To me, this manifesto has little more than historical value. It's more an expression of generic adolescent angst rather than of hacker culture.<p>It's a poor "manifesto" too. What exactly are the aims of The Hacker? "Exploring", "Outsmarting you", and "judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like". Platitudes, really, if you set aside the emotional outbursts surrounding them.<p>The Jargon File offers a more balanced and intricate exploration of The Hacker. It's always worth a read.<p><a href="http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/index.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/index.html</a>
Always a fun read. The Hacker Manifesto reminds us that computing culture stands at a crossroads: between hobbyists and academia, between bedroom programmers and industry, between hackers, and, well, <i>hackers</i>, although both appear on either side of the fence.<p>While sinister and angsty in tone, this is ultimately a tale of someone discovering the wonders of computing, much as I, and many others did - although I never broke into anything, save my iPod.<p>From the FSF to MS to the demoscene, we're all computing, and many of us have a spark of feelings this piece evokes - a natural curiosity, a desire to push the boundaries, to see what's possible, and a bit of rebeliousness. It's what separates the hackers (both kinds) and the hobbyists and the wannabes, from those who don't have that feeling, the people for whom this is a 9-5 job, who grind out StrategyObjectFactoryFactorySingletonFactories, and when they get home want to think about anything but programming.<p>In short, that spark is what separates those who really care about computing from those who just want to get their job done and forget about it.<p>As usual with any broad, sweeping statements I make, I may be wrong.
For the full cultural effect, read it while listening to angsty MIDI music. Nirvana's Heart-Shaped Box is a perfect soundtrack:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUscmM8e9lc" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUscmM8e9lc</a>
It's also worth reading <i>The Hacker Crackdown</i>, which has an analysis of various hacker manifestos in part 2, and in general is an excellent read.
Better formatting and at least one less typo <a href="http://phrack.org/issues/7/3.html" rel="nofollow">http://phrack.org/issues/7/3.html</a>
Every time I read this I hear it read in the voice of the villain from the movie Hackers. Which I have to admit was totally a guilty pleasure of my teenage years.
This is found at the very end of the Vice article, still on the front page of HN: <a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/read/72-hours-of-pwnage-a-paranoid-n00b-goes-to-def-con" rel="nofollow">https://motherboard.vice.com/read/72-hours-of-pwnage-a-paran...</a>
It's interesting to contrast what YCombinator/Facebook mean by "hacker" and what it means at DEFCON. Or when this document was written. The former definitely has strong commercial overtones and the latter strong subversive overtones. They really are two very different meanings.
I find quite annoying that many people go "oh geez, what is this crap, nah, it's not like this" when this is a huge part of what brought us all that the hackerdom is today (whatever it is anyway).
I thought it was "a board is found" not "a bored is found" what is bored? A board would be a bulletin board system, one of many precursors to the modern web.
Posted this last week on here, was an excellent read - was looking for it for the last ~5 years. <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12241214" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12241214</a>
Feels wrong to have a thread about the Hacker's Manifesto without including this - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNtcWpY4YLY" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNtcWpY4YLY</a>
here is a more recent and in depth exploration of the hacker, with a similar title but a solid footing in philosophy and history -- <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Hacker_Manifesto" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Hacker_Manifesto</a>