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? … 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.

See how he smears free software and vendors as theives while pretending to be the victim? Gates’ methods are more subtle today than they were thirty years ago but the message is louder than ever. “Independent analysts,” press shills, PR astroturf and all sorts of paid liars polute public discussion on his behalf. What they say remains the same, “quality software” can only come from Bill Gates and everyone else is a terrible person that will ruin everything.

Microsoft’s hypocrisy then and now is obvious. Richard Stallman, for example, has long been painted as an irrational extremist and a destroyer of “commercial grade” software. They do this despite the fact that the GNU system he founded is excellent and employed by all kinds of companies to create wealth too vast to count. The detractors are happy to smear the man in vicious, false and deeply personal ways. Similar treatment is dished out against anyone who dares point out the particulars of Microsoft’s bad behavior. People who warn against performance problems and patent traps in Mono, including Richard Stallman, are called irrational language bigots and “Microsoft haters”. The attackers pretend to be victimized and then launch the foulest personal libel in coordinated smear campaigns.

It is ironic that Gates promissed to flood the market with quality software but his company spends more on marketing, sabotaging competitors and ruining small business. The BSA and Microsoft routinly shake down vendors and users for not having enough documentation for their software. Anti trust lawsuits have been continuously filed against Microsoft with increasing levels of success. Free software has delivered on Gates’ promise in ways that non free software never will.