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In the early '90s I wrote some software in Microsoft C++ that was distributed as an executable. An IBMer MBA friend of mine was horrified that anyone could distribute as many copies of my program as they liked without each user having to buy a C++ compiler.

Almost 20 years on Microsoft sound like IBM did back in the day.

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My parents started a software company out of their apartment in the early 80s that lasted about twenty years with a sole product, which was based entirely around a PC database / development environment. When I was cleaning out their office before they sold the apartment a couple years ago, I found a little cubbyhole next to my Mom's old desk.

It contained a stack of shrinkwrapped end-user software licenses for the long-dead database environment their product was based on, one for each of their 60-70 customers over the life of the company. Cost at least a half-million dollars total, and went right into the dumpster.

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