BASIC
From Maze
(Difference between revisions)
| Line 114: | Line 114: | ||
Perhaps not. There are a few complications to the most popular version of this early clash, with too simplistic assignment of good and evil roles, just as there are complications in considering Altair BASIC as completely bad and TinyBASIC as pure and just. To begin with, neither Microsoft, nor Gates, nor Allen was the party originally fingered in Levy's book as the "foe" of the hacker ethic. That distinction belongs to Ed Roberts, the head of MITS, who was running a business with dozens of employees, many of whom would be furiously working at any given hour to fulfill computer hobbyists' orders (and their dreams of computer ownership). At the beginning of 1976, "Micro-Soft" (the spelling had not been regularized by the time of the first letter) was simply two partners, both recent college drop-outs, one a teenager and other only slightly older. The company had paid other people, such as BASIC contributor Davidoff, but would not gets its first official employee until April 1976. | Perhaps not. There are a few complications to the most popular version of this early clash, with too simplistic assignment of good and evil roles, just as there are complications in considering Altair BASIC as completely bad and TinyBASIC as pure and just. To begin with, neither Microsoft, nor Gates, nor Allen was the party originally fingered in Levy's book as the "foe" of the hacker ethic. That distinction belongs to Ed Roberts, the head of MITS, who was running a business with dozens of employees, many of whom would be furiously working at any given hour to fulfill computer hobbyists' orders (and their dreams of computer ownership). At the beginning of 1976, "Micro-Soft" (the spelling had not been regularized by the time of the first letter) was simply two partners, both recent college drop-outs, one a teenager and other only slightly older. The company had paid other people, such as BASIC contributor Davidoff, but would not gets its first official employee until April 1976. | ||
| − | Furthermore, copyright protection for computer programs, which Gates based his argument upon, was well-established by 1976. While sharing of programs certainly happened in users' groups and other contexts, today's concept of free software had not been articulated by that time. Richard Stallman started the GNU project in 1983 and published the GNU Manifesto and founded the Free Software Foundation in 1985, a decade after Altair BASIC. An argument has been made that, even though this discourse has been overlooked, some of the ideas important to the free software movement were first publicly stated in the columns of magazines and newsletters in response to Gates's letter (Driscoll). But many hobbyists were not interested in free (as in freedom) software as it is conceptualized today; rather, they were interested in (as the editorial in the first issue of ''Dr. Dobbs'' explained) "free and very inexpensive" software. | + | Furthermore, copyright protection for computer programs, which Gates based his argument upon, was well-established by 1976. While sharing of programs certainly happened in users' groups and other contexts, today's concept of free software had not been articulated by that time. Richard Stallman started the GNU project in 1983; he published the GNU Manifesto and founded the Free Software Foundation in 1985, a decade after Altair BASIC. An argument has been made that, even though this story has been overlooked, some of the ideas important to the free software movement were first publicly stated in the columns of magazines and newsletters in response to Gates's letter (Driscoll). But many hobbyists were not interested in free (as in freedom) software as it is conceptualized today; rather, they were interested in (as the editorial in the first issue of ''Dr. Dobbs'' explained) "free and very inexpensive" software. |
In the aftermath of his first letter, Gates wrote a "Second and Final Letter," replying to objections raised by his readers. In it, he went on to admit that, at least for certain types of programs, the free sharing of code was likely to become the norm. He even suggested that good "compilers and interpreters" (such as Microsoft's Altair BASIC) would enable such shared software: | In the aftermath of his first letter, Gates wrote a "Second and Final Letter," replying to objections raised by his readers. In it, he went on to admit that, at least for certain types of programs, the free sharing of code was likely to become the norm. He even suggested that good "compilers and interpreters" (such as Microsoft's Altair BASIC) would enable such shared software: | ||
