"Who can afford to do professional work for nothing? What hobbyist can put 3-man years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free?"
Now, this is practically a prerequisite for getting a job at a good company.
Now, this is practically a prerequisite for getting a job at a good company.
That's great--a perfect way to filter out companies that I would never want to work for.
Which companies? Why do you think they do?
This statement also sounds much more ironic from today's perspective, when there are thousands of open source projects that literally run off this concept.
What hobbyist can put 3-man years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free for a living?
but seriously, gates continues to maintain the fiction that open source = hobbyists not getting paid.