Sorry, but not seeing the point of posting an old PG article without a new observation. Is it some kind of test to see if it will automatically get voted up?

I agree.

Thanks to Ken Anderson, Trevor Blackwell, Daniel Giffin, Sarah Harlin, Shiro Kawai, Jessica Livingston, Matz, Jackie McDonough, Robert Morris, Eric Raymond, Guido van Rossum, David Weinberger, and Steven Wolfram for reading drafts of this comment.

The word wars have been won. Hacking means breaking into systems. Cracking means stripping copy protection from software.

This is how the internet including geek hangouts like Slashdot uses these terms.

We've all probably read this many times, but for me this is the first time I realized how incredibly suppositional the essay is. Largely it's an appeal of pathos and ethos and while I intuitively agree with its various conclusions, it'd be fascinating to see some of the more measurable suppositions (GDP v. Civil Liberties, which I'm sure exists somewhere) next to it.

I honestly cannot remember the last time I heard or read anyone other than Paul Graham describe somebody as a "hacker" in a serious fashion (except for in a newspaper story, of course).

For me, the word always calls to mind the scene in Jurassic Park, where the annoying little girl exclaims, "I am not a computer nerd. I prefer to be called a hacker!"

I have never been able to take the word seriously since.

title error ?