Journalist Steven Levy coined the term ”hacker ethic” in his Hackers (1984). Levy himself explains how he came up with the term:

“As I talked to these digital explorers, ranging from those who tamed multi-million-dollar machines in the 1950s to contemporary young wizards who mastered computers in their suburban bedrooms, I found a common element, a common philosophy which seemed tied to the elegantly flowing logic of the computer itself. It was a philosophy of sharing, openness, decentralization, and getting your hands on machines at any cost – to improve the machines, and to improve the world. This Hacker Ethic is their gift to us: something with value even to those of us with no interest at all in computers.” (Levy, 1984, 1994:7)

The Jargon File - also known as The Hacker’s Dictionary – contains a definition of the “hacker ethic”, however, the term was not included in Guy L. Steele Jr.’s (et al) 1983-version. The Jargon File must have picked up the term later on, at least so it seems. Today, the first part of the entry says:

Hacker ethic. 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.
(JARGON FILE, catb.org/jargon)

Perhaps some hundred thousands of people have a shared conception of the “hacker ethic”; they know that it is about a sharing community, about writing free software/open source and about freedom. Some thinks that the hacker ethic can change the society for the better.

Others, that the hacker ethic is some utopian, idealistic or communist crap. However, the majority of people have not heard about the hacker ethic. Some have not even heard of hackers – and still many people have a misconception of what a hacker is; i.e. a hacker is not a cracker. (In short: hackers has to do with playfulness, cleverness, and exploration – hacking does not imply any criminal behaviour, whereas crackers are those who poke around in networks, break into systems, destroy, commit criminal acts in order to gain for themselves only etc.)

Still fewer has tried hard to think through the common objections, argue for and against and finally write about the hacker ethic. At least one of them see the “hacker ethic” as a serious challenge to contemporary society’s norms and values. He has found that hacker ethic has through technological creations such as the Internet already shaped our society. The hacker ethic can still change the society to the better.