Yep, crooks and thieves from the get go. In fact it is rumored that Bill Gates and Paul Allen stole it from a friend and third party who actually wrote it and never got any credit or compensation.
Which is BS. Gates and Allen bought the rights to DOS from the Seattle Computer Company (I forget the name of the guy). This is well documented in PC history. His contract had a loophole that he could only sell DOS if "sold with a microprocessor". In later years, he sold copies of DOS, and enclosed a processor chip with the discs.