Do you find the story of Linus Torvalds‘ upbringing and creation of Linux inspiring, interesting, or irrelevant? How does his story compare to other computing luminaries such as Bill Gates or Steve Jobs? What do you wish your story to be? Reading “Just for Fun” and learning a bit about Linus Torvalds, I was a […]

Does open source still make business sense? How can the open source movement be sustained and funded in the future? Is the open source business model broken or does the magic cauldron still have power? Open source does still in fact make business sense, and Eric Steven Raymond even goes out to say that it […]

What motivates or drives people to contribute to open source? What prevents people from doing so? What is required to sustain a healthy community? In “The Noosphere” by Eric S. Raymond,  he argues that the primary reason for why hackers are motivated to contribute to open source is because of the reputation they could get […]

From your experience, which model of software development is superior: the cathedral or the bazaar? Which is the future of software development? From my experiences acquired from working at startups and bigger companies as well as my experiences from school I believe that the bazaar model of software development is superior. Eric Raymond states that […]

What does the success of modern hackers such as Paul Graham say about our present society and its future? Should our society and culture encourage risk taking and starting businesses? What is the next big thing?   In How to Make Wealth Paul Graham states that you can “compress your whole working life into a […]

How important is the choice of programming language in software development and computer science? What is lacking in our current set of tools? What ideas or features will continue to persist far into the future? During my experience as a computer science student at the University of Notre Dame as well as during job interviews […]

Is Paul Graham‘s version of a hacker compatible with Steven Levy‘s description? Do his arguments for and description of the modern hacker change your mind about what it means to be a hacker or the desirability of being one? Overall I think Paul Graham’s version of a hacker is compatible with Steven Levy’s description of […]

Can the Hacker Ethic truly and fully survive in a world of commercial and proprietary software? Is it better to be a “professional programmer, … the goal-oriented … responsible engineer” or is it better to be a programmer with “love for [computing] in [your] heart” and “hacker perfectionism in [your] soul”? This weeks readings dealt […]

How important is spreading the Hacker Ethic to a wider audience? Is compromising ideals, worth having a larger impact on the world? The Hacker Ethic was something started by the MIT hackers in the 60s and one of the things they valued the most was information being free through means of openness and sharing of […]

What does it mean to be a “true hacker”? In recent years the term hacker has been given a very negative repulsive connotation, bringing fear and a flood of negative emotions along with its mention. Breaches, threats, theft, and espionage. These are some of the things the common person might associate with a hacker. It […]