Hackers in the Bazaar Reflections

       Linus Torvalds' background and motivations for creating Linux fascinated me, especially in the glaring differences between Torvalds and other tech luminaries. Torvalds' early life clearly impacted the trajectory of his life and career in several different ways. Like many of the hackers we've read about, Torvalds had a natural inclination towards computing from a young age, which his grandfather fostered. Torvalds displayed many elements of the hacker ethic, from his desire to get "under the hood" of electronics to his habit of staying up past his bedtime to work on his computer. A self-described "loser" and "nerd," Torvalds devoted himself to programming, often forgoing social contact for long periods of time. But several other aspects of his family dynamic also influenced Torvalds in arguably more interesting ways. The relative instability of his childhood--his grandfather's stroke, his parents' divorce, his family's financi

       While some proponents of open source idealistically declare that information should be free and everyone should have access to it--much like the mindset of the early hackers--ESR presents a more cynical view of why open source works as a business model. In describing the "services instead of software" approach, ESR explains that much of the actual programming work that goes into software development is code maintenance, rather than actually writing new code; thus, he distinguishes between the "sale value" and "use value" of software. In fact, ESR argues, many people mistakenly view the software industry as a manufacturing industry, rather than as a service industry. Viewing software development as primarily a service industry, ESR explains that by making the actual software free/ open source, companies can still make money by charging for the services that go along with their software, such as long-term maintenance. This model does seem to make sens

"Homesteading the Noosphere," ESR makes an interesting and nuanced argument regarding the social mechanisms that allow open source communities to function (as well as those that are detrimental). ESR views hacker/ open source culture as rooted in a system of gift giving. In gift culture, one's status is determined not by what one obtains, but by what one gives away. In the specific context of open source communities, the "gifts" that hackers give away are writing code for additional features, bug fixes, etc. The higher the quality of this code, the better this gift is. Further, ESR argues, open source contributors are fundamentally motivated by ego and a desire to improve their reputations, which leads them to spend vast amounts of time and energy to integrate themselves into open source communities and contribute high-value "gifts." Elaborating on this theory, ESR explains that, while one's ego is central to open source contributions, self promoti

 The best way to read Paul Graham's essays on wealth and income inequality is to start by repeatedly banging your head against a wall to drop a few IQ points. Maybe then Graham's conveniently simplistic worldview--in which income does not correlate to quality of life, the poor are simply unproductive, and the free market is completely unbiased--will start to make sense to you.  I'll start by commenting on Graham's less egregious essay about how to make wealth. On the surface, Graham's pitch is quite appealing: who wouldn't want to compress their working life into just a few years, and then be set for life? Graham outlines a few steps in order to accomplish this:     1. Have an idea for your startup      2. Gather 5 - 10 ambitious people to work with you      3. Work really, really hard for a few years      4. Develop technology quickly in order to compete with big companies      5. Acquire a lot of users      6. Sell your startup for a lot of money  Graham allud

  Paul Graham’s analysis of the relative power of different programming languages and the impact of choosing one language over another fascinated me, especially in his discussion of how programming languages impact the way a programmer thinks. This concept appealed to me because it’s something that I have thought about in the broader context of language as a whole, but had never thought to apply to programming languages specifically. As a Computer Engineering major with a supplementary major in Spanish, I like to joke that I’m a languages major, and then start listing programming languages along with English and Spanish. (Look, I never said this was a funny joke, but I certainly enjoy it.) Something interesting that I’ve come across in studying Spanish is that some scholars believe that the language we speak can impact the way we view and interact with the world. For example, some languages have a mood called “subjunctive” that expresses our relationship to uncertainty—to what we imagi

      In his collection of essays Hackers and Painters , Paul Graham describes modern hackers in a manner that is largely compatible with Steven Levy’s portrayal in Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution , although several of Graham’s arguments provide additional insight into aspects of being a hacker. Perhaps the largest similarity between Graham and Levy’s is their view of the importance of the hands-on imperative, a central tenet of the Hacker Ethic. Graham writes that “[m]ost hackers don't learn to hack by taking college courses in programming. They learn to hack by writing programs of their own at age thirteen. Even in college classes, you learn to hack mostly by hacking,” and he describes hackers as “poking about inside current technology” in order to understand how it works and derive inspiration for building their own. These descriptions mirror the experiences of many of the figures in Levy’s book—hackers who began learning how technology worked at a young age by takin