50 years ago, a young Bill Gates took on the 'software pirates'

4 days ago

Copy Link

Bill Gates wrote an 'Open Letter to Hobbyists' in 1976, complaining about software piracy.
Gates and Paul Allen created BASIC for the Altair 8800, leading to the founding of Micro-Soft.
Hobbyists freely copied and shared software, leading to a rift between commercial and hobbyist programmers.
Gates' letter sparked controversy, with many hobbyists rejecting the idea of paying for software.
The free software movement gained momentum, with Richard Stallman founding the Free Software Movement in 1983.
Open Source became popular, with Linux and other projects leading the way.
Steve Jobs initially dismissed Open Source but later embraced it, as seen with the Safari browser.

Hasty Briefsbeta