The hacker ethic

Conference · Sat Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1994

OSTI ID:111329

Granger, S ^[1]

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1. Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States)

The hacker ethic can be a peculiar concept to those unfamiliar with hacking and what really is. In fact, the entire definition of hacking is somewhat obscure. Hacking originated as a challenge between programmers. Programmers at MIT are known for coining the term. Individuals would hack at code meaning that they would work at programming problems until they could maniuplate their computers into doing exactly what they wanted. The MIT hackers began with simple programs and moved on to fidding with UNIX machines, especially those on the Arpanet. Hackers started freely distributing their code to their friends and eventually to their friends across the network. This gave rise to a notion that software should be free. Eventually this was taken to the extreme information and network access should also be free.

• OSTI ID: 111329
• Report Number(s): CONF-941133--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
COMPUTER NETWORKS
COMPUTERS
ETHICAL ASPECTS
PROGRAMMING
SECURITY
SOCIAL IMPACT
TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT