Hacker and Community, part 1/2: Hacker vs Cracker

Before unpacking the information I have already collected (it seems I have more material to posts than time to write), it is essential to defined two key concepts. The first one is the concept of hacker, the main agents of free/open software development, and the second one, to answer rsrcher, the concept of community, how does it defined itself in a virtual context. This post is the first in a series of two: it will try to outline the hacker concept. The second post will concern the community part.

The “hackers” concept has been abusively over abuse by media over time, as noted in Cybermethods by Hellen Megens and Brian Martin:

“The meaning of the word "hacking" has changed over time. Originally it meant building hardware and software and was considered admirable. Media coverage has increased public awareness of hacking but changed the meaning in a negative way.” (Megens and Martin, 2003)

However, many maintain the original definition, explicitly the Free / Open Source Software developers. Many still call themselves hackers. According to the The Jargon File, also known as The New Hacker's Dictionary, hacker can be define as this:

“A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary. RFC1392, the Internet Users' Glossary, usefully amplifies this as: A person who delights in having an intimate understanding of the internal workings of a system, computers and computer networks in particular.” (Jargon File 4.4.3, 2003)

Also, the term hacker implies a person who follows the hacker's ethic code, describe in the Jargon File as followed:

“hacker ethic: n.

1. The belief that information-sharing is a powerful positive good, and that it is an ethical duty of hackers to share their expertise by writing open-source code and facilitating access to information and to computing resources wherever possible.

2. The belief that system-cracking for fun and exploration is ethically OK as long as the cracker commits no theft, vandalism, or breach of confidentiality.

Both of these normative ethical principles are widely, but by no means universally, accepted among hackers. Most hackers subscribe to the hacker ethic in sense 1, and many act on it by writing and giving away open-source software. A few go further and assert that all information should be free and any proprietary control of it is bad [...].

Sense 2 is more controversial: some people consider the act of cracking itself to be unethical, like breaking and entering. But the belief that ‘ethical’ cracking excludes destruction at least moderates the behavior of people who see themselves as ‘benign’ crackers [...]. On this view, it may be one of the highest forms of hackerly courtesy to (a) break into a system, and then (b) explain to the sysop, preferably by email from a superuser account, exactly how it was done and how the hole can be plugged — acting as an unpaid (and unsolicited) tiger team.

The most reliable manifestation of either version of the hacker ethic is that almost all hackers are actively willing to share technical tricks, software, and (where possible) computing resources with other hackers. Huge cooperative networks such as Usenet, FidoNet and the Internet itself can function without central control because of this trait; they both rely on and reinforce a sense of community that may be hackerdom's most valuable intangible asset.” (Jargon File 4.4.3, 2003)

Therefore, it is possible to understand the distinction between “hackers” and “crackers”. Eric S. Raymond, a notorious hacker, sums it simply:

“[H]ackers build things, crackers break them.” (Raymond, 2001)

In this definition hackers have little in common with what Raymond calls “cracker”. Media has mis-associate both together, but for the purpose of this project, I will use the hacker's term as F/OSS community understand it, i.e. as programmer who are drive by their desire to understand computer system and to share that knowledge to their community.

Reference:

Megens, Hellen, and Brian Martin. 2003. Cybermethods. First Monday. February 3. http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/1035/956.

Raymond, Eric S. 2001. How To Become A Hacker. http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html.

Raymond, Eric S. 2003, (Ed). The Jargon File, version 4.4.7. http://www.catb.org/jargon/.