Talk:Hacker (free and open source software)

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[edit] ESR a hacker hero?

I really hate wasting time bashing ESR, but he hasn't done too much a hacker would consider "heroic." Just because he maintains the Jargon File doesn't mean he's a hacker demi-god. Its more like the ESR File now than the Jargon File (twisted and evil), considering his centralized control over the File. Have you seen any slashdot topics relevant to ESR? The ratio is roughly 10 ESR pure unadulterated haters to 1 ESR apoligist who realizes that wasting time bashing ESR isn't going to cure the damage he has caused the community, and just wants to say something like "He's done some good things for the community. Lets move on to the topics we came to slashdot for." I acknoweldge that he's a decent spokesman for the open source software movement, but he does not represent hacker culture, and he is despised by basically all of it, with a few exceptions I'm sure. I personally could care less, and I really don't want to waste time on the foolishness of one man. I had hoped that this article could rise up as an unbiased Jargon File, but its basically a condensed version of it. I'll probably make some changes.

I have to agree with this, besides writing The Cathedral and the Bazaar and maintaining/rewriting the Jargon File he hasn't contributed much. And I sincerely doubt that many if anyone of the hacker culture would call him a hero. And even besides that he is hardly at the level of the other people mentioned, there really are more notable persons to name if you pick only eight.80.134.42.152 14:30, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Eric S. Raymond's changes

Someone really needs to go back and revert the damage done by Eric_S._Raymond. He applied his bias to article. It was originally about the hacker culture that included all sides, not just open source. He went and changed it to open source removing all the other references and information that didn't fit his worldview. The changes are too big of a project for me to take, but I hope someone can properly seperate this out and make people from both hacker culture's happy without the opensource hacker culture editing the page and claiming to be the one true hacker culture.

I'd say it is fair. ESR is maintainer of the Jargon File, he is a demigod, and he knows about this in first person, and can quote sources on this. Anyway, hackerdom is closely connected with free-software movement today, and will probably be so for the foreseable future. --vidarlo 18:28, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
Just because ESR is so involved with the Jargon File doesn't make him qualified to change the focus of the article. The only sources fit to quote are published, anyway, and if only ESR can access them, they're no good. ProfMoriarty 21:14, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Big problems

I've got some really big problems with this and many of the other hacker pages. As the guy below points out, you are assuming your terminology is correct. There is the open source hacker subculture as well as the darker (bad word) hacker subculture. I just removed a section because it was wrong. There is a huge overlap in philosophy and membership. Both groups are filled with open source contributers and way too many libertarian thoughts. Even on the hacker page you list Steve Wozniak. Should we throw him into the darkside because he was a phreak? I know wikipedia is polluted by open source fanboys, but seriously, stop the bias. Stop assuming you know the one true hacker subculture. Stop assuming that your terms of seperating hacker/cracker should be accepted by all. Definitely mention the arguments. Explain them as a perspective, and then move on. Seperate out the pages. Have a page on the brighter side and the darker side, but stop assuming your perspective of the world applies to other people.


[edit] Which Hacker culture?

This whole page is definitely along with the "hackers, not crackers" school of thought, which is no surprise given that it has been heavily editted by Eric_S._Raymond. The Hacker entry, although IMO slanted, at least gives multiple views to the definition of what a hacker is and who are the people that claim themselves as hackers.

Should this page thus reflect the multiple facets of the definition of hacker with multiple views at what hacker cultures are? Or are the cultures around the alternative definitions to be driven down to an ESR-esque Cracker culture instead? --Golgo13 17:20, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
As someone who just stumbled upon this article, I would say: If there are two hacker-cracker-whatever-cultures, then mention both of them. The introduction, explaining the distinction between hackers and so-called crackers, is quite good, but I can't understand why the rest of the page only describes one part of this culture? IMO, that is quite POV. -- 84.144.142.79, 2006-05-13 13:26:09
Cracking isn't so much of a cultural facet; it is more of a societal problem (when the actions are clearly subversive). As such, an article on cracker culture (or the presentation of information about that into this article) seems preposterous. Note that there isn't an article on criminal culture or mafia culture. As for cracking that is not so subversive, it may deserve increased mention. --Amit 07:13, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Wooh Eric S. Raymond edited this page? Holy crap?! Caleb09 21:34, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Free software movement

Shouldn't there be a mention of the free software movement in the introduction, after all it is evident in the GNU manifesto that stallman created GNU so as to bring back the hacker culture. (--el magnifico 14:34, 21 August 2005 (UTC))

[edit] Merge with UNIX culture

Doesn't it make more sense to say that UNIX is a product of the hacker culture for the most part? Ken Thompson and others who have worked on bringing UNIX to where it is today are strong examples of Hackers.

Agreed. Almost all hackers of the FOSS variety are UNIX types.

Stormchaser

Here we go:

The academic hacker subculture is defined by shared work and play focused around central artifacts. Some of these artifacts are very large; the Internet itself, the World Wide Web, the GNU Project, and the Linux operating system are all hacker creations, works of which the subculture considers itself primary custodian. No, they are Unix culture creations. I am definitely in favour of a merge. Stormchaser (talk) 20:25, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Edit... fixed?

I think I killed the bias, not sure, tho

[edit] documents section

The jargon file is the most important touchstone?! What kind of POV weirdness is that? Can we either get rid of this section or else expand it? I'd certainly add the GNU Manifesto, but I think that doesn't go nearly far enough; hacker culture is transmitted through a vast body of mostly-technical works (like TAOCP, SICP, etc,) and pieces of software like Emacs, not just these anthropological studies. And if we do want anthropological studies, certainly we should mention Steven Levy's book Hackers. We would never say that the most important touchstone of "literary culture" is a dictionary or essay; hacker culture is similar. Phr 19:43, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Leet is not really a hacker creation

Leet is not usually part of what true hackers believe to be part of the culture. Handles yes, but leet is if anything seen as a debasement of the original ideals of hacking and is reserved for the lesser want to be script kiddies. I would eather put in a seperate section talking about hacker word play as there is the TLA (Three Letter Acronyms) puns and the jokes about the spelling of Micro$oft and the like. However Leet is used in a mocking fassion if at all.

Reference to true hacker suggests you should read the hacker definition controversy piece. While I would agree Leet/l33t/1337 has no bearing to the technical aspects of hacking, and the earliest use I can find in Google groups is shortly after September never ended, it's definitely a cultural artifact of a portion of the broadest view of the hacker subculture. Granted, it's not a portion of the subculture I like being associated with, even peripherally; however, I view it much the same as how by being an American, I am associated with the wingnuts on the Religious Right: it's part of the culture as a whole... just not one I like. — Abb3w 20:28, 11 June 2006 (UTC)


wh@7 1337Z for 4@x0rZ!!11!!1!1 rofl Caleb09 21:35, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Intersection

From my personal POV, the "academic hacker culture" and "underground hacking culture" overlap to a great degree. The views stated in the article are too simplified, and fails to take into account any form of human social dynamics. The article seems to consider computer security as a field "dirty" and/or corrupt. While this is in many cases true, putting it in this emotional way is irrational and not even remotely NPOV.

The article should treat the hobbyist/academic programming culture separate from the underground (and for that matter, "overground") security culture as separate things that are not in conflict with each other. As it stands now, this article comes of as a childish rant, esp. in the sense that it seemingly tries to generalize higly variable characteristics of personality (criminal behaviour, fields of interest) into too rigidly defined social and cultural groups.

Victor Fors 02:32, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Yup, there is much to be improved about the article. It is currently loosely based on [1]. I guess the 'underground' has changed radically since laws for computer criminality were established and enforced, leading to the rise of ethical/legal/white hat computer security hackers, a phenomenon not seen before. That's not mentioned at all currently. At least since the broad availability of the internet there is quite some amount of blurring involed, yet I think certain demarcation should still be possible – open source movement proponents wouldn't like to see themselves being classified into the same subculture as the l33t hax0rs breaking into systems. The problem is that reputable sources about all these complex social things are needed desparately. Can you help? It is a long way to a good, neutral and factual account of hacker culture. --Rtc 04:39, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not an anthropologist, but i could try (maybe some activity in this particular article could spur others to join in as well.)

Victor Fors 22:02, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Glider is too distracting

I moved the glider animation to the bottom; while it is appropriately hackish in the right sense, it is also very distracting when reading the text. --DavidHopwood 04:45, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] xkcd

I don't think that xkcd is only a trivia anymore. --rtc (talk) 14:26, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism

This article seems bogus. Look at the title first: Hacker (academia). Do any academic institutions have a Department of Hacking or similiar faculty? Insofar as the title means anything, it's talking about Computer scientist or similar. So, I've stuck some tags on the article and will be ramping these up to deletion unless we get some improvement in the title and content. Suggestions are invited. Colonel Warden (talk) 14:49, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

  • I suggested in particular that we merge this to Programmer which seems to have the appropriate tone. Colonel Warden (talk) 15:00, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
I dunno. I come here specifically to propose renaming this article, even before I read your criticism. The article as it currently stands is a mess, but IMO it has room for improvement, so a merging could be too drastic a measure right now. As for the title, I don't like it, either. My proposal is to rename it Hacker (programmer). The current title is broken because, even if still today most hackers (in the ESR and RMS's sense) study at a university, IMO that's no longer one of the distinguishing features of the movement. OTOH, a title such as Hacker (free software)) underemphasizes the past history of hackerdom, which predates the free software movement as it exists today. Hacker (programmer) would be a good compromise, encompassing both the past and the present.
But if this article is to be kept separate, it needs major improvements. As it stands now, it is not radically better than a redirect to Programmer. --Army1987 (talk) 15:17, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
"Academia is a collective term for the scientific and cultural community engaged in higher education and research, taken as a whole." (Academia). Much of academia is not institutionalized, but informal folklore, as in this case. I do not think that programmer and hacker are the same thing. Hacking is a culture of sharing; at least today, many programmers try to keep their knowledge a secret. Further, programmer usually implies a relation to the industrial, not the academic world. Hacking is strongly influenced by the values of academia, not by the values of industry. --rtc (talk) 04:35, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Let's take Tim Berners-Lee as an example of the sort of person we're talking about. If you look at his Wikipedia article (which I haven't touched), we see that he is described as a developer, was caught hacking (bad) and worked as a programmer. In the sidebar, his occupation is given as computer scientist. I think the latter is the best term though the corresponding article perhaps needs work to emphasise the practical side, like creating the World Wide Web. I have changed the proposed merge target to computer scientist. Colonel Warden (talk) 07:59, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
I'll fill the occupation of other examples as I find them like Steve Wozniak - software engineer. This list of examples from this article is

Computer scientist seems the easy winner with Hacker (academia) as an also-ran. Colonel Warden (talk) 08:21, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

  • Another possibility is to move the article to Hacker subculture which seems to be how the article started and is really what it is about. This would fit the incoming redirects like Hacker culture betterColonel Warden (talk) 11:09, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Computer scientist is a formal academic profession, hacker isn't. Neither are all computers scientists hackers (many of them are quite opposed to hacking and see it as something primitive and mundane), nor are all hackers computer scientists (Stallman is a physicist for example; Wall is a linguist), even if your list suggests so. Hacker subculture is also wrong, because this article is supposed to describe only one of the at least two or three (depending on which source you ask) hacker subcultures. --rtc (talk) 11:45, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree, that's the reason why the merge should be the last resort. An article titled Computer scientist will not highlight the "spirit" of hacking, even if it highlights what hackers do. And Programmer also covers code monkeys, though I can't think of anything better than Hacker (programmer) as the title of this article (but maybe it's me who lacks imagination). --Army1987 (talk) 12:06, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
"Hacker (programmer)" is too narrow and fails to highlight the "spirit" of hacking, too, although it is clearly better than other suggestions. How about "Hacker (playful cleverness)" or "Hacker (Free Software/Open Source)"? --rtc (talk) 12:22, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
How about producing some sources to substantiate this fanciful stuff? All I'm seeing at the moment is a POV fork supported by self-published fluff. The sources I find, such as Hacker Culture indicate that this is best treated as a single topic. Find the sources and the appropriate treatment will flow from that. Colonel Warden (talk) 12:58, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
This article was written by Eric S. Raymond, and it is obviously based on his The Art Of Unix Programming, which is not "self-published fluff". It is not a POV fork, it describes one of the hacker subcultures. The computer security hacker subculture described in Hacker (computer security) and the subculture described in this article are two different things and not two different views on the same thing: The second group writes free software, the first doesn't; the first group breaks into computers, the second doesn't. Overlaps, where they exist, should be described at Hacker (computing)#Overlaps and differences. The book you linked says "These original hackers of the 1950s and 1960s are generally recognized as the ancestors of the modern computer underground" (p.15) but, as far as I can see from the limited google books preview, it gives an argument to substantiate neither this claim, nor for the implicit claim that they are not only "recognized as" but in fact are the "ancestors of the modern computer underground". --rtc (talk) 13:58, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
The book The Art Of Unix Programming is helpful and the article would be better if it cited it rather than stuff like the Jargon file. Look at the book on Google books, there are links to reviews. The first of these is interesting in that it provides a link to online source for the book and discusses biculturalism. But the two cultures it talks about are not old-school hackers and the more recent kind. The two cultures are Unix programmers and Windows programmers (text vs GUI). One might take the same source and use it to fork the article Programmer into Programmer (Unix) and Programmer (Windows). I fancy that's what's happened to the hacker concept. A common heritage has been forked by people with an axe to grind such as esr. I do not think that this is NPOV. Colonel Warden (talk) 15:05, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
So far I have not seen any source at all that convincingly describes that there is a substantial common heritage, except perhaps in the early days of phreaking. Breaking into computers on the one hand and writing free software on the other are things of a completely different nature, and it can simply not be compared to a distinction between Unix programmers and Windows programmers. The Jargon File is not "self-published fluff", either, it has been published as a book under the name The New Hacker's Dictionary. This article is a sub-article of Hacker (computing), which describes all hacker subcultures. So the POV split is simply not there. It would be a POV split if Hacker (computing) didn't exist. ---rtc (talk) 15:25, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
They are not things of a completely different nature - they are closely linked in psychological, demographic, political, historical and technical ways, as The Hacker Culture source makes clear. Anyway, the free software usage is quite fringe and you don't find much of it on Wikipedia, let alone the mainstream. If you look at the Open Source article, for example, you'll find that the only usage of the word hacker is in a security context. And the reference to academia has not been supported. Since this is an open source polemic we might call the article Hacker (open source), so that people can understand the POV that it is pushing. Colonel Warden (talk) 17:43, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
The Hacker Culture is one source only, and it does not make it clear at all. Of course, different things may appear similar depending on the perspective. The book's perspective can be described as one point of view; but it is not an argument to merge articles. Please read the sources at Hacker (computing)#Free Software/Open Source hacking books to see that this is not fringe, at least not more fringe than the other hacker subcultures. Notability of a topic is not equal to mainstream usage of it. The title "Hacker (open source)" is biased, as the word is equally used by Free Software proponents in this meaning (see, for example, [2]). --rtc (talk) 03:25, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
I am reminded of the fissiparious tendency which Life of Brian satirised so well in the The Judean People's Front skit. That's what we have here - people playing politics with words to claim some special status or insight. You get the same thing in religion - endless schisms over nothing. Anyway, my essential point is that Hacker (academia) is a bad title - misleading and not in common usage. Do you have a better suggestion? Colonel Warden (talk) 10:21, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
No, I don't, though I mentioned "Hacker (Free Software/Open Source)" as an acceptable alternative above. --rtc (talk) 10:23, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree that this is a better title. The exact formulation might be better as Hacker (Free and Open Source Software) per Free and open source software. Do we have consensus for a move? Colonel Warden (talk) 10:59, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Go ahead. --rtc (talk) 11:29, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New title

Yes, Hacker (free and open source software) isn't a perfect title, but it's much better than Hacker (academia). But among the ones which were proposed I prefer Hacker (playful cleverness). It would have a broader scope than the current one, but I think that this article--Army1987 (talk) 10:02, 8 March 2008 (UTC) should have a more historical perspective than, and not become a duplicate of, Free software movement. Also, section Hacker (computing)#The hacker attitude outside of computing would more logically belong here. What do you think? Another point: I think it is intended that Hacker (computing)#Open Source and Free Software hackers is intended to be a summary of this article, which currently isn't. I think its contents should be integrated here, and, if this article becomes decent, that section could be made more concise. Army1987 (talk) 10:02, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Not a free software term

This term predates the free software movement and there were hackers in the MIT AI lab that specifically competed against the free software movement (see Symbolics#History), so the title of the page should not say that this is free software terminology. The article is correct in saying that it is today mostly linked with the free software community, but the title would be better if it was more general (but I don't have a suggestion right now). --Gronky (talk) 16:25, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I posted a request at WP:WPFS to address this and others issue. I'm going to write to people listed in WP:WWA as hackers to request their comments, too. [Nope, stupid idea... --Army1987 (talk) 23:18, 19 March 2008 (UTC)] --Army1987 (talk) 22:01, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] In Support of Hacker Ethic Not Being a Part of Hacker (free and open source software))

Hacker ethic, while it includes supporting open-source software, is not strictly limited to open-source software. Other issues are just as important in the unspoken code that can be identified as 'Hacker Ethic'. For example, as Levy wrote it, The Right Thing, is one important value of many to true hackers.

Please keep Hacker Ethic as its own entry so other, hacker-related, ethical issues and premises can be added to this Wikipedia entry.

TSWcontentlady (talk) 11:51, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

The solution to this would be renaming this article, if only we found a good title for it... There is no point of having an article exclusively about free software hackers, as it would duplicate Free software movement. The phrase in parentheses was added to disambuguate the article from Hacker (computing), Hacker (computer security) etc.. It used to read Hacker (academia), which had its problems, too. Read the lead section of this article to understand what its scope is supposed to be, regardless of what the title says. Also, if you can think of a better title for this article, propose it... --Army1987 (talk) 10:34, 20 April 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Possible Titles for Hacker Ethics entry

Since it was suggested that the likelihood of this entry being combined with Hacker (free and open source software) would be diminished with the alteration of the title, here are some proposed titles for disambiguation and (as suggested by others) - protection of the Hacker Ethic entry.

Hacker Ethic (philosophy)

Hacker Ethic (hacker culture)

Hacker Ethic (culture and society)

TSWcontentlady (talk) 22:14, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand if you want to keep the Hacker ethic article separate while changing its title (if so, I don't see anything wrong with the current title which would be fixed by the ones you propose; anyway, the discussion would belong on Talk:Hacker ethic), or to merge it with this one with one of those titles (but the result isn't supposed to be only about ethic, so I don't like those titles...). I think a better idea would be merging it here, but retitle this article. I had a couple of ideas meanwhile. Hacker (programmer): it is still not perfect, but all of its drawback are also present with its title. (Namely, the hacker attitude is not exclusively applied in programming. Anyway, since this article will continue to deal mainly with software hackers, it's not a very serious issue, though it stays an issue.) Hacker (creative playfulness) would have a wide enough scope, but its tone doesn't sound "encyclopedic" enough to me. (The ideal would be a title with the scope of the latter and the tone of the former...) --Army1987 (talk) 20:20, 24 April 2008 (UTC)