The gloom-and-doom and the 'Hacker' gaffe and other things.... this all dismays me.
Back when I did serious work (1997 or so), IT guys (LOTS of them former hackers and PC-geeks) had an informal code of ethics, which came down from the 'Hacker Dictionary' guys long, long ago. To reiterate:
'Hackers', while perfectly willing to use any means to tear apart and re-verse engineer software, hardware of any kind, etc. were ethically constrained from causing damage through their knowledge. Harassment of the powers that be, yes. The presentation of unpleasant facts, yet.
BUT, exploitation of knowledge for personal gain, definitely NOT. This doesn't just mean writing viruses, cracking systems for profit, breaking copyrights protection, etc.
Personally, I also took it to mean that one should not cynically exploit the ignorance of the public (and your bosses!) to line your own pockets. I put this in the category of war-profiteering or worse. I believe people in the medical professions might be familiar with this situation all so.
I got OUT of IT because I felt it was my mission to make the systems I was resposible for useful and secure; moreover, I spent a large part of each day trying to educate my users so that my job would be easier. I COULD have milked the job and told my people some bullshit that fed their mushroom-ness. I could have done the same to my bosses. I'd probably still be there and pulling in 60-70K a year, too.
Professional ethics used to mean something in the wider geek community. I don't believe that paranoia and greed will destroy it from within, but...
Ahhh.. But Paul Allen (didn't he have something to do with Microshaft, hee-hee) and Branson of Virgin are already backing Rutan and SpaceShip1 (sp?). They don't NEED any of that f___ing government money, and obviously they know how to pick 'em.
Rutan and his crew are there for the long haul. Regardless of whether they are recognized by NASA or not, they plan on starting their own space tourism biz (and guess who the first tourists will be?), at least to start. But, if NASA will help them along occasionally with a dollar or a million here and there, what of it? Nice to see them acting like a responsible agency again for a change, right?
And.. $1 billion just isn't that much, for what they expect to get out of it. Apollo (in today's dollars) cost a hell of a lot more than that. If Rutan's crew can land *Americans* on the Moon again, and do it cheap, they DESERVE $1 billion don't they?
The rabid budget hackers of Congress (remember Proxmire?) loved to chop away at NASA because it was 1) visible, and 2) difficult to defend. Very few of these 'fiscally responsible' political critters have made any attempt to reduce the big-ticket items in the budget, such as debt payment on the deficit and, well, wars.
So why not? Let NASA give the whole ($20 billion?) budget away. If Rutan's crew and backers are representative of the type of people in the private sector, I think this is something that should have been considered long ago, not just this week.
- Pat
As a very very amatuer developer, I can only speak for the quality of Linux as a low-wattage geek; but I believe that the robustness of Linux in general and of the Open Source community in general has a lot to do with people like Linus and particularly their _irreverence_ toward the established order of things. So I think his off-the-cuff comment is the most helpful one in this discussion: You are probably going to have a better product in the long run if you do the work yourself and stay largely ignorant of patents. Ignoranced IS some defense, at least in this situation.
And a better product is what we're all after, yes? Isn't that what the movement is about? Something that all of us own, that we are proud of and that no faceless behemoth can claim?
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Back when I did serious work (1997 or so), IT guys (LOTS of them former hackers and PC-geeks) had an informal code of ethics, which came down from the 'Hacker Dictionary' guys long, long ago. To reiterate:
'Hackers', while perfectly willing to use any means to tear apart and re-verse engineer software, hardware of any kind, etc. were ethically constrained from causing damage through their knowledge. Harassment of the powers that be, yes. The presentation of unpleasant facts, yet.
BUT, exploitation of knowledge for personal gain, definitely NOT. This doesn't just mean writing viruses, cracking systems for profit, breaking copyrights protection, etc.
Personally, I also took it to mean that one should not cynically exploit the ignorance of the public (and your bosses!) to line your own pockets. I put this in the category of war-profiteering or worse. I believe people in the medical professions might be familiar with this situation all so.
I got OUT of IT because I felt it was my mission to make the systems I was resposible for useful and secure; moreover, I spent a large part of each day trying to educate my users so that my job would be easier. I COULD have milked the job and told my people some bullshit that fed their mushroom-ness. I could have done the same to my bosses. I'd probably still be there and pulling in 60-70K a year, too.
Professional ethics used to mean something in the wider geek community. I don't believe that paranoia and greed will destroy it from within, but...
Ahhh.. But Paul Allen (didn't he have something to do with Microshaft, hee-hee) and Branson of Virgin are already backing Rutan and SpaceShip1 (sp?). They don't NEED any of that f___ing government money, and obviously they know how to pick 'em. Rutan and his crew are there for the long haul. Regardless of whether they are recognized by NASA or not, they plan on starting their own space tourism biz (and guess who the first tourists will be?), at least to start. But, if NASA will help them along occasionally with a dollar or a million here and there, what of it? Nice to see them acting like a responsible agency again for a change, right? And.. $1 billion just isn't that much, for what they expect to get out of it. Apollo (in today's dollars) cost a hell of a lot more than that. If Rutan's crew can land *Americans* on the Moon again, and do it cheap, they DESERVE $1 billion don't they? The rabid budget hackers of Congress (remember Proxmire?) loved to chop away at NASA because it was 1) visible, and 2) difficult to defend. Very few of these 'fiscally responsible' political critters have made any attempt to reduce the big-ticket items in the budget, such as debt payment on the deficit and, well, wars. So why not? Let NASA give the whole ($20 billion?) budget away. If Rutan's crew and backers are representative of the type of people in the private sector, I think this is something that should have been considered long ago, not just this week. - Pat
As a very very amatuer developer, I can only speak for the quality of Linux as a low-wattage geek; but I believe that the robustness of Linux in general and of the Open Source community in general has a lot to do with people like Linus and particularly their _irreverence_ toward the established order of things.
So I think his off-the-cuff comment is the most helpful one in this discussion: You are probably going to have a better product in the long run if you do the work yourself and stay largely ignorant of patents. Ignoranced IS some defense, at least in this situation.
And a better product is what we're all after, yes? Isn't that what the movement is about? Something that all of us own, that we are proud of and that no faceless behemoth can claim?
- Pat