Reading 3: Big Hacks, Big stacks

 Reading 03: Big Hacks, Big Stacks

    Naivety killed the “True Hacker” spirit, but not the Hacker Ethic itself. Since the first page of Hackers, I viewed those die-hard idealists seeking to make the world conform to their beliefs would not last through the generations of hackers. Each generation of hackers, from the True Hackers to the Gaming Artists lived life almost via a two-way mirror; they could easily see and comment on the outside world but those going about daily life could not understand the passions driving the hackers. The Hacker Ethic being adopted en masse, in my humble opinion, was always a pipedream.

    This is not to say that it is dead nowadays or dwindling. While Richard Stallman coined himself as “the last True Hacker”, he failed to realize that more people than ever had started hacking on computers in each their own way. The spread of the Hacker Ethic led to the computer craze which in a Capitalistic society that is America is no surprise led to the monetization and commercialization of computer software.

    I think the book fails to realize that as the era of the Game Hackers lost some Hacker Ethics by forming bureaucratic companies, the group of people across America who refused to accept copyright law and proprietary software grew in proportion. Hackers such as Mark Dachaineau were frequently rubbing elbows initially with hackers whose main goal was to liberate software and games from the shackles of copyright protections. This defiance is just like what transpired in the MIT AI lab as they rebelled against passwords on the 9^th floor machines, but just on a national level. Through such acts of rebellion, Hackers without central organization kept the Hacker Ethics alive by Sharing software and ensuring that it remained open to the public solely because they thought it was the righteous thing to do.

    Although the proliferation of computers across America increased the number of genuine hackers such as John Harris in society, it did the same for “professional hackers”, and probably to a larger extent. Those “goal-oriented” and “responsible” programmers should not be seen as a blight to those who identify as genuine hackers. Instead, I suggest viewing them as the engine that keeps the Technology Train chugging in today’s economy. If every programmer only worked on his passion projects and on his own schedule, then I would never get to order Chic-fil-a from Duncan on my phone. I do not know anyone who’s passionate about automating food delivery app software, yet GrubHub still found a group of programmers who were able to produce a working app. What I am trying to say is that while it is important for programmers to be motivated to work on a project, that project does not have to be their goal in life. “Professional Programmers” are not worse than those truly passionate programmers, they just have different driving forces in their life. Whether they are programming for financial security or because programming is just the best they are good at, the “professional programmer” promotes the growth of the software/hardware industry just like “passionate hackers/programmers”.

    While I might be biased in my assessment of “professional programmers” being equal to “passionate programmers” due to the fact I will most likely have to follow the mentality of a professional in my job after I graduate, I find it hard to criticize either style of life. They both need each other to exist because it is the “passionate programmer” who puts in the work to push the limits of technology and the “professional programmer” who helps establish the new status quo.

    As for if money ruined the hacker ethic, simply no. The greatest driving force for innovation in the USA is either the military industrial complex or good-old capitalist greed to sell as much as possible. The True Hackers would not exist without DARPA money, the Hardware Hackers would not exist without companies like Intel trying to make cheaper microprocessors to increase their revenue, and the Game Hackers would not have come into their Golden Age without the capitalist market to sell their games to. In all the three generations of Hackers, money was a key component to drive the Hacker Movement.