57 lines
2.6 KiB
Plaintext
57 lines
2.6 KiB
Plaintext
AN OPEN LETTER TO HOBBYISTS
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By William Henry Gates III
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February 3, 1976
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An Open Letter to Hobbyists
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To me, the most critical thing in the hobby market right now is the lack of
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good software courses, books and software itself. Without good software and
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an owner who understands programming, a hobby computer is wasted. Will
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quality software be written for the hobby market?
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Almost a year ago, Paul Allen and myself, expecting the hobby market to
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expand, hired Monte Davidoff and developed Altair BASIC. Though the initial
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work took only two months, the three of us have spent most of the last year
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documenting, improving and adding features to BASIC. Now we have 4K, 8K,
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EXTENDED, ROM and DISK BASIC. The value of the computer time we have used
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exceeds $40,000.
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The feedback we have gotten from the hundreds of people who say they are
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using BASIC has all been positive. Two surprising things are apparent,
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however, 1) Most of these "users" never bought BASIC (less than 10% of all
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Altair owners have bought BASIC), and 2) The amount of royalties we have
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received from sales to hobbyists makes the time spent on Altair BASIC worth
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less than $2 an hour.
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Why is this? As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, most of you steal
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your software. Hardware must be paid for, but software is something to share.
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Who cares if the people who worked on it get paid?
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Is this fair? One thing you don't do by stealing software is get back at MITS
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for some problem you may have had. MITS doesn't make money selling software.
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The royalty paid to us, the manual, the tape and the overhead make it a
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break-even operation. One thing you do do is prevent good software from being
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written. Who can afford to do professional work for nothing? What hobbyist
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can put 3-man years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his
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product and distribute for free? The fact is, no one besides us has invested
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a lot of money in hobby software. We have written 6800 BASIC, and are writing
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8080 APL and 6800 APL, but there is very little incentive to make this
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software available to hobbyists. Most directly, the thing you do is theft.
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What about the guys who re-sell Altair BASIC, aren't they making money on
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hobby software? Yes, but those who have been reported to us may lose in the
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end. They are the ones who give hobbyists a bad name, and should be kicked
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out of any club meeting they show up at.
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I would appreciate letters from any one who wants to pay up, or has a
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suggestion or comment. Just write to me at 1180 Alvarado SE, #114,
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Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87108. Nothing would please me more than being able
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to hire ten programmers and deluge the hobby market with good software.
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Bill Gates
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General Partner, Micro-Soft
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