Appendix A. Terminology
For the most part, I have chosen to use the term GNU/Linux in reference to the free software operating system and Linux when referring specifically to the kernel that drives the operating system. The most notable exception to this rule comes in Chapter 9. In the final part of that chapter, I describe the early evolution of Linux as an offshoot of Minix. It is safe to say that during the first two years of the project’s development, the operating system Torvalds and his colleagues were working on bore little similarity to the GNU system envisioned by Stallman, even though it gradually began to share key components, such as the GNU C Compiler and the GNU Debugger.
This decision further benefits from the fact that, prior to 1993, Stallman saw little need to insist on credit.
Some might view the decision to use GNU/Linux for later versions of the same operating system as arbitrary. I would like to point out that it was in no way a prerequisite for gaining Stallman’s cooperation in the making of this book. I came to it of my own accord, partly because of the operating system’s modular nature and the community surrounding it, and partly because of the apolitical nature of the Linux name. Given that this is a biography of Richard Stallman, it seemed inappropriate to define the operating system in apolitical terms.
In the final phases of the book, when it became clear that O’Reilly & Associates would be the book’s publisher, Stallman did make it a condition that I use “GNU/Linux” instead of Linux if O’Reilly expected him to provide promotional support for the book after publication. When informed of this, I relayed my earlier decision and left it up to Stallman to judge whether the resulting book met this condition or not. At the time of this writing, I have no idea what Stallman’s judgment will be.
A similar situation surrounds the terms “free software” and “open source”. Again, I have opted for the more politically laden “free software” term when describing software programs that come with freely copyable and freely modifiable source code. Although more popular, I have chosen to use the term “open source” only when referring to groups and businesses that have championed its usage. But for a few instances, the terms are completely interchangeable, and in making this decision I have followed the advice of Christine Peterson, the person generally credited with coining the term. “The `free software’ term should still be used in circumstances where it works better”, Peterson writes. “[`Open source’] caught on mainly because a new term was greatly needed, not because it’s ideal”.
Appendix B. Hack, Hackers, and Hacking
To understand the full meaning of the word “hacker”, it helps to examine the word’s etymology over the years.
Regardless of the width or narrowness of the definition, most modern hackers trace the word back to MIT, where the term bubbled up as popular item of student jargon in the early 1950s. In 1990 the MIT Museum put together a journal documenting the hacking phenomenon. According to the journal, students who attended the institute during the fifties used the word “hack” the way a modern student might use the word “goof”. Hanging a jalopy out a dormitory window was a “hack”, but anything harsh or malicious-e.g., egging a rival dorm’s windows or defacing a campus statue-fell outside the bounds. Implicit within the definition of “hack” was a spirit of harmless, creative fun.
This spirit would inspire the word’s gerund form: “hacking”. A 1950s student who spent the better part of the afternoon talking on the phone or dismantling a radio might describe the activity as “hacking”. Again, a modern speaker would substitute the verb form of “goof”-“goofing” or “goofing off”-to describe the same activity.
As the 1950s progressed, the word “hack” acquired a sharper, more rebellious edge. The MIT of the 1950s was overly competitive, and hacking emerged as both a reaction to and extension of that competitive culture. Goofs and pranks suddenly became a way to blow off steam, thumb one’s nose at campus administration, and indulge creative thinking and behavior stifled by the Institute’s rigorous undergraduate curriculum. With its myriad hallways and underground steam tunnels, the Institute offered plenty of exploration opportunities for the student undaunted by locked doors and “No Trespassing” signs. Students began to refer to their off-limits explorations as “tunnel hacking”. Above ground, the campus phone system offered similar opportunities. Through casual experimentation and due diligence, students learned how to perform humorous tricks. Drawing inspiration from the more traditional pursuit of tunnel hacking, students quickly dubbed this new activity “phone hacking”.
The combined emphasis on creative play and restriction-free exploration would serve as the basis for the future mutations of the hacking term. The first self-described computer hackers of the 1960s MIT campus originated from a late 1950s student group called the Tech Model Railroad Club. A tight clique within the club was the Signals and Power (S&P) Committee-the group behind the railroad club’s electrical circuitry system. The system was a sophisticated assortment of relays and switches similar to the kind that controlled the local campus phone system. To control it, a member of the group simply dialed in commands via a connected phone and watched the trains do his bidding.
The nascent electrical engineers responsible for building and maintaining this system saw their activity as similar in spirit to phone hacking. Adopting the hacking term, they began refining it even further. From the S&P hacker point of view, using one less relay to operate a particular stretch of track meant having one more relay for future play. Hacking subtly shifted from a synonym for idle play to a synonym for idle play that improved the overall performance or efficiency of the club’s railroad system at the same time. Soon S&P committee members proudly referred to the entire activity of improving and reshaping the track’s underlying circuitry as “hacking” and to the people who did it as “hackers”.
Given their affinity for sophisticated electronics-not to mention the traditional MIT-student disregard for closed doors and “No Trespassing” signs-it didn’t take long before the hackers caught wind of a new machine on campus. Dubbed the TX-0, the machine was one of the first commercially marketed computers. By the end of the 1950s, the entire S&P clique had migrated en masse over to the TX-0 control room, bringing the spirit of creative play with them. The wide-open realm of computer programming would encourage yet another mutation in etymology. “To hack” no longer meant soldering unusual looking circuits, but cobbling together software programs with little regard to “official” methods or software-writing procedures. It also meant improving the efficiency and speed of already-existing programs that tended to hog up machine resources. True to the word’s roots, it also
