As a matter of trivia, I learned recently that the System/360, among other things, is probably where software licensing originated. [1] For a variety of reasons, not least of which were antitrust considerations, IBM wanted to unbundle software and hardware and, at the time, it was unclear whether copyright, much less patents, would provide any IP protection for unbundled software.
For anyone unaware, the System/360 was also the subject of the often quoted Mythical Man Month by Fred Brooks.
I believe that there were a few licensed programs before IBM unbundled in 1969. There was a program that would produce flowcharts from source code, called Autoflow, released in 1965, for example. As for Bill Gates, he was 10 years old when Autoflow was released, I doubt he was thinking of selling software.
Not sure it is. It is bill gate not ibm that believe more onto software license. Ibm goes with hardware cum software license.
They are more structured no doubt even then. They are very careful about this. Licensed product but they are more onto
Still because they are more onto hardware and its usage their first anti trust is about tie-in sales. Hardware with monopoly of punch card purchase (I am not joking it is my professor speciality).
Software wise they allow development. Even to this day mvs (that is many years into the future it is mvs) 3.8 is still can be run without license. And invention like vm also.
They worry about Amdahl who basically do this s/360 and hardware compatibility (plug compatible) and even now fuji…
No they no doubt has software licensing but not their focus for a long time.
That is why when found bios cannot protect them, they do mca and totally missed it is software, stupid.
For anyone unaware, the System/360 was also the subject of the often quoted Mythical Man Month by Fred Brooks.
[1] https://www.create.ac.uk/blog/2018/11/14/the-first-software-...