h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

OK, so the illegal copying and distributing of PC Software goes back to the 1970s and the days of the MITS Altair 8800. You see, a guy named Bill Gates who was a majour geek at Harvard, had started a company with a friend named Paul Allen. As soon as the Altair was introduced in the January 1975 Edition of Popular Electronics, Gates contacted the head of MITS and said that they would like to write BASIC(the Begginers All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) for use on the Altair. Gates had the use of a DEC(Digital Equipment Corp.) PDP-10 on which he wrote BASIC for the Altair's 4k board. He delivered it and it became the standard language with every Altair.

Now the tricky part...

You see, one of the reasons it was so popular was that you could run it through a Teletype and get a copy, or even a few copies to spread around to friends. So, the things that out of hand, with Gates getting fed up with people not paying the piper for the dance. And so, on February 3, 1976, Gates wrote an Open Letter to Hobbyists. In It, he basically(pun only slightly intended) bashed folks for non-payment. This became the first shot in a war that is still waged today.
The following is the actual letter wording, which was the first step down the path to being the World's most hated man
*****
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