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Title: The Hacker Ethic by Manuel Castells, Pekka Himanen ISBN: 0-375-75878-X Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks Pub. Date: 12 February, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.5 (22 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: What is Hacker's Ethic?
Comment: Pekka Himanen has written an extended essay on theme he thinks is the changing force and imperative within the creators of the information society. He calls it the Hacker Ethic to contrast the Protestant Ethic made famous in Max Weber's classic text.
I think the theme the book is about is extremely important and most people in our society do not understand its effects and functions at all. To some degree Himanen is on the ball and makes the picture clearer to a layman. The first part of the book is about the work ethic where Himanen defines what Hacker's Ethic is about. This is the best part of the book.
Himanen starts defining Hacker's Ethic as a general attitude towards work in the information society. For example a car mechanic can be a "hacker" in his field of expertise. Described by Himanen, in the center of hacker ethic is information sharing. It is held as a duty to share interesting information with like-minded people. In some sense the hacker ethic is a counterforce to the market culture. Hackers enter into information creation and exchange motivated by enthusiasm, joy and passion, not just money. Working times of a hacker are individual and optimized. In overall, hierarchies and rules from above are not driving creative individuals in the information centric fields of our society.
Great stuff. But in some directions Himanen's essay is unfortunately not very profound and lacks touch of reality. This comes in part two which is about "money ethic". To me there is no insight or originality in his thoughts. I believe the worst writings about money I've ever encountered originate from philosophers, idealists, elitists and other guys who are somehow closer to higher superstition than the raw reality of street-level business world. - Brainstorming in the third and last part named "the nethic" is somewhere between the first and the second part. Personally, I don't find it very convincing.
How great hacker Himanen may be, his book is sold as one interesting product of commercial culture, which hopefully entertains and attracts the short attention-window of its target consumers. If you were an average american consumer interested in current societal issues would you buy a book from Pekka Himanen. - From who? No problem, on the cover of the book are printed the names Linus Torvalds and Manuel Castells. Torvalds has actually written a short intro to the book - that has no connection to Himanen's essay. Castells for his part has made a short summary of the main points from his three volume The Information Age (1996-1998) in the end.
Rating: 4
Summary: The book in it's self is contradictive to it's objective...
Comment: I'm only 1/4 of the way through so far. I find it amusing that the author, obviously a believer in his writings, chooses to sell his book rather than provide it free of charge for all to download. This seems to go against the hacker ethic ;).
That aside, thus far it appears to be a worthy read. Reading the first three chapters has given me a slightly different perspective on my job and gave me a reason to be proud of my authority complex. Tomorrow I am going to revolt againt my bosses and tell them I'll work when I want to (If anybody reading this is looking to hire a developer with hacker ethics I will be needing a job tomorrow).
Rating: 4
Summary: Provocative, Maybe Ground Breaking, Expecting More
Comment: The Hacker Ethic is a late 1990s Information Age treatise. The author, a gifted and young sociologist, posits that the Protestant Ethic is gradually giving away to a new paradigm, and that the new paradigm will be much more effective and functional than the old paradigm. Seems simplistic, but much of Himanen's treatise is excellent and hard to ignore.
If I can fault the work, it would be along the lines that it can misinterpreted by slackers as a way of mindlessly rebelling against employers and western culture altogether. Too many Generation X advocates will take this like Charles Manson took the White Album. This is a solid, introductory work not to be read by nihilists.
Overall, I think Himanen is a very promising figure in the Information Age and will probably make a great long-term contribution to global society. I expect bigger and better things from him in the future.
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Title: The Cathedral & the Bazaar (paperback) by Eric S. Raymond ISBN: 0596001088 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates Pub. Date: 15 January, 2001 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy ISBN: 0141000511 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 02 January, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman by Richard M. Stallman, Lawrence Lessig, Joshua Gay ISBN: 1882114981 Publisher: Free Software Foundation Pub. Date: 01 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution (O'Reilly Open Source) by Chris Dibona, Mark Stone, Sam Ockman, Open Source (Organization), Brian Behlendorf, Scott Bradner, Jim Hamerly, Kirk McKusick, Tim O'Reilly, Tom Paquin ISBN: 1565925823 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates Pub. Date: January, 1999 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary by Linus Torvalds, David Diamond ISBN: 0066620732 Publisher: HarperBusiness Pub. Date: 04 June, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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