50 years ago, a 20-year-old Bill Gates called hobbyists “thieves” for sharing software

This week marks the 50th anniversary of Bill Gates’ infamous “Open Letter to Hobbyists,” in which the 20-year-old accused early computer enthusiasts of theft for copying his BASIC interpreter. “Most of you steal your software,” Gates wrote in 1976. “Who cares if the people who worked on it get paid?” He estimated that 90% of Altair users had never purch…