Hacker's Ethics

Despite the fact that there is no one universal “hacker ethic,” the following guidelines are suggested by the book “Hackers: heroes of the computer revolution”
Access to computers—and anything which might teach you something about the way the world works—should be unlimited and total. Always yield to the Hands-On Imperative! “Hackers believe that essential lesions can be learned about the systems—about the world —from taking things apart, seeing how they work, and using this knowledge to create new and even more interesting things. They resent any person, physical barrier, or law that tries to keep them from doing this.”
All information should be free. “A free exchange of information, particularly when information was in the form of a computer program, allowed for greater overall creativity… In the hacker viewpoint, any system could benefit from… [an] easy flow of information.”
Mistrust Authority—Promote decentralization. “The best way to promote this free exchange of information is to have an open system, something which presents no boundaries between a hacker and a piece of information or an item of equipment that he needs in his quest for knowledge, improvement, and time on-line… Bureaucracies, whether corporate… [governmental], or university [based], are flawed systems, dangerous in that they cannot accommodate the exploratory impulse of hackers… [because it perceives] the constructive impulse of hackers as a threat… [Hackers,] who were once outcasts, found the computer a fantastic equalizer, experiencing a feeling… [of opening a door and walking through to a grand new universe.] Once they passed through that door and sat down at the console of a multi-million dollar computer, hackers had power. So it was natural to distrust any force which might try to limit the extent of that power.”
Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race or position.
You can’t create art and beauty on a computer. Yet, ironically enough, hackers felt that the computer coding itself seemed to have a beauty all of its own.
Computers can change your life for the better