The history of software piracy is a reverse history. Somewhere in the 1960s code was getting robust enough that people would share their code across government and academic computers. By the time the home computer market became a thing in the 70s (Altair & BBS) sharing code was how enthusiasts actually learned to do things on their devices. Then in last days of disco a weird little Little St. James Island frequent flyer wrote a paper in a popular computing mag arguing that programmers should share because he was a greedy little entitled asshole who became the world’s first cintabillionaire by taking the OS code already freely shared with other programmers, copying it, slapping a copyright in it, and selling it back to the company that did most of the work on it.
One of the best jokes of the 90s:
“Windows 95 is a 32bit port of a 16bit shell for a 8bit clone of a 4bit operating system by a two bit company that can’t stand one bit of competition.”
Are you asking us or the first one ever? Must be some shared academic work over arpa if you mean in general
The history of software piracy is a reverse history. Somewhere in the 1960s code was getting robust enough that people would share their code across government and academic computers. By the time the home computer market became a thing in the 70s (Altair & BBS) sharing code was how enthusiasts actually learned to do things on their devices. Then in last days of disco a weird little Little St. James Island frequent flyer wrote a paper in a popular computing mag arguing that programmers should share because he was a greedy little entitled asshole who became the world’s first cintabillionaire by taking the OS code already freely shared with other programmers, copying it, slapping a copyright in it, and selling it back to the company that did most of the work on it.
One of the best jokes of the 90s:
“Windows 95 is a 32bit port of a 16bit shell for a 8bit clone of a 4bit operating system by a two bit company that can’t stand one bit of competition.”