Week 12 - The Historical Hackerdom

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 In this forum, I will give my opinion on the book that was written by Pekka Himanen, Manual Castells, and Linus Torvalds. They come together to discuss hackers' working style, organization, work ethic, work urge, etc. To start with I will give some information about the writes.


PEKKA HIMANEN: In her twenties, he received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Helsinki. His in-depth studies of the meaning of technological development put him in contact with academics, artists, government officials, and corporate executives.


LINUS TORVALDS: While a student at the University of Helsinki in 1991, he created the Linux operating system, becoming one of the most respected hackers in the computing community. Since then, Linux has been used by thousands of users around the world. 


MANUEL CASTELLS: Professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. The critically acclaimed trilogy The Information Age, The City, and author of more than twenty books.


I would like to give my review based opinion on the money ethic. In the midst of an age where the urge to make money is intensifying and thus more and more information is denied access, hackers' explanations of why they embark on a gigantic project like Linux, where money is the driving force, instead of giving away creations, is astounding. At the beginning of this book, Torvalds presents the "Linus Law" to place this form of hacking in the context of general human impulses. Knowing that he is simplifying, he talks about three basic drives, which he calls survival, social life, and entertainment. The lowest echelon is to survive; necessary to meet higher-level impulses, he briefly touches on. What Torvalds refers to as fun, in the dictionary of this book, corresponds to passion; that is, the state of being motivated by something that is interesting, attractive, and enjoyable in its own right.


One of the elements in hacker ethics is referred to as network ethics. Nethic refers to ideas such as freedom of expression on the Nethicand freedom of access to the Nethic for all. Most hackers support only parts of the Nethic, but for its societal significance, it should all be understood as a whole. All these are at the root of the ethical challenges of the information age.



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