The Hacker Ethic

Explains how the fundamental principles of the hacker--in the original meaning of the word--have transformed the Internet Age by promoting the power of free and open information, rejecting rigid time divisions, and promolgated a new social model organized around the spirit of play and the economy of free exchange. 35,000 first printing.

Pekka Himanen earned his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Helsinki at the age of twenty. His ongoing mapping of the meaning of technological development has brought him into dialouge with academics, artists, ministers, and CEOs. Himanen works at the University of Helsinki and at the University of California at Berkeley.

Linus Torvalds has become one of the most respected hackers within the computer community for creating the Linux operating system in 1991 while a student at the University of Helsinki. Since then, Linux has grown into a project involving thousands of programmers and millions of users worldwide.

Manuel Castells is a professor of sociology at the University of California at Berkeley. He is the author of the highly acclaimed trilogy The Information Age and of The City of the Grassroots (winnter of the 1983 C. Wright Mills Award) and of more than twenty other books.