Microsoft
founder Bill
Gates
courtesy: Microsoft |
A search for the exact
phrase "bill gates
is the antichrist" brings
up more than 700 results
in Google. This
phenomenon may well be
a testament to the man’s
success over the past
25 years. While
in school at Harvard
in the early 1970s Gates
and some classmates founded
Micro-Soft (now Microsoft). The
company’s first
project was the development
of a version of
the programming language
BASIC.
Gates left Harvard University
in 1975 before graduating
to focus on his company. In
1976 Gates, who believed
that software engineers
and programmers should
protect their work products,
wrote “An
Open Letter to Hobbyists,” discouraging
the free trading and
distribution of software
among friends and colleagues,
a practice that was common
among members of the
academic community at
the time.
Gates’ views are
nearly opposite to that
of Free Software Foundation
founder Richard
Stallman,
who has been promoting
the free exchange and
collaboration between
programmers and hackers
for as long as Gates
has been developing software.
In his letter Gates
asserted that “software
piracy” was a crime
and would contribute
to the downfall of quality
software. Stallman
would later retort that
Gates’ practice
of creating a monopoly
of software for purchase
would actually be the
stifling factor.
Akin to the time’s
global debate between
communism and capitalism,
the two men had the same
goal of bringing quality
software to users, however
Gates believed that there
was more than just good
will to be had in the
process.
Gates’ Microsoft
has grown rapidly into
one of the world’s
largest corporations
and made him the richest
man alive by 1998. According
to the BBC his net worth
topped $58 billion. Today
Gates has a philanthropic
foundation worth more
than $27 billion alone,
according to the Microsoft
Web site.
Bill Gates was born
on Oct. 28, 1955. He
and his two sisters
grew up in Seattle,
Washington. Gates
was married on Jan.
1, 1994, to Melinda
French Gates. He lives
on Lake Washington
with his wife and three
children. |
