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1 - Correction: writing late, typo - BASIC should have been property of the US tax payers.

2 - It was still pretty novel back then, but "borrowing" computer time w/o paying for it is (and was) theft of services. Like sneaking into a movie theater without paying. It wasn't their hardware to use, it was a critical part of a commercial endeavor. They didn't have permission in advance to use it. They didn't murder someone, but they were a couple of spoilt brats who figured they could get rich by ripping people off. They ripped off SCP (next point) and they screwed over IBM & Digital Equipment Corp. with the OS/2 gaslighting & NT intellectual property theft (case settled out of court).

3 - Gates wired up the deal with IBM then "bought" 86-DOS from Seattle Computer Products knowing very well it was going to be worth millions since people were waiting for IBM to release a PC at the time. SCP made less than a million dollars and had it drawn out in court (from that same article - "Microsoft paid SCP US$925,000 and reclaimed its license for DOS"). He saw an opportunity to play middle man and then shanked SCP.

discuss

DoesntMatter22|2 years ago

3 - What is wrong with that exactly? You make it like he ran a scam.

Him playing the middle man happens all the time. Nothing illegal about that.

swagtricker|2 years ago

Here's 2min & 57 seconds that sums it up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nfgRf2A0Tc

Bill & Balmer didn't even have an agreement with Seattle Computer Products when they pitched it to IBM. They waltzed in, lied & said they HAD IT and they could SELL IT knowing it could go into millions of computers. Then, they bought it for chump change from SCP. SCP was a tiny nothing of a company.

It's like finding a homeless guy with a stamp collection & buying his Inverted Jenny for $1,000 USD knowing damn well it's worth over $1.5M USD (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_Jenny). Is it illegal? No. Is it greedy and cruel for no good reason? Absolutely. Did it help SCP? Sure. Just like it helps the homeless guy to have a thousand dollars while you keep $1.5M simply because you could take advantage of him and there was nothing he could do about it.

Again. Gates is a liar and a thief. It's probably damn lucky for him Epstein "hung himself" in that jail cell. Otherwise, we'd probably have proof a few more choice names to call him as well.