Coding Freedom: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Hacking

one’s labor: source code. The free software hacker does not privatize the source of value created, even those exceptional pieces of code that are undeniably one’s own and seen to emerge from sheer technical ability. Within F/OSS, this value is fed back and circulated among peers, thereby contributing to an endowed and growing pool of resources through which other hackers can constantly engage in their asymptotic process of self-cultivation.
    This constant recirculation of value is one way in which hackers can explicitly downplay their elitism and display their sound technical intentions to their peers. Their implementation of meritocracy contrasts markedly with the ideal of it in capitalist societies, where the privatization of value is legitimate as long as one generates wealth (or gains other forms of status) through one’s personal ability. In fact, numerous issues over who and what are responsible for equalizing the terrain of competition plagueliberal democracies marked by a meritocratic ideal. This leveling is often seen as secured through such avenues as public education. That, in turn, raises questions like, Should capitalist philanthropists (such as John Rockefeller in the past and Gates in the present), individuals, governments, or property tax fund public education? With hackers, these sets of thorny issues are minimized, partially resolved by their constant recirculation of value, notably software and documentation, as well as debates and conflicts over mentorship and helping.
    Still, the predominant sentiment is that once knowledge has been released to the collective of hackers, individuals must, on their own two feet, prove their worth by creating new forms of value that can be fed back recursively to the community. If one seeks too much help, this violates the hacker implementation of the proper meritocratic order, and one might be subjected to a stylized rebuff such as the common RTFM.
    Among hackers, the commitment to elitism and meritocracy historically has run fairly strong. There is still an ambivalent relationship to elitism and this meritocratic ideal, however, as I will explore in more detail in the next chapter. I will show how those vested with authority on software projects, because of their success, are usually met with some degree of suspicion, and thus jokes and sometimes accusations of cabals run rampant among hackers. This requires them to constantly perform their trustworthiness and demonstrate their good technical intentions to the community at large. I now turn to the institution, the free software project, where technological production unfolds, and where commitments to free speech and meritocracy are further specified under the aegis of a tremendously varied set of ethical practices.

CHAPTER 4
    Two Ethical Moments in Debian

    F /OSS projects largely take place on the Internet. Varying in size from a couple of developers to a network of over one thousand, they are sites where programmers coordinate and produce high-quality software. A growing body of literature has addressed questions of developer motivation (Raymond 1999), project structures, and changing implications for software development along with factors that lead to success and failures in projects (Crowston and Howison 2005; O’Mahony and Ferraro 2007; Schweik and English 2012), open-source legality (McGowan 2001; Vetter 2004, 2007), utilitarian and rational choice incentive structures (Gallaway and Kinnear 2004; Lancashire 2001; von Hippel and von Krogh 2003), the economics of open-source software (Lerner and Tirole 2001; Lerner and Schankerman 2010; von Hippel 2005), and the noneconomic incentive mechanisms, cultural norms, and broader sociopolitical implications of F/OSS production (Benkler 2006; Berry 2008; Chopra and Dexter 2007; Ghosh 1998; Himanen 2001; Kelty 2008; Kollock 1999; Lessig 1999; Weber 2004).
    Although a number of these studies tangentially discuss ethical questions (e.g., conflict resolution within F/OSS projects), they rarely address how developers commit themselves to an ethical vision through, rather than prior to, their participation in a F/OSS project. Much of the F/OSS literature, in other words, is heavily focused on the question of motivation or incentive mechanisms, and often fails to account for the plasticity of human motivations and ethical perceptions.
    Many of these authors acknowledge the importance of shared norms, and usually address this by referring to or quoting the famous