[free-sklyarov] Hacker or Not?

Tony Abou-Assaleh tabouass at math.uwaterloo.ca
Thu Jul 26 23:25:51 PDT 2001


> Might I respectfully suggest, however, that you re-consider your choice of 
> the word 'Hacker.'
> 
> It is a buzz word that connotes illegality and crime, and to many, 
> incorrectly frames the debate.

We (or most of us), the computer scientists, programmers,
computer-hobbyists, etc .. are in fact hackers, using the original meaning
of the term hacking that predates computers.

The media, mainly, has changed the meaning of this word. We can either
encourage the new meaning by using 'hacker' only in the criminal context,
or we can try to preserve the old meaning by using it whenever we can to
refer to people who like to experiment and explore etc.

This thread is somewhat off-topic. Maybe we should stop it here.

TAA

-----------------------------------------------------
Tony Abou-Assaleh                           
Graduate Student, Department of Computer Science
University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada, N2L 3G1
Office:  DC2503
Phone:   (519) 888-4567 Ext. 3399
Email:   taa at acm.org
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