1. The belief that information-sharing is a powerful positive good,
and that it is an ethical duty of hackers to share their expertise by
writing open-source code and facilitating access to information and
to computing resources wherever possible.
2. The belief that system-cracking for fun and exploration is
ethically OK as long as the cracker commits no theft, vandalism, or
breach of confidentiality.
Both of these normative ethical principles are widely, but by no
means universally, accepted among hackers. Most hackers subscribe to
the hacker ethic in sense 1, and many act on it by writing and giving
away open-source software. A few go further and assert that all
information should be free and any proprietary control of it is bad;
this is the philosophy behind the {GNU} project.
Sense 2 is more controversial: some people consider the act of
cracking itself to be unethical, like breaking and entering. But the
belief that `ethical' cracking excludes destruction at least
moderates the behavior of people who see themselves as `benign'
crackers (see also {samurai}, {gray hat}). On this view, it may be
one of the highest forms of hackerly courtesy to (a) break into a
system, and then (b) explain to the sysop, preferably by email from a
{superuser} account, exactly how it was done and how the hole can be
plugged -- acting as an unpaid (and unsolicited) {tiger team}.
The most reliable manifestation of either version of the hacker ethic
is that almost all hackers are actively willing to share technical
tricks, software, and (where possible) computing resources with other
hackers. Huge cooperative networks such as {Usenet}, {FidoNet} and
the Internet itself can function without central control because of
this trait; they both rely on and reinforce a sense of community that
may be hackerdom's most valuable intangible asset.
[glossary]
[Reference(s) to this entry by made by: {cracker}{hacker}{samizdat}{samurai}{Share and enjoy!}]