TrevorCito said:
Have you ever used Microsoft windows? Well DOS, its forerunner was sold to IBM by Bill Gates before he even owned it. DOS was developed and owned by another company and opportunistic Bill seized the chance, acted as a middle man, pretended that Microsoft owned DOS, sold it to IBM and then bought DOS from the company who actually made it. He made billions from the deal and is considered by many to be an enterprising hero (except for those who use Apple products).
Indeed let's not get carried away.
http://inventors.about.com/od/computersoftware/a/Putting-Microsoft-On-The-Map.htm
http://www.skrause.org/computers/dos_history.shtml
Although not technically wrong in what you said about Gates not having something to sell to IBM when IBM first approached Gates, it wasn't anything like what the OP was posting about someone posting a notice to sell something they didn't own. Also, it wasn't quite like you presented it either.
Gates, who at the time was a software developer who had already written software at the chip level for other companies, was approached by IBM to see what could be done about writing an operating system for something IBM didn't even have at the time - a PC. It was still in the works.
Gates contracted with IBM to do provide an operating system, but he had a good idea - why write something from scratch when you can buy something already written and either use it as is, or modify it from where it started?
Gates paid Tim Paterson's company $50,000 to license the use of the software. They actually met with the owner and made a deal to license it. I don't see any reason why Gates would be obligated to tell the owner in this case what he was planning on doing with the software. If the guy who sold the software was concerned about what Gates would do with the software, he sure could have had Gates sign a non-compete agreement or something, but he didn't. That sure doesn't make Gates a bad guy - just a good business man on top of being a good techie and understanding the business.
BTW - Microsoft did indeed make changes to the software to improve it before they sold it to IBM. Even then (as is always the case with MS unfortunately) IBM found so many bugs that they couldn't license that particular version of DOS and IBM and MS together completed it and the marketed version of the software, PC-DOS, was owned by both IBM and MS. MS-DOS was sold later as a better product, from the original license paid by MS and all computers that were sold as IBM "clones" could run that software.
I have little doubt that if MS had had to write something from scratch they would have in order to fulfill their contract. But this is basic business, man. Tim Paterson himself could have made this deal with IBM if he was astute enough, but he didn't.
I write software and I lease third part products all the time so I don't have to write everything from scratch. I even pay extra to license access to the source code of these products so that I can make changes if necessary to these third party products to make sure that I can provide what I have contracted with my clients. I don't already have software written before I make the sale to my client. I don't tell the third-party company that my company is going to make $100K off of the $600 I spent licensing their product (plus my own work, of course) - why would I? But the third-party company has a product available for licensing that I take advantage of, to leverage that in order to make money more efficiently than I could if I wrote everything myself.
I can't see how what Gates did is even slightly comparable to someone advertising, WITHOUT the owner's permission, a bike to sell to someone else, without even knowing they can complete the sale. They haven't even discussed the possibility of a deal with the owner, someone else could have already bought it, and offering it for sale at the same time the owner was offering it for sale without these discussions just isn't right.
Completely different story if they bought the bike first and then offered it. Or even if they had discussed with the owner first, had planned on buying the bike, made a deal with the owner and had put up their ad early.
