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A Brief History of Hackerdom

by Eric S. Raymond

$Date: 2000/05/05 18:57:21 $


I explore the origins of the hacker culture, including prehistory among the Real Programmers, the glory days of the MIT AI Lab, and how the early ARPANET nurtured the first network nation. Storm clouds over Jupiter. I describe the early rise and eventual stagnation of Unix, the new hope from Finland, and how `the last true hacker' became the next generation's patriarch. I sketch the way Linux and the mainstreaming of the Internet brought the hacker culture from the fringes of public consciousness to its current prominence.

1. Translations

2. Prologue: The Real Programmers

3. The Early Hackers

4. The Rise of Unix

5. The End of Elder Days

6. The Proprietary-Unix Era

7. The Early Free Unixes

8. The Great Web Explosion

9. Bibliography


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