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Bill Gates is a horrible person. (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 days ago by Maerman@lemmy.world to c/opensource@lemmy.ml

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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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[-] General_Effort@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

That's true in the same way that Trump's tariffs are paid by other countries. Which is to say: Not at all.

Bill Gates was no billionaire at the time. His background was probably shared by almost all computer hobbyists at the time.

[-] SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social 5 points 1 day ago

Hardly. Bill Gates came from a wealthy family, attended a private school, and through it had thousands of hours of computer programming time several years before even the Altair 8800 came out. He had a personal connection to IBM through his mother, which is how Microsoft got the DOS deal. His circumstances were unique, and his success the result of a hefty dose of luck.