Open Letter to Hobbyists

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The Open Letter to Hobbyists was an open letter written on February 3, 1976 by Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft. Some contend the letter became an important milestone for the development and expansion of "proprietary software" in the retail software market.

In the letter, Gates expresses frustration over the fact that most computer hobbyists who were currently using his company's Altair BASIC software had not paid for it. Gates asserts that such widespread unauthorized copying in effect discourages developers from investing time and money into creating quality software. The core of Gates' argument hinges on the unfairness of gaining the benefits of software authors' time, effort, and capital, but then depriving them of the royalties that they are legally entitled to receive. "Who can afford to do professional work for nothing?", he asks.

Text Of The Letter

AN OPEN LETTER TO HOBBYISTS
By William Henry Gates III

February 3, 1976

An Open Letter to Hobbyists

To me, the most critical thing in the hobby market right now is the lack of good software courses,
books and software itself. Without good software and an owner who understands programming, a hobby
computer is wasted. Will quality software be written for the hobby market?

Almost a year ago, Paul Allen and myself, expecting the hobby market to expand, hired Monte Davidoff
and developed Altair BASIC. Though the initial work took only two months, the three of us have spent
most of the last year documenting, improving and adding features to BASIC. Now we have 4K, 8K,
EXTENDED, ROM and DISK BASIC. The value of the computer time we have used exceeds $40,000.

The feedback we have gotten from the hundreds of people who say they are using BASIC has all been
positive. Two surprising things are apparent, however, 1) Most of these "users" never bought BASIC
(less than 10% of all Altair owners have bought BASIC), and 2) The amount of royalties we have
received from sales to hobbyists makes the time spent on Altair BASIC worth less than $2 an hour.

Why is this? As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, most of you steal your software. Hardware
must be paid for, but software is something to share. Who cares if the people who worked on it get
paid?

Is this fair? One thing you don't do by stealing software is get back at MITS for some problem you
may have had. MITS doesn't make money selling software. The royalty paid to us, the manual, the tape
and the overhead make it a break-even operation. One thing you do do is prevent good software from
being written. Who can afford to do professional work for nothing? What hobbyist can put 3-man years
into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free? The fact is, no
one besides us has invested a lot of money in hobby software. We have written 6800 BASIC, and are
writing 8080 APL and 6800 APL, but there is very little incentive to make this software available to
hobbyists. Most directly, the thing you do is theft.

What about the guys who re-sell Altair BASIC, aren't they making money on hobby software? Yes, but
those who have been reported to us may lose in the end. They are the ones who give hobbyists a bad
name, and should be kicked out of any club meeting they show up at.

I would appreciate letters from any one who wants to pay up, or has a suggestion or comment. Just
write to me at 1180 Alvarado SE, #114, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87108. Nothing would please me more
than being able to hire ten programmers and deluge the hobby market with good software.

Bill Gates

General Partner, Micro-Softzh:致爱好者的公开信