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19 When 20-Year-Old Bill Gates Fought the World's First Software Pirates

Slashdot
EditorDavid @ Slashdot 3 place · today 14:22 EDT

When 20-Year-Old Bill Gates Fought the World's First Software Pirates

Long-time Slashdot reader destinyland writes: Just months after his 20th birthday, Bill Gates had already angered the programmer community," remembers this 50th-anniversary commemoration of Gates' Open Letter to Hobbyists. "As the first home computers began appearing in the 1970s, the world faced a question: Would its software be free?"

Gates railed in 1976 that "Most of you steal your software." Gates had coded the operating system for Altair's first home computer with Paul Allen and Monte Davidoff — onl

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