Contents
- Revision Notes for the Second Edition
- Prologue: The Real ProgrammersThe Early HackersThe Rise of UnixThe End of Elder DaysThe Proprietary-Unix EraThe Early Free UnixesThe Great Web Explosion
- The Cathedral and the BazaarThe Mail Must Get ThroughThe Importance of Having Users Release Early, Release OftenHow Many Eyeballs Tame ComplexityWhen Is a Rose Not a Rose?Popclient becomes FetchmailFetchmail Grows UpA Few More Lessons from Fetchmail Necessary Preconditions for the Bazaar Style The Social Context of Open-Source SoftwareOn Management and the Maginot LineEpilog: Netscape Embraces the Bazaar
- An Introductory ContradictionThe Varieties of Hacker IdeologyPromiscuous Theory, Puritan PracticeOwnership and Open SourceLocke and Land TitleThe Hacker Milieu as Gift CultureThe Joy of HackingThe Many Faces of ReputationOwnership Rights and Reputation IncentivesThe Problem of EgoThe Value of HumilityGlobal Implications of the Reputation-Game ModelHow Fine a Gift?Noospheric Property and the Ethology of TerritoryCauses of ConflictProject Structures and OwnershipConflict and Conflict ResolutionAcculturation Mechanisms and the Link to AcademiaGift Outcompetes ExchangeConclusion: From Custom to Customary LawQuestions for Further Research
- Indistinguishable From MagicBeyond Geeks Bearing GiftsThe Manufacturing DelusionThe “Information Wants to be Free” MythThe Inverse CommonsReasons for Closing SourceUse-Value Funding ModelsThe Apache Case: Cost-SharingThe Cisco Case: Risk-SpreadingWhy Sale Value is ProblematicIndirect Sale-Value ModelsLoss-Leader/Market PositionerWidget FrostingGive Away the Recipe, Open a RestaurantAccessorizingFree the Future, Sell the PresentFree the Software, Sell the BrandFree the Software, Sell the ContentWhen to be Open, When to be ClosedWhat Are the Payoffs?How Do They Interact?Doom: A Case StudyKnowing When to Let GoOpen Source as a Strategic WeaponCost-sharing as a competitive weaponResetting the competitionGrowing the pondPreventing a choke holdOpen Source and Strategic Business RiskThe Business Ecology of Open SourceCoping with SuccessOpen R&D and the Reinvention of PatronageGetting There From HereConclusion: Life after the RevolutionAfterword: Why Closing a Drivers Loses Its Vendor Money
- Revenge of the HackersBeyond Brooks’s LawMemes and MythmakingThe Road to Mountain ViewThe Origins of “Open Source”Forget Bottom-Up; Work on Top-DownLinux is Our Best Demonstration CaseCapture the Fortune 500Co-opt the Prestige Media that Serve the Fortune 500Educate Hackers in Guerrilla Marketing TacticsUse the Open Source Certification Mark to Keep Things PureThe Accidental RevolutionaryPhases of the CampaignThe Facts on the GroundInto the Future
- Why This Document?What Is a Hacker?The Hacker AttitudeBasic Hacking SkillsStatus in the Hacker CultureThe Hacker/Nerd ConnectionPoints For StyleOther ResourcesFrequently Asked Questions
- A Brief History of HackerdomNotesNote 1Note 2Note 3The Cathedral and the BazaarNotesNote 4Note 5Note 6Note 7Note 8Note 9Note 10Note 11Note 12Note 13BibliographyAcknowledgementsHomesteading the NoosphereNotesNote 14Note 15Note 16Note 17Note 18Note 19Note 20Note 21Note 22Note 23Note 24Note 25BibliographyNote 26Note 27Note 28Note 29Note 30AcknowledgementsThe Magic CauldronNotesNote 31Note 32Note 33Note 34Note 35BibliographyNote 36Note 37Note 38AcknowledgementsFor Further Reading:
Chapter 1. A Brief History of Hackerdom
I explore the origins of the hacker culture, including prehistory among the Real Programmers,the glory days of the MIT hackers, and how the early ARPAnet nurtured the first network nation. Idescribe the early rise and eventual stagnation of Unix, the new hope from Finland, and how“the last true hacker” became the next generation’s patriarch. I sketch the way Linuxand the mainstreaming of the Internet brought the hacker culture from the fringes of publicconsciousness to its current prominence.
Prologue: The Real Programmers
In the beginning, there were Real Programmers.
That’s not what they called themselves. They didn’t call themselves“hackers”, either, or anything in particular; the sobriquet“RealProgrammer” wasn’t coined until after 1980, retrospectively by one of their own. But from1945 onward, the technology of computing attracted many of the world’s brightest and most creativeminds. From Eckert and Mauchly’s first ENIAC computer onward there was a more or less continuous andself-conscious technical culture of enthusiast programmers, people who built and played withsoftware for fun.
The Real Programmers typically came out of engineering or physics backgrounds. They were oftenamateur-radio hobbyists. They wore white socks and polyester shirts and ties and thick glasses andcoded in machine language and assembler and FORTRAN and half a dozen ancient languages nowforgotten.
From the end of World War II to the early 1970s, in the ...