Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution

by Steven Levy

But as more nontechnical people bought computers, the things that impressed hackers were not as essential. While the programs themselves had to maintain a certain standard of quality, it was quite possible that the most exacting standards — those applied by a hacker who wanted to add one more feature, or wouldn’t let go of a project until it was demonstrably faster than anything else around — were probably counterproductive.

When computers are sold like toasters, programs will be sold like toothpaste.

The dark period was over, but something had changed in the relationship between Ken and John. It was emblematic of the way that On-Line was changing, into more of a bureaucracy than a hacker Summer Camp.

This was no small loss, because the VCS machine was hopelessly limited in memory, and writing games on it required skills honed as finely as those required in haiku composition.

Like his computer hacking, which was characterized by explosive bursts of innovation and inattention to detail, his business style was punctuated by flashes of insight and failures to follow through on ideas.

To Dick’s mind, the flow of information should be channeled with discretion, with an unambiguous interpretation controlled by the people at the top.

Third-Generation hackers never had the sense of community of their predecessors, and early on they came to see healthy sales figures as essential to becoming winners.

To hackers, a program was an organic entity that had a life independent from that of its author.

“We believe that innovative authors are more likely to come from people who are independent and won’t work in a software ‘factory’ or ‘bureaucracy.’”

Tonight, for instance, he preached to a small group on the evils of secrecy, using Apple’s current policy as a prime example. The secrecy and the stifling bureaucracy there were such that he was not sure if he would ever return to the company built on his brainchild, the Apple II.

The beauty in hackerism was Taoistic and internal, blindingly impressive when one could perceive the daring blend of idealism and cerebration, but less than compelling when presented as a chorus line in a Las Vegas ballroom.

everybody worked better and harder for a company that was fun to work for.

Instead of a hacker wasting time trying to make a product perfect, Ken preferred less polished programs that shipped on schedule, so he could start building an ad campaign around them.

“there were no artificial obstacles, things that are insisted upon that make it hard for people to get any work done — things like bureaucracy, security, refusals to share with other people.”

Stallman kept fighting, trying, he said, “to delay the fascist advances with every method I could.”

Hacker Ethic: like lines of code in a systems program, compromise should be bummed to the minimum.

Machines began to break and never be fixed; sometimes they just got thrown out. Needed changes in software could not be made. The non-hackers reacted to this by turning to commercial systems, bringing with them fascism and license agreements.

“I’m the last survivor of a dead culture,” said RMS. “And I don’t really belong in the world anymore. And in some ways I feel I ought to be dead.”

fragile. So that to be able to defy a culture which states that ‘Thou shalt not touch this,’ and to defy that with one’s own creative powers is . . . the essence.” The essence, of course, of the Hacker Ethic.

I think that hackers — dedicated, innovative, irreverent computer programmers — are the most interesting and effective body of intellectuals since the framers of the U.S. Constitution

John Harris is still writing his software for the long discontinued Atari 800 computer.

“I don’t know Stallman well. I know him well enough to know he is a hard man to like.” (And that was in the preface of Stallman’s own book!)

Decentralized decision making. Emphasizing quality of work over quality of wardrobe.

“One good hacker can be as good as ten or twenty engineers,