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In An Open Letter to Hobbyists, Bill Gates reprimanded hobbyists that pirated his software.

But what were hobbyists? What was the difference between a hobbyist and a user?

fadden
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robertspierre
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    This is a question about one simple English word versus another and as such is not really suitable for here. – dave Oct 02 '23 at 21:58
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    @another-dave Maybe, but the simple English word "user" has a meaning that has changed over time, even in the context of computing. That might make it an OK question here. What bothers me more about the question is that the question has a very tangential relationship with "An Open letter to Hobbyists": Bill doesn't even use the word "user." – Wayne Conrad Oct 02 '23 at 22:14
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    @WayneConrad True, but hobbyist is today the same english word as it was in 1978, so this question is in no way RC.SE related. – Raffzahn Oct 02 '23 at 22:32
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    @WayneConrad Even then the question could use some better phrasing before being reopened. Right now it looks like asking for a mere dictionary definition. – user3840170 Oct 03 '23 at 15:42
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    This is a good question for this forum, particularly for historic purposes. My answer in this tight space: a hobbyist is someone who is doing work in the field, but is not selling anything. They have no product and no revenue for their projects. They are entirely cash flow negative. As such, they often feel they can use other tools and products because it is a non-commercial application (even though it often violates the EULA that is never read), i.e., it is an economically dead end project. Now, a hobbyist may end up selling what they've created, but at that point they are no longer a hobbyis – Smith Oct 05 '23 at 14:23
  • The field of electronics and its hobbyists is also of interest in the historical perspective. The interplay between electronics "hobbyists" and "professionals" has been huge. Electronics in itself is a new field to history, and computing even newer. It has not been a field that was dominated by a long-standing college graduate tradition - instead the universities historically lagged in supplying this field. Hands-on experience through tinkering and hobby produced many of the EEs out there, and had a hand in major products. Even today, four years of hands-on experience speaks louder on a r – Smith Oct 05 '23 at 14:45

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In the letter Gates addresses the non-professionals, it looks like to me. The kind of people that were instrumental to the 8-bit revolution, or the home computer revolution, or whatever you would like to call it. The non-business users, the non-scientific users. Students, kids, all kind of people who didn’t have a large budget, and who indeed did a lot of software piracy.

I wouldn’t call that group “users”, they (we) weren’t primarily users, as in people who buy a system for a specific purpose and use that system. Hobbyists in large numbers bought systems for the system itself. Not to perform a task, but to learn about the system, play with the system, code for it, do electronic projects with them and so on.

ABM K
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  • Another word that could also apply to hobbyist is tinkerers - from tinker. – Fred Oct 03 '23 at 02:41
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    @Fred, We didn't call ourselves "tinkerers," and Bill Gates probably knew that. "Tinker" has somewhat negative connotations. I wouldn't want to be accused of tinkering, even if the accusation were true. – Solomon Slow Oct 03 '23 at 12:19
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    @SolomonSlow - interesting, I'm not sure I'd ascribe a negative connotation to the word 'tinkering'. Probably just a geographic or regional distinction. – Jon Custer Oct 03 '23 at 14:05
  • @TonyM - so perhaps a UK vs USA thing. Tinkerers just, well, tinker with stuff to get it to work. Perhaps similar to the perception of 'hacker' in different circles. – Jon Custer Oct 03 '23 at 15:02
  • @JonCuster, look at a Google. I think it's old Irish but decades ago it came into UK mild insult slang for what my parents generation would call gypsies and what today's call travellers. So tinker just doesn't get used much as a term for a person, though I'd consider it harmless if someone older used it but not in that context. Tinker as a verb for toying with is fine for use but just seen as old-fashioned. (Maybe sounds too close to 'tinkle', which is infant-level slang for urinating, so sounds childish to people around me.) – TonyM Oct 03 '23 at 15:51
  • Examples from over here: Time (1960): "Cut from the same Yankee tinkerer mold as Ben Franklin, Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, he never got an engineering degree—yet has more than two dozen patents in his name." Newspaper (2010): "a young Connecticut Yankee named Eli Whitney, who had moved South in search of a teaching job. With the innate curiosity of a tinkerer, in 1793 he came up with the cotton gin." For some reason, a "Yankee tinkerer" is held in much higher esteem over here. One of those language things... – Jon Custer Oct 03 '23 at 15:57
  • Also perhaps more recognized by older folks (yes, that includes me). – Jon Custer Oct 03 '23 at 16:00
  • Yep, recognise that use as 'to tinker' is identical in the UK, has been for all that time. So no difference there. It's a different meaning we're looking at, though e.g. 'Alan is a tinker'. Note not 'a tinkerer'. – TonyM Oct 03 '23 at 16:00
  • On "Tinkerers": https://quanta.org.uk/ - There can't be a lot of pejorative in tinkerers when an organization choses that name for itself.... – tofro Oct 04 '23 at 09:18
  • @tofro, correct, there isn't for 'tinkerers', 'tinkering', 'tinkered with', 'tinkering about' etc. etc. It's 'tinker' for a person that's the one here, as said at length above. (Completely off the point but on organisation names: a delve into history will show you too many organisations parading a name in their time that seems appalling by modern standards and was appalling then to a great many anyway.) – TonyM Oct 04 '23 at 14:57
  • @SolomonSlow: From Long gone, DEC is still powering the world of computing, "Green was exposed to the VAX through work ... and started tinkering." – Fred Oct 09 '23 at 07:38