Levy_S-Hackers-Heroes-Computer-Revolution

people had paid MITS for the product already, and their getting an early copywouldn't hurt MITS financially. But most of all, it seemed right to copy it. Whyshould there be a barrier of ownership standing between a hacker and a tool toexplore, improve, and build systems?Armed with this philosophical rationale, Sokol took the tape to his employer's, satdown at a PDP-11, and threaded in the tape. He ran it all night, churning out tapes,and at the next Homebrew Computer Club meeting he came with a box of tapes.Sokol charged what in hacker terms was the proper price for software: nothing.The only stipulation was that if you took a tape, you should make copies and cometo the next meeting with two tapes. And give them away. People snapped up thetapes, and not only brought copies to the next meeting but sent them to othercomputer clubs as well. So that first version of Altair BASIC was in free-flowingcirculation even before its official release.There were two hackers, however, who were far from delighted at thisdemonstration of sharing and cooperation Paul Alien and Bill Gates. They hadsold their BASIC to MITS on a basis that earned them royalties for every copysold, and the idea of the hacker community blithely churning out copies of theirprogram and giving them away did not seem particularly Utopian. It seemed likestealing. Bill Gates was also upset because the version that people wereexchanging was loaded with bugs that he was in the process of fixing. At first hefigured that people would just buy the debugged version. But even after MITS didrelease the debugged BASIC, it became clear that Altair users were not buying asmany copies as they would if they hadn't had a "pirated" BASIC already running.Apparently, they were either putting up with the bugs or, more likely, having agrand old hacker time debugging it themselves. Gates was becoming very upset,and when David Bunnell (who was then editing the newly begun Altair Users'Newsletter for MITS) asked him what he wanted to do about it, Gates, thennineteen and imbued with a cockiness that comes from technical virtuosity and notnecessarily social tact, said maybe he should write a letter. Bunnell promised himhe could get the letter out to the troublemakers.So Gates wrote his letter, and Bunnell not only printed it in the Altair newsletterbut sent it to other publications, including the Homebrew Computer Clubnewsletter. Entitled an "Open Letter to Hobbyists," it explained that while he andAlien had received lots of good feedback about the interpreter, most of the peoplepraising it hadn't bought it. The letter got to the heart of the matter quickly:Why is this? As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, most of