Coding Freedom: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Hacking

discourse. Public discourse grabs attention effectively not only because it circulates pervasively but also because of the ways developers consistently talk about and reflect on this discourse with each other in person.
    Admittedly, hackers may not think of this type of daily or weekly in-person interaction among friends and workmates as the locus of the community commonly referred to when speaking of computer hacking or F/OSS. For many hackers, the locus of sociality is, as much of the literature argues, networked and translocal. Composed of a vast, dispersed conglomeration of people—close friends, acquaintances, and strangers—they see themselves united by a fervent interest in and commitment to technology. They are connected via the applications of the Internet that allow them to communicate and build technologies.
    Even if hackers have come to situate themselves in a vast global communications network, and imagine themselves in terms of networks and virtuality, they also have increasingly done so by celebrating their translocality in person. More than ever, hackers participate in and rely on a physical space common to many types of social groups (such as academics, professionals, hobbyists, activists, and consumers): the conference, which in hacker lingo is usually designated by its shorthand: the con. Coming in multiple formats, the number of hacker cons is astonishingly high, although it must be emphasized that their emergence is quite recent. Nonexistent before the early 1980s, the semiautonomously organized hacker con has proliferated most dramatically during the last fifteen years, keeping pace with the seismic expansions of networked hacking and undeniably made possible by changing economies of air travel. 21
    To adequately grapple with the nature of hacker sociality, whether virtual or in person, we must also give due attention to these events, which constitute an extraordinary dimension and, for some hackers, deeply meaningful aspect of their lifeworld. Taking what is normally experienced prosaically over the course of months or years, hackers collectively condense their lifeworld in an environment where bodies, celebration, food, and drink exist in excess. Interweaving hacking with bountiful play and constant consumption, the con’s atmosphere is one of festive interactivity. As if making up for the normal lack of collective copresence, physical contiguity reaches a high-pitched point. 22 For a brief moment in time, the ordinary character of the hackers’ social world is ritually encased, engendering a profound appreciation as well as awareness of their labor, friendships, events, and objects that often go unnoticed due to their piecemeal, quotidian nature.
    Evidence of this appreciation and awareness is everywhere marked, especially at the end of a conference, when participants say their good-byes and find time to reflect on the con:
    My first Debconf was probably the best single week of my entire life. Yeah, it was that awesome. [ … ] I won’t talk about all the stuff that happened, because that would just take too long. The most important thing was that I got to see a number of old friends again and spend more time with them in one run than ever before. That alone was really enormous for me. On top of that was the pleasure of finally meeting so many people in person. I met a few XSF members finally, including Julien Cristau, my partner in crime. [ … ] There was staying up until 5 in the morning and stumbling back to the hostel in the dawn to try to get some sleep before running back to the conference. The most delightful thing about all this was that so many people I already knew and loved were there, and everyone who I hadn’t met in person turned out to be even better in real life. It was like a week of the purest joy. 23
    These types of intense, pleasurable emotional experiences and expressions are abundant. They are deeply felt and often freely expressed, which brings hackers not only a new appreciation of their world but also a new way of actually experiencing their lifeworld.
    The Hacker Con as Lifeworld
    Hacker cons occur infrequently but consistently. They reconfigure the relationship between time, space, and persons, allow for a series of personal transformations; and perhaps most significantly, reinforce group solidarity. All of these aspects of conferences make them ritual-like affairs (Collins 2004). While experiential disorder, license, intense bonding, and abandon are common