Photo by Spencer Smith, 2002

"He [Bill Gates] acted like a spoiled kid, which is what he was."

--Ed Roberts, Gates' employer at MITS in the 1970's (Atlanta Journal-Costitution, 04-27-97)

Summary: Thanks to publications that are in Microsoft's pocket, Microsoft uses yesterday's death of Ed Roberts to boost its own image

THE TRAGIC DEATH of an historical pioneer has just been hijacked by Microsoft and Microsoft boosters who pretend to be journalists. What really irritates about this is that they dance on the grave of the very same man whom they virtually 'robbed'. As a reminder of the history of Microsoft, in 1975 "Bill Gates and Paul Allen "borrowed" computer time to produce a rip-off of the BASIC computer language (see 1964) for the MITS Altair. The product was announced and advertisements placed before work began to keep others from entering the market. It was expensive, released late, incomplete and riddled with bugs. When copies were passed around by users trying to come up with bug fixes (and who were reluctant to spend a lot of money for something that didn’t work), Bill Gates accused them all of “Software Piracy”. Thus we find the tone of Microsoft’s ethics, business practices, product quality, and attitude toward users (they’re all thieves) already fully formed in the first weeks of the company’s existence."

What did the BBC publish upon the death of Microsoft's roadkill/victim? Here:

Microsoft founders lead tributes to 'father of the PC'

The "father of the personal computer" who kick-started the careers of Microsoft founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen has died at the age of 68.

An anonymous reader who logged it to our IRC channel an hour ago (his nickname was "MSBBC") wrote: "How MS hijacks even Altair founder's death, and MSBBC reports on it" (for those who know nothing about Microsoft and the BBC, we are adding links below). ⬆

On Microsoft and the BBC

• The BBC, Gates and revisionism
• Bill Gates and the importance of source code
• Beeb slammed for 'fawning' to Bill Gates
• Microsoft and the BBC: A letter of Complaint
• BBC Corrupted
• The Gates Transition
• Bill Gates and His Press Rewrite History Amid Semi-retirement
• Novell as Microsoft's Orwellian Revisionist
• Does Microsoft Start Abusing the Word “Free”?
• Microsoft Proud of Digital Colonialism in Africa
• BBC: Bill Gates a “Famous Thief”?
• Microsoft and the MSBBC Say Sub-notebooks Are Dying So It Must be True
• The BBC's Anti-Internet Pro-Microsoft Revisionist Propaganda