#hacker ethic

[k4rtik]

From the Steven Levy’s Hackers

[yohacks-blog]

The City of Shanghai wants to hack, too

Shanghai is home to Xin Che Jian (新车间), founded in 2010 and described as "China's first hackerspace". It has now also become home to a number of government sponsored sites, modeled on hackerspaces, called "innovation houses" (創新屋).

image source: http://www.stcsm.gov.cn/xwpt/gzdt/331718.htm

According to an article by one of Xin Che Jian's founders, David Li, and Silvia Lindtner of UC Irvine, the decision by the Shanghai government to fund these hackerspace-like "innovation houses" has been the subject of heated debate. One criticism is that the "houses" focus on tools rather than community.

There is also a larger ideological argument. If part of the value and strength of the hackerspace model is its generative, community created nature, it is worthwhile to be clear about the differences between a community created space and a government sponsored one. Another facet of the ideological issue is that hackerspaces developed out of particular subcultures and values (e.g., the "hacker ethic", US counterculture, European autonomism, and techno-utopianism). These roots have shaped the development of hackerspaces into what they are today. If these values are no longer implicitly or explicitly part of a hackerspace, is it still a hackerspace? 

(In the U.S., there has been debate over DARPA funding and hackerspaces, which raises similar issues.)

Work cited: 

Lindtner, S., & Li, D. (2012). Created in China: the makings of China's hackerspace community. interactions, 19(6), 18-22.

[squidblood]

I don't know if there actually is a hacker's ethic as such, but there sure was an MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab ethic. This was that bureaucracy should not be allowed to get in the way of doing anything useful. Rules did not matter - results mattered. Rules, in the form of computer security or locks on doors, were held in total, absolute disrespect. We would be proud of how quickly we would sweep away whatever little piece of bureaucracy was getting in the way, how little time it forced you to waste. Anyone who dared to lock a terminal in his office, say because he was a professor and thought he was more important than other people, would likely find his door left open the next morning. I would just climb over the ceiling or under the floor, move the terminal out, or leave the door open with a note saying what a big inconvenience it is to have to go under the floor, "so please do not inconvenience people by locking the door any longer." Even now, there is a big wrench at the AI Lab titled, "the seventh-floor master key" to be used in case anyone dares to lock up one of the more fancy terminals.

Richard Stallman

[darryljonckheere]

Hackers Welcome

Via Robert Willey, Hacking Our Way To The Future.