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submitted 1 week ago by Maerman@lemmy.world to c/opensource@lemmy.ml

So I just read Bill Gates' 1976 Open Letter To Hobbyists, in which he whines about not making more money from his software. You know, instead of being proud of making software that people wanted to use. And then the bastard went on and made proprietary licences for software the industry standard, holding back innovation and freedom for decades. What a douche canoe.

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[-] ArmchairAce1944@discuss.online 13 points 1 week ago

With connections to the Rockefeller family. Also his mom was the one who convinced IBM to give Bill the contract for MS-DOS (which he bought from some other guy).

[-] aeternum 8 points 1 week ago

yup. It was originally QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System). I believe he ripped the guy off when he bought it? Not sure

[-] nomy@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 week ago

How many 0's are in his bank account?

Yeah, he ripped that guy off.

[-] aeternum 1 points 1 week ago

not necessarily. There's no saying if QDOS would have taken off if Gates and co hadn't bought it. Also, Gates and co got their start because Gates' mother put in a good word at IBM to get a contract. So had that not happened, we may not have windows today. Who's to say.

[-] PokerChips@programming.dev 3 points 1 week ago

If I'm remembering correctly, his mom was on the board of IBM.

this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2025
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