Review
"Pekka Himanen's theory of the hacker culture as the spirit of informationalism is a fundamental breakthrough in the discovery of the world unfolding in the uncertain dawn of the third millennium."
-Manuel Castells, from the Epilogue
"The Hacker Ethic is one of the most significant political ideas and value systems in history. Hackers are the warriors, explorers, guerrillas, and joyous adventurers of the Digital Age, and the true architects of the new economy. Demonized and often misunderstood, they are changing the world and the way it works. Pekka Himanen explains how and why in a book that is essential reading for anybody who wants to live, work or do business in the twenty-first century."
-Jon Katz, columnist for slashdot.org and author of
Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho"At last we have a book about the ethics of true hackers . . .not the criminals and vandals that the press calls hackers today, but the idealistic pioneers whose ethics of openness, enablement and cooperation laid the cornerstone for our new economy."
-Danny Hillis, Co-Founder, The Long Now Foundation and Co-Chairman & CTO, Applied Minds, Inc.
Book Description
Nearly a century ago, Max Weber's
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism articulated the animating spirit of the industrial age, the Protestant ethic. Now, Pekka Hinamen — together with Linus Torvalds and Manuel Castells — articulates how hackers* represent a new, opposing ethos for the information age. Underlying hackers' technical creations — such as the Internet and the personal computer, which have become symbols of our time — are the hacker values that produced them and that challenge us all. These values promoted passionate and freely rhythmed work; the belief that individuals can create great things by joining forces in imaginative ways; and the need to maintain our existing ethical ideals, such as privacy and equality, in our new, increasingly technologized society.
The Hacker Ethic takes us on a journey through fundamental questions about life in the information age — a trip of constant surprises, after which out time and our lives can be seen from unexpected perspectives.
*In the original meaning of the word,
hackers are enthusiastic computer programmers who share their work with others; they are not computer criminals.
