Published at LXer:

Redmond (WA) - In a very strange way, Microsoft pioneered the concept of open-source software. While you're still swallowing hard after that last sentence, take a few moments and some deep breaths, and just think about my explanation for a moment: Microsoft's cornerstone product was its BASIC interpreter. To have learned to program in BASIC during the 1970s, as many of us did using TRS-80 Level II BASIC, or Applesoft BASIC - both of which were made by Microsoft, and co-authored by Bill Gates himself - you printed out program listings on an old Centronics dot-matrix printer, and you shared them with your friends and colleagues. The first microcomputers were sustained by the earliest form of an open-source initiative. While I think Microsoft and FOSS are still largely incompatible, it is difficult to tell what's going on in Redmond. Fact is, I remain doubtful that they intend to play "nice". - dcparris

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