reverted by Hbrackett at 18:13 UTC

    6 October 2009, 19:27 UTC

    19 October 2009, 03:54 UTC

    19 May 2010, 02:23, 02:26, 02:30, 02:33, 02:34, 02:35 UTC

    • Vandalism by anonymous editor (116.255.24.1)
    • 19 May 2010, 03:54 UTC
      • Swtpc6800 reverted the vandalism

    17 October 2010, 15:41 UTC

    References

    1. ↑ Bunnell, D. (1975). "Across the editor's desk". Computer Notes, 1:1, pp. 2.

    Books

    • Thomas, D. (2002). Hacker culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
    • Manes, Stephen; Paul Andrews (1994). Gates: How Microsoft's Mogul Reinvented an Industry and Made Himself the Richest Man in America. New York: Touchstone, Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-671-88074-8.

    Jump offs

    • E Doug Thomas
    • Search scholar for open letter?
    • Find more blog posts about Open Letter
    • Himanen, Pekka. 2001. The Hacker EThic and the Spirit of the Information Age. New York: Random House.

    Chicago Styles

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