Microsoft’s original source code

Microsoft (and maybe even Bill Gates personally) generated a strong "dislike" sentiment to the hacker community. But we can't deny that he and Paul Allen were pure breed hackers and helped a lot the development of technology. Of course, we all prefer OSS and we'd pick Linus (or insert OSS dev name here) 100 times over one of the "evil capitalists"/s, but nevertheless they have to be recognized.

How were they "pure bread hackers"? Was Gates especially proficient with code? I've never heard that. From what I read, they were the enemies of hackers. This really seems like looking back with rose-colored glasses.

My understanding of Microsoft's success was it came from marketplace maneuvers, many ranging from unethical to illegal, not from quality or innovative hacking. Compare Windows with any contemporaneous MacOS, for example. They took over the office productivity software market by illegally leveraging their Windows monopoly. Their initial and core success - getting DOS on IBM PCs, which led to the Windows monopoly - was simply leaping at a business opportunity, I think even before they began developing the product.

Didn't they generate fake errors for Windows running on DR-DOS, or something like that, even though it ran fine? Do you mind that they tried to destroy and monopolize the open web (thank you Mozilla!)?

Gates was obviously a proficient coder. I think you're experiencing a time compression phenomenon here: this was the mid 70s. Microsoft the big bad Microsoft that everyone knows about didn't appear until around the mid 90s. 20 years later, although from the perspective of 2025 those two eras seem pretty much adjacent.

I don't mean proficient, I mean elite, exceptional, legendary.

But you stated earlier:

> How were they "pure bread hackers"? Was Gates especially proficient with code? I've never heard that. From what I read, they were the enemies of hackers. This really seems like looking back with rose-colored glasses.

Did you contradict yourself? Also, how do you measure "elite, exceptional, legendary"? Someone not qualifying for that wouldn't be a real coder in your book?