4 ms·
Yes, I'd love to hear a response from (2013) Bill Gates to this letter. I wonder if he sees this in a different light now? Could the piracy of his early progr
by dpcan 14y ago
Yes, I'd love to hear a response from (2013) Bill Gates to this letter. I wonder if he sees this in a different light now?
Could the piracy of his early programming language been what started the exponential growth/adoption of all Micro-soft software?
If he could, would he go back and release BASIC for free as a springboard to sell other software?
- undershirt 14y ago[He said something similar about China:](http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/461490/piracy http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/461490/piracy) > ...in 1998 during a candid moment in front of an audience at the University of Washington acknowledged the problem with enforcing software copyrights in the developing world: > Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, people don’t pay for the software. Someday they will, though, and as long as they’re going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They’ll get sort of addicted, and then we’ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.
- Jplenbrook 14y ago"as long as they’re going to steal it, we want them to steal ours" Shrewd wisdom.
- flomo 14y agoMicrosoft moved to a business model where they received royalties paid directly from the OEMs. And I suppose, BASIC was a teaser for MS's more advanced developer tools.
- yuhong 14y agoDR decided on this from the beginning.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]