Free as in Freedom [Paperback]

Appendix C. Hack, Hackers, and Hacking

To understand the full meaning of the word “hacker,” it helps to examine the word’s etymology over the years.

The New Hacker Dictionary, an online compendium of software-programmer jargon, officially lists nine different connotations of the word “hack” and a similar number for “hacker.” Then again, the same publication also includes an accompanying essay that quotes Phil Agre, an MIT hacker who warns readers not to be fooled by the word’s perceived flexibility. “Hack has only one meaning,” argues Agre. “An extremely subtle and profound one which defies articulation.”

Regardless of the width or narrowness of the definition, most modern hackers trace the word back to MIT, where the term bubbled up as popular item of student jargon in the early 1950s. In 1990 the MIT Museum put together a journal documenting the hacking phenomenon. According to the journal, students who attended the institute during the fifties used the word “hack” the way a modern student might use the word “goof.” Hanging a jalopy out a dormitory window was a “hack,” but anything harsh or malicious—e.g., egging a rival dorm’s windows or defacing a campus statue—fell outside the bounds. Implicit within the definition of “hack” was a spirit of harmless, creative fun.

This spirit would inspire the word’s gerund form: “hacking.” A 1950s student who spent the better part of the afternoon talking on the phone or dismantling a radio might describe the activity as “hacking.” Again, a modern ...