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Concept
Hacker ethic
Summary
The hacker ethic is a philosophy and set of moral values within hacker culture. Practitioners believe that sharing information and data with others is an ethical imperative. The hacker ethic is related to the concept of freedom of information, as well as the political theories of anti-authoritarianism, anarchism, and libertarianism.
While some tenets of the hacker ethic were described in other texts like Computer Lib/Dream Machines (1974) by Ted Nelson, the term hacker ethic is generally attributed to journalist Steven Levy, who appears to have been the first to document both the philosophy and the founders of the philosophy in his 1984 book titled Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution.
The hacker ethic originated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1950s–1960s. The term "hacker" has long been used there to describe college pranks that MIT students would regularly devise, and was used more generally to describe a project undertaken or a product built to fulfill some constructive goal, but also out of pleasure for mere involvement.
MIT housed an early IBM 704 computer inside the Electronic Accounting Machinery (EAM) room in 1959. This room became the staging grounds for early hackers, as MIT students from the Tech Model Railroad Club sneaked inside the EAM room after hours to attempt programming the 30-ton, computer.
The hacker ethic was described as a "new way of life, with a philosophy, an ethic and a dream". However, the elements of the hacker ethic were not openly debated and discussed; rather they were implicitly accepted and silently agreed upon.
The Free software movement was born in the early 1980s from followers of the hacker ethic. Its founder, Richard Stallman, is referred to by Steven Levy as "the last true hacker".
Richard Stallman describes:
"The hacker ethic refers to the feelings of right and wrong, to the ethical ideas this community of people had—that knowledge should be shared with other people who can benefit from it, and that important resources should be utilized rather than wasted.
Official source
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