Talk:Hacker culture

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)[reply]

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. --vidar lo 18:28, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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.

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)[reply]

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

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))[reply]

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.

Edit... fixed?

I think I killed the bias, not sure, tho

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

xkcd

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

"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)[reply]

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 give 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)[reply]