I think you're talking to yourself. Gates and Allen wrote an 8080 machine language BASIC interpreter using an emulator running on a mainframe at Harvard. They didn't invent BASIC, nor did anyone ever claim they did. But writing a version of an existing language for a new processor is not "borrowing" code.
Hate Microsoft and Bill Gates all you want, but stop lying. I offered you a quote citing two people who were part of HCC that admitted that the first time they ran BASIC on their Altairs was with a copy of the Micro-Soft code stolen from MITS. So I can either believe people who were there, one of whom made the bootleg copies, or I can believe some anonymous nutty Microsoft basher on the Internet.
Gates and Allen wrote an 8080 machine language BASIC interpreter using an emulator running on a mainframe at Harvard.
No one denies this.
They didn't invent BASIC, nor did anyone ever claim they did.
Precisely.
But writing a version of an existing language for a new processor is not "borrowing" code.
Well, that's what the debate is really about, isn't it?
Gates and Allen wrote their BASIC interpreter running on an emulator (that someone else provided the code for) on a mainframe running at Harvard (which gave Harvard a right to the code if it's sold commercially, not Gates and Allen) using the basics of the program that had been "borrowed" from other programmers.
Where it went from there is not relevant. Gates and Allen stole from other programmers (and stole from Harvard) then published their code and whined when other programmers borrowed right back.
Fact: If you or I did today (or even in 1980) what Gates and Allen did, we'd be sued into the poor house and likely jailed.
I don't particularly hate Bill Gates, well not anymore than I hate any thief.
I don't particularly begrudge him his fortune, other than the fact that the entire empire is built on the proceeds of criminal acts.
I just want Bill Gates and Co. to be held to the same standards as you or I.
Equal protection under the law and all that.