The Hacker Community and Ethics. GNU Projectby Richard Stallman.
Hacking at MIT. MIT culture distinguishes itself not only for its seriousness of purpose, but also for its unique sense of humor, as expressed in the arena of. The MIT Alumni Association announces Hack Madness: The MIT Tournament of Hacks, a two-week contest to determine the Institute’s greatest hack.
Many of the values and tenets of the free and open source software movement stem from the hacker ethics that originated at MIT. the software hacking community. Discussions between administrators, student leaders, and four or five members of the hacking community began in the spring and have resulted in a hacking statement.
Published in Finnish in Tere Vadén & Richard. Koodi vapaaksi - Hakkerietiikan vaativuus, Tampere University. Press. 2. 00. 2, sivut 6. Hackerism. Tere Vadén (TV): One of the most striking features of your. While that maybe should be the norm, it. The main issues seems to be one of community. Am I guessing right if I believe that you are thinking of ethical.
MIT and the Community. MIT is an integral part of its host city of Cambridge, a diverse and vibrant community noted for its intellectual life, history, and. The 'Hacker Ethic' Over many years at MIT, a 'code of ethics' has evolved. This informal code is a self-enforced attitude that ensures that hacks will continue.
The IHTFP Gallery is dedicated to documenting the history of hacking at MIT. The word hack at MIT usually refers to a clever, benign, and 'ethical' prank or practical. At MIT, the terms hack and hacker have many shades of meaning, [32] [33] [34] though they are closely linked historically and culturally with computer hacking (in its.
Richard M. Stallman (RMS): Yes. The way I reached my. TV: The idea of free software was born out of your. MIT, and how that community was infiltrated and in some sense. RMS: Yes, that is correct. The hackers really enjoyed the freedom to. TV: What does the word ‘hacker’ mean to you.
RMS: It means someone who enjoys playful cleverness, especially. In the 1. 4th century. Guillaume de Machaut wrote a palindromic three- part musical. It sounded good, too—I think I played in it once. I still remember one of the parts. I think that was a good.
I heard somewhere that J. S. Bach did something similar. One possible arena for playful cleverness is breaking.
Hackers never had much respect for bureaucratic. If the computer was sitting idle because the. If this required. But not all hackers did security. Many never were interested in that.
On the Incompatible Timesharing System, the operating system developed. AI lab's hackers, we made it unnecessary to break security: we. The hackers realized. So we never gave them the means. TV: How about the concepts of freedom and community?
There's. this idea that freedom to distribute ideas, thoughts, recipes and. RMS: I think it is a mistake to label these restrictions as. The same restrictions, if imposed for a different. What matters is the restrictions, not. Commercial software can be free or nonfree, just as. It only depends on the.
TV: How would you delineate the distinction between the public. RMS: Comparing free with commercial is like comparing happiness with. It doesn't make sense, because they are not answers to the same. They are not alternatives. The meaningful comparison is. TV: It seems that the distinction between “open.
Is that a correct. RMS: More or less. I would say that freedom has value in. TV: But isn't there a problem here; one of the utilitarian. A company like Apple or Nokia will adapt open source up to.
RMS: I agree that it is wrong for these decisions (about. I have. freedom of speech should not be made by some third party for his own. I am not going to condemn someone who does the right thing for the. This is the reason why we must. TV: The argument that a company would use, of course, is. How. would you respond to that? RMS: That is a claim with no basis.
A nonfree program can. That is harmful to. TV: There is also this question of individual/private vs. It is often in the interests of the individual to.
RMS: I know. This is why we need to think about right and wrong in. TV: Now, somebody like Torvalds—and we don't. Actually that is. The Hacker. Ethics”. RMS: That is true. Just because someone enjoys hacking does.
Some hackers care about ethics—I do, for. Some stamp collectors care a lot about ethics, while. It is the same for hackers. I agree with the person who said that there is no hacker ethic, but. TV: Now, if one wants to avoid the negative consequences of the. And that. something, that reason, might be something in the public sphere. RMS: Of course—but why are you treating this as if it.
This idea is thousands of. This is the basic idea of ethics. TV: The question about hacker aesthetics—as you. RMS: Hacking is not primarily about an ethical issue. It is an idea of. But he may be right that hacking tends to. I would not want to completely deny all connection.
Although someone said that there was a hacker aesthetic rather than a. I think “aesthetic” is not quite the right.
An aesthetic is an idea of what is beautiful. This is an. idea of what is exciting and meaningful. Is there a word for that? I. can think of “the hacker way”, but that sounds rather.
Community. TV: Now that brings to mind several questions. For the. first, one could maybe inquire after an ideal society or do forth, but. RMS: I approach these issues incrementally. I don't think I. could try to design an ideal society and have any confidence in the. Attempts to propose a society quite different from the.
So instead I. propose local changes which I have some reason to believe are. Note that I didn't imagine the free software community on my. I had, I would not be so confident it is a good idea. I. knew that from having tried it.
TV: Is there something that digitalization offers for. RMS: Computers and the web make it much easier to work. I think that. this will become even more true in the future, as people develop.
The proprietary mindset might as well be. Internet. TV: Now, from a historical and philosophical perspective it. RMS: In general, technology is a good thing, and we.
Technology tends to cause cultural. This is not necessarily a bad thing, and we should not condemn. There are just certain specific kinds of. TV: I do not necessarily want to get stuck on this. I guess we have to conclude that.
RMS: I would agree. One person can belong to a community and.
Nevertheless, there is a. I would not say that the communitarian attitude. It makes no sense to aim. People must be selfish to a.
To abolish selfishness would not make sense, even if it were. TV: I mean, in many ways one could say that the communities. RMS: This is a rather weak and ineffective kind of. TV: And, furthermore, like you know, the research and university.
RMS: Universities ought to resist being turned to commercial. They have failed to resist. People will always be partly selfish; to keep selfishness from. The problem today is that organized selfishness is taking over. TV: But, the counter argument goes, a free market economy. RMS: The free software community shows, as cooperatives in.
Sweden showed, that this is not true. There are other ways of.
But beyond that, producing wealth is not the be- all. There is no need to bend every aspect. The idea of sacrificing.
WTO. As. for producing functioning democratic communities, allowing commerce to. TV: If ethics applies to everyone, and ethics is based on. RMS: I don't think that follows. Copyleft. TV: The concept of copyleft is a brilliant tool for the.
Could you tell a little on how you arrived at the. RMS: I had seen simple notices of the form “verbatim. TV: Let's take a case here. I can see that a free software.
I don't think. that is impossible. The same might go for certain musicians, even.
But how about a writer, a poet, even a musician. Finnish. Making free software or free music or free poetry will not be. RMS: The current system does rather a bad job of supporting. To replace it with nothing at all would not make. However, I think that voluntary.
TV: This seems to lead to some kind of. RMS: You can't be serious, can you? Don't you realize that the. Disconnecting that complex would do a lot to improve. TV: I was just thinking of the fact that in a small language. RMS: Not much good, though.
How many Finnish writers make a. Note that I don't advocate the simple and. See my. speech, Copyright. Globalization. Globalization TV: You have touched on some issues of globalization is some. One of the problems is that copyright laws put many. Do you think that.
RMS: The US when it was a developing country did not. So why should anyone else? Of course, we. know the reason why: it is part of a system of economic domination. TV: And, furthermore, could one see this issue also in terms. If I remember correctly, you have said that.
RMS: There is nothing wrong with globalization in the. What makes today's form of globalization so bad is not. It is that the WTO/IMF system. Laws to. protect the environment, public health, workers' rights, and the. The result is a. major transfer of wealth from most people to business.
Paradoxically, it seems to be accompanied by reduced growth as. The best way to understand today's “globalization”. Elimination of. trade barriers could be a good thing if accompanied by global labor.
If. these were enforced world- wide with the same energy that the US. The world- wide free. Ethics. TV: How is ethical “work” best done? It seems. that you often invoke teachers like Buddha or Jesus as examples of a. RMS: I never invoke Jesus. I am not a Christian and I don't. Jesus. I admire Buddha somewhat more, but I don't.
TV: It is also clear that one of the fascinating and. Is. that a conscious decision in the sense that you think that ethics is. RMS: Not at all. I do write about my ethical ideas, and I. I could. Of course, it is. TV: If we say that the reason for ethical behavior must be. RMS: I don't follow this reasoning—I see no.
Ethics applies to everyone, and the whole point of ethics. This applies to group selfishness just as as to. TV: … and then the commercial world would be. RMS: Business does have that tendency. Corporations provide. The result is selfishness that can often be unchecked by. To change this will require taking away the power of.
TV: Reading Steven Levy's Hackers once again, I was struck. RMS: I don't think so. A number of our programs were tools. Why were many of them tools?
Because hackers. writing programs get ideas for better ways to do that. What computer. hackers do is program. So they get excited about anything that makes. If a hacker does square dancing, he would get excited about anything. He might write a. This indeed has. happened.
A few computer hackers do square dancing, but all computer. So a few are interested in writing programs for. TV: Levy is not too hard on the point, but the. MIT hackers. accepted the Department of Defence funding is a case in point.
RMS: Some of the hackers were uncomfortable with Do. D funding. at the time, but they did not go so far as to rebel against it (by. I disagreed with them I don't think it was wrong to. I did not think it wrong at the. Corporate funding is far more dangerous. So I would not call them unscrupulous for having accepted this funding. TV: This reminds of the “instrumental.
Frankfurt school of critical theorists.
Hacker culture - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The hacker culture is a subculture of individuals who enjoy the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming and circumventing limitations of systems to achieve novel and clever outcomes.[1] The act of engaging in activities (such as programming or other media[2]) in a spirit of playfulness and exploration is termed "hacking".
However, the defining characteristic of a hacker is not the activities performed themselves (e. Activities of playful cleverness can be said to have "hack value" and are termed "hacks"[3] (examples include pranks at MIT intended to demonstrate technical aptitude and cleverness). The hacker culture originally emerged in academia in the 1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)'s Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC)[4] and MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.[5]Richard Stallman explains about hackers who program: What they had in common was mainly love of excellence and programming.
They wanted to make their programs that they used be as good as they could. They also wanted to make them do neat things.
They wanted to be able to do something in a more exciting way than anyone believed possible and show "Look how wonderful this is. I bet you didn't believe this could be done."[6]Hackers from this subculture tend to emphatically differentiate themselves from what they pejoratively call "crackers"; those who are generally referred to by media and members of the general public using the term "hacker", and whose primary focus—​be it to malign or malevolent purposes—​lies in exploiting weaknesses in computer security.[7]Definition[edit]The Jargon File, an influential but not universally accepted compendium of hacker slang, defines hacker as "A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and stretching their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary."[8] The Request for Comments (RFC) 1. Internet Users' Glossary, amplifies this meaning as "A person who delights in having an intimate understanding of the internal workings of a system, computers and computer networks in particular."[9]As documented in the Jargon File, these hackers are disappointed by the mass media and general public's usage of the word hacker to refer to security breakers, calling them "crackers" instead. This includes both "good" crackers ("white hat hackers") who use their computer security related skills and knowledge to learn more about how systems and networks work and to help to discover and fix security holes, as well as those more "evil" crackers ("black hat hackers") who use the same skills to author harmful software (like viruses, trojans, etc.) and illegally infiltrate secure systems with the intention of doing harm to the system.[1. The programmer subculture of hackers, in contrast to the cracker community, generally sees computer security related activities as contrary to the ideals of the original and true meaning of the hacker term that instead related to playful cleverness.[1. History[edit]The word "hacker" derives from the seventeenth century word of a "lusty laborer" who harvested fields by dogged and rough swings of his hoe. Although the idea of "hacking" has existed long before the term "hacker"—​with the most notable example of Lightning Ellsworth, it was not a word that the first programmers used to describe themselves.
In fact, many of the first programmers were from engineering or physics backgrounds. But from about 1. ENIAC computer) some programmers realized that their expertise in computer software and technology had evolved not just into a profession, but into a passion" (4.
There was a growing awareness of a style of programming different from the cut and dried methods employed at first,[1. Therefore, the fundamental characteristic that links all who identify themselves as hackers are ones who enjoy "…the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming and circumventing limitations of programming systems and who tries to extend their capabilities" (4. With this definition in mind, it can be clear where the negative implications of the word "hacker" and the subculture of "hackers" came from. Some common nicknames among this culture include "crackers" who are unskilled thieves who mainly rely on luck.
Others include "phreak"—​which refers to a type of skilled crackers and "warez d. Within all hackers are tiers of hackers such as the "samurai" who are hackers that hire themselves out for legal electronic locksmith work. Furthermore, there are other hackers that are hired to test security which are called "sneakers" or "tiger teams". Before communications between computers and computer users were as networked as they are now, there were multiple independent and parallel hacker subcultures, often unaware or only partially aware of each other's existence. All of these had certain important traits in common: Creating software and sharing it with each other. Placing a high value on freedom of inquiry. Hostility to secrecy.
Information- sharing as both an ideal and a practical strategy. Upholding the right to fork. Emphasis on rationality. Distaste for authority. Playful cleverness, taking the serious humorously and humor seriously. These sorts of subcultures were commonly found at academic settings such as collegecampuses. The MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the University of California, Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon University were particularly well- known hotbeds of early hacker culture.
They evolved in parallel, and largely unconsciously, until the Internet, where a legendary PDP- 1. MIT, called AI, that was running ITS, provided an early meeting point of the hacker community. This and other developments such as the rise of the free software movement and community drew together a critically large population and encouraged the spread of a conscious, common, and systematic ethos. Symptomatic of this evolution were an increasing adoption of common slang and a shared view of history, similar to the way in which other occupational groups have professionalized themselves but without the formal credentialing process characteristic of most professional groups.[citation needed]Over time, the academic hacker subculture has tended to become more conscious, more cohesive, and better organized.
The most important consciousness- raising moments have included the composition of the first Jargon File in 1. GNU Manifesto in 1.
Eric Raymond's The Cathedral and the Bazaar in 1. Correlated with this has been the gradual recognition of a set of shared culture heroes, including: Bill Joy, Donald Knuth, Dennis Ritchie, Paul Graham, Alan Kay, Ken Thompson, Richard M. Stallman, Linus Torvalds, Larry Wall, and Guido Van Rossum. The concentration of academic hacker subculture has paralleled and partly been driven by the commoditization of computer and networking technology, and has in turn accelerated that process. In 1. 97. 5, hackerdom was scattered across several different families of operating systems and disparate networks; today it is largely a Unix and TCP/IP phenomenon, and is concentrated around various operating systems based on free software and open- source software development.
Ethics and principles[edit]Main article: Hacker ethic. Many of the values and tenets of the free and open source software movement stem from the hacker ethics that originated at MIT[1. Homebrew Computer Club. The hacker ethics were chronicled by Steven Levy in Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution[1. Levy formulates and summarizes general hacker attitudes: Access to computers- and anything that might teach you something about the way the world works- should be unlimited and total. All information should be free. Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race, or position.
You can create art and beauty on a computer. Computers can change your life for the better.
Hacker ethics are concerned primarily with sharing, openness, collaboration, and engaging in the hands- on imperative.[1. Linus Torvalds, one of the leaders of the open source movement (known primarily for developing the Linux kernel), has noted in the book The Hacker Ethic[1. Protestant ethics and incorporates the spirits of capitalism, as introduced in the early 2.
Max Weber. Hack value is the notion used by hackers to express that something is worth doing or is interesting.[1. This is something that hackers often feel intuitively about a problem or solution. An aspect of hack value is performing feats for the sake of showing that they can be done, even if others think it is difficult. Using things in a unique way outside their intended purpose is often perceived as having hack value. Examples are using a dot matrix impact printer to produce musical notes, using a flatbed scanner to take ultra- high- resolution photographs or using an optical mouse as barcode reader.
A solution or feat has "hack value" if it is done in a way that has finesse, cleverness or brilliance, which makes creativity an essential part of the meaning. For example, picking a difficult lock has hack value; smashing it does not. As another example, proving Fermat's last theorem by linking together most of modern mathematics has hack value; solving a combinatorial problem by exhaustively trying all possibilities does not.
Hacking is not using process of elimination to find a solution; it's the process of finding a clever solution to a problem. While using hacker to refer to someone who enjoys playful cleverness is most often applied to computer programmers, it is sometimes used for people who apply the same attitude to other fields.[7] For example, Richard Stallman describes the silent composition 4′3. John Cage and the 1. Ma Fin Est Mon Commencement" by Guillaume de Machaut as hacks.[3] According to the Jargon File,[8] the word hacker was used in a similar sense among radio amateurs in the 1. The book Inside Narcotics, a semi- clandestine work appearing in 1.
English edition as of 2.