An Open Letter to Hobbyists (1976)
archive.nytimes.comInteresting window into the history that likely shaped Microsoft's view of customers for decades since then.
I'd say MS still probably has that attitude baked into their company, treating customers as adversaries that need to be protected against.
They are definitely not known for their customer service, but they ARE known for their complex licensing and sometimes heavy-handed enforcement, that I guess maybe one could draw a line back to this as the source.
I’d say this letter is not that far from OSS maintainers that have quite often breakdowns because no one wants to pay and everyone wants bug fixes.
It is perfectly fine to want to be compensated for one’s work.
> I'd say MS still probably has that attitude baked into their company, treating customers as adversaries that need to be protected against.
This is true of every company that sells intellectual "property" instead of material objects or labor.
Microsoft has pretty good customer service for their best customers (S&P500 corporations).
Funny that Gates mentions "$40K of computer time" when he and Paul Allen were hacking the computers paid for by someone else, and figuring out how to get themselves ... free computer time.
See comment and reference at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18279370
A couple of points:
1. "$40,000 of computer time" is reckoned in the inflated funny money accounting that is used for computer services, not unlike how damages are counted in piracy lawsuits. A computer that is on but idle costs essentially the same to operate as one that's running jobs, particularly in the minicomputer era. Gates and Allen did not make off with $40k of actual cash or anything remotely equivalent.
2. Not to defend theft of service, an actual criminal offense, but a lot of hacking legends cut their teeth on committing theft of services as well, e.g. Captain Crunch and his phone phreaking skills with blue boxing, so Gates stands in some pretty damned good company. If they get a pass, so does Gates and Allen.
Beyond that, given that this is Hacker News, I don't doubt more than a few readers here have put college resources to, ahem, creative uses as well. (Myself? No comment. -whistles innocently-)
So, yes, the parent poster is technically correct (the very best kind of correct) but they are also trying to feed us spin that makes it sound worse than it actually was.
I agree with your points, however the claim of 40k of computer time is made by Bill Gates himself. Did Gates actually pay some company $40k?
It might be that he thought he was being clever by using an inflated price that was used against him to inflate the claim he and Allen were making that they deserved to be paid. That's pure speculation but it would fit in with his later ruthless reputation in business dealings.
Much as people will hate hearing this, ultimately Gates won the argument. Formerly pro-FOSS software developers are turning away from FOSS to "open core" and other fake FOSS licenses that are actually proprietary to try to monetize their software using arguments largely identical to Gates' that it's unfair for software to be used by businesses and corporations without its creators getting some compensation for it. FOSS project owners are burning out from pressure where FAANG + MSFT simply hire new developers to replace any that want to move on to doing something new because they have the income to do so.
I use so much open source technology at my company and we give jack shit back*. It's really a shame that businesses don't recognize the value being added and contribute back. Even a grass-roots effort by the peons doing the work for the business using open source are unable to convince the business that these tools should be rewarded.
It's been pointed out elsewhere that the $40,000 of computer time referred to was largely on their utilization of government/publically-funded computers.
I know it isn’t popular to have this point of view, but I think Gates was right at the time. The work Microsoft did on BASIC back then was good, and it made computers usable. That people wouldn’t pay made the entire thing worthless. This ended up being why Microsoft went for hardware makers and BASIC came on ROM and MSDOS came with your PC: it was the only way to make any money on software. Today, everything people use aside from an OS (or in the case of the Linux or BSD folks, including the OS) is open source or it’s SaaS. The SaaS phenomenon gets people to pay EVEN more for software, so it will never end. The same with crappy apps on phones that are charged monthly or annually.
> Nothing would please me more than being able to hire ten programmers and deluge the hobby market with good software.
And after 50 years they are still not able to make good software.
If you enjoy history of computing then I can very strongly recommend you get the audiobook of "The Innovators" https://www.amazon.com/The-Innovators-Walter-Isaacson-audiob...
The audiobook I found thoroughly entertaining.
I’m surprised this is on the NYT site, as I thought it was first published in the homebrew computer club newsletter or creative computing.
I do remember that letter, not from 1976 when I was too young to grok it (or even encounter it), but from a couple of years later when it was still controversial and I was just starting to get into S-100.
Bill Gates was 20 years old at the time he wrote this.
This was the point when Bill Gates got red pilled about human nature and decided to focus on profit instead of "sharing the joy".
Is there any evidence for that? While I find the letter very reasonable (and the question of whose computers he used is irrelevant to the key point), everything suggests that Allen and he created "Micro-Soft" with goal of making money. I don't think "sharing the joy" was ever a motivation.